New details emerge in missing boys' NYC river deaths
NEW YORK CITY - Details continue to emerge about the two young boys who went missing together one Friday afternoon this month, before being found dead in two separate bodies of water.
Police say that 11-year-old Alfa Barrie and 13-year-old Garret Warren were likely near the Harlem River on May 12 when both fell in.
"These are 11 and 13-year-old kids," said NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig. "We believe they're going down there, they wanted to skip rocks, do what 11 and 13-year-old kids do. They were playing around down there."
Authorities save surveillance video shows the two kids meeting up with a third friend. All three then went over the pedestrian footbridge near 143rd Street and 5th Avenue around 6:45 p.m. that evening.
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Two of the children are then seen climbing over a fence, heading towards the water. Less than 15 minutes later, the 3rd youth was seen walking northbound on 5th Avenue and 143rd Street.
Police say an additional video shows the third youth talking with an adult male in a nearby park before an anonymous 9-1-1 call was made reporting that Barrie and Warren had fallen into the water.
Garret's body was found last Thursday in the East River. Alfa's body was found in the Hudson on the West Side two days later.
While the discovery of the boys' bodies in two entirely different bodies of water has drawn questions, authorities have theories about how it could have happened.
"It was a northbound current which feeds towards the Hudson River through the Spuyten Duyvil. Once he hits the Hudson River, because it's outbound, the Harlem's going north, Hudson River's coming south, that corresponds with where we found the body at 102 and Riverside," said Inspector Anthony Russo of the NYPD's Harbor Unit.
Police say they're hoping to talk to anyone who was in the park at the same time as the boys. Anyone with information is being asked to call CrimeStoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).