The most-asked question in Rochester this evening is…how did 14-year-old Trevyan Rowe walk away from School #12 without being noticed?
The Monroe County Medical Examiner has confirmed the body found in the Genesee River Sunday evening is the autistic student. A community memorial vigil is being held this evening at the Blue Cross Arena.
Rochester School District spokesman Carlos Garcia says the district’s own investigation has already turned up some answers to the questions about how this happened…but Garcia says they will share them first with Trevyan’s mother, Carrie Houston, before they release them to the public. Garcia says School Superintendent Barbara Deane-Williams and School Board President Van White will first speak with Trevyan’s family when they have finished their grieving.
Rochester School Board members met behind closed doors with the Superintendent today. Board Member Natalie Sheppard says they want the district’s policy on absent student notifications reviewed, top-to-bottom. She says the board wants the same answers everybody else does.
The 14 year old with autism walked away from School #12 on South Avenue Thursday morning, possibly upset over a lost cellphone. A police SCUBA team spotted the body with sonar near the Douglass-Anthony Bridge downtown.
Rochester School Superintendent Barbara Deane-Williams says a independent investigation will be conducted into 14-year-old Trevyan Rowe’s disappearance. The Rochester City School District confirms it didn’t notify his family that he was absent from school on the day he vanished.
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Multiple witnesses have now said they called 911 to report a boy, now believed to be Trevyan Rowe, standing on the edge of the Douglass-Anthony Bridge on I-490 in downtown Rochester.
Audio of one of the calls located by Monroe County Fire Wire shows it came in shortly after 8:00 a.m., about half-an-hour after Trevyan wandered away from School #12. State Police were given the calls. Troopers were dispatched to search the bridge, particularly around the South Avenue Exit, but they found nothing.
Trevyan Rowe’s body was found near the bridge Sunday evening.