Victims of Delaware canal car crash identified as search for 6-year-old boy continues

Flowers and a note left behind for the victims of the crash into the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
Photo credit Tim Jimenez/KYW Newsradio

UPDATED: 5:40 p.m.

MIDDLETOWN, Del. (KYW Newsradio) — Crews in Delaware are still on a search-and-recovery mission as they try to find the body of a 6-year-old boy in the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. He was in an SUV with his teenage family members that plunged into the water Sunday morning.

Police say the boy and four others were in the SUV, which plunged into the water about a mile west of the Route 1 Bridge around 9 a.m. Sunday. The car was eventually found 20 feet deep in the canal.

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Eric Lindsey said his 12-year-old son, Eric Jr., died in Sunday's accident, along with cousins 18-year-old Willis Lindsey Jr. and 16-year-old Kyree Lindsey. Authorities are still searching for the body of a third brother, 6-year-old Ethan Lindsey.

Police say 18-year-old Willis Lindsey, who was driving the car, pulled a 16-year-old female friend to safety before dying in a bid to rescue the three other boys. 

Eric Lindsey said Willis Lindsey was following other family members who were driving a separate car on their way to a football game in Easton, Maryland, when they took a wrong turn and wound up on the canal road.

As crews search for 6-year-old Ethan, Delaware State Police Master Corporal Michael Austin says they're cruising up and down the canal using side-scan sonar to detect images below the surface.

"They're very grainy, very shadowy," he said, "but it will show some type of shape down there. If they see a shape that is some kind of object that is submerged, they will mark it with a buoy and divers will enter the water."

This chopper has been flying along the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal as the search for the 6-year-old boy continues this morning. @KYWNewsradio pic.twitter.com/MSoJ595IBM

— Tim Jimenez (@TimJRadio) October 7, 2019

There are also cadaver dogs on land. 

There's still no word from police on what exactly happened that led up to the crash. An investigation is underway.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.