A desperate, week-long search for a missing 2-year-old Tennessee boy ended in heartbreak Thursday when rescue crews found him dead near where family members lost him on a hike.
"We have found Noah Chamberlin. He was located about 1 1/2 miles from his home, where he went missing from," Chester County Sheriff Blair Weaver said during a news conference, fighting back tears. "The family's been notified."
No foul play was suspected in what authorities called a tragic accident, the Jackson Sun reports.
Chamberlin went missing Jan. 14 while hiking with his grandmother and sister in the woods near his family's Pinson home, southeast of Jackson. WMC-TV reported the toddler somehow became separated from his family and vanished.
An Endangered Missing Child Alert described the boy as 2 feet tall and about 25 pounds, with blond hair and blue eyes.
Authorities said they found Chamberlin's body in a small clearing after expanding their search area.
"Every day we expanded our search farther and farther," Madison County Fire Chief Eric Turner told local media. "This was an area that was on the outskirts of what we had searched, and we were back searching it for the second time. It was right on the borderline of where we had been searching and we expanded our search farther."
More than 200 volunteers joined the initial search effort.
During a press conference Thursday, the family's pastor, the Rev. Andy Morris, descibed Noah -- who reportedly liked to run and hide -- as a "spider monkey."
"He was just 100 miles per hour whatever he did," Morris said. "I know this ... Jesus better have his ice skates on to keep up with him."
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