Boy’s body found on beach
Officials still searching for mother, cause of death
SEATTLE – A child’s body found Thursday on an island beach in Puget Sound is that of an 8-year-old boy who vanished last weekend with his mother, a Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman said.
Positive identification was based on Azriel Carver’s clothing, mohawk haircut and “looking at pictures of him,” spokesman Ed Troyer said.
The Pierce County medical examiner’s office plans an autopsy today to determine cause of death.
The body was found on Fox Island, southwest of Tacoma.
No sign was found Thursday of the boy’s mother, Shantina “Kat” Smiley, 29, of Silverdale, who disappeared with him on Saturday night. Troyer said the beach was searched about 500 yards in each direction from the boy’s body. Divers on a boat searched as well and a Coast Guard helicopter and sheriff’s office plane flew overhead.
That search may resume today, depending on weather, he said.
Smiley’s abandoned minivan, partially submerged with its doors open, was found Sunday on a remote Olympia-area beach about 12 miles south of Fox Island.
A wallet containing her driver’s license, some cash and credit cards was found in the van, but neither she nor her son was anywhere in sight.
Jay Carver, Azriel’s father who flew here from Buffalo, N.Y., this week, went to the beach where the boy was found. Troyer said the father was not involved in identifying the body.
Smiley was heading from her home in Silverdale to her stepfather’s house in southwest Washington when she and her son disappeared Saturday night.