MIDDLETOWN — High river levels will again delay the search and recovery efforts for the body of James Hutchinson, the Middletown 6-year-old who police said was killed by his mother and body dumped in the Ohio River.
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Middletown Police Chief David Birk said the Ohio River levels near the I-275 bridge in Lawrenceburg, Indiana were still too high and too dangerous to search. Crews will continue to monitor the river levels through the week and will assessed for safety when the search can resume, Birk said.
North Star International K9 Search and Recovery, a group who initially started to search for Hutchinson’s body Sunday, pulled off from their efforts Monday and described treacherous conditions encountered by rescue crews.
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“One of searchers actually entered the water trying to retrieve what may have been a body and nearly went into hypothermia. If wasn’t the quick action of the medics on the team we may have had serious injury,” a spokesperson for the group said in a Facebook message Monday.
The Ohio River in Cincinnati is above flood stage but is expected to crest at 56 feet Wednesday night, according to our news partners at WCPO-TV in Cincinnati.
According to investigators, Hutchinson was killed by his mother, Brittany Gosney, 29, at Rush Run Wildlife Area in Preble County in the early morning hours of Saturday, February 27. Court documents allege Gosney drove to the park to abandon Hutchinson and her other two children.
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As Gosney tried to drive away, Hutchinson grabbed the door handle and he was possibly run over by the vehicle. When Gosney went to check on him she found him dead.
Hutchinson’s body and the two alive children were taken back to Middletown after the park incident, police said. In the early morning hours of Sunday, February 28, Gosney and her boyfriend, James Hamilton, 42, drove Hutchinson’s body to Lawrenceburg, Indiana and disposed of it by throwing it into the river from the I-275 bridge, police said.
Hours after dumping the child’s body, hours later Gosney and Hamilton drove to the Middletown Division of Police to report that Hutchinson had been missing for hours, police said. Further interviews uncovered more details about what Gosney said actually happened to the boy, according to investigators.