VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — The body of 12-year-old Juan Sebastian Mejia Acevedo was recovered Monday from a pond in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
The discovery comes two days after police issued an AMBER Alert for the missing child. Virginia State Police emailed the media at 2:55 p.m. that the AMBER Alert was cancelled.
The body was pulled out of a pond around 1 p.m. near the Cambria at Cornerstone apartments off South Independence Boulevard as police searched for the boy.
The pond is near the 200 block of Mica Avenue — the address where police say Acevedo was last seen by his parents a few days ago.
Courtney Rivera captured footage on her Ring doorbell camera of Acevedo playing with his friends in the snow, and has been helping in the search since.
"I feel heartbroken," Rivera said. "Just thinking about it makes me tear up, because it's just—nobody wanted this outcome."
Police didn't elaborate on the circumstances surrounding Acevedo's death, but Chief Neudigate said he thinks the ice that formed during the recent cold weather "played a big role."
Police said it was too early to tell if they'll open a homicide investigation or if Acevedo's death will be ruled accidental.
His body was sent to the medical examiner’s office to determine a cause of death.
“It’s too early for me to speculate… We just recovered him. As we get more information and we can confirm facts and not what we believe occurred, we will get that out to the community," Virginia Beach Police Chief Chief Paul Neudigate said. "We had no specific indication that these ponds were an area of interest but we did not want to leave any stone unturned."
Acevedo was first reported missing Friday night, police said.
His parents believed he was at a friend's house, but they called police around 9 p.m. when he hadn't returned home.
Police started investigating Acevedo's disappearance as a possible abduction after his parents received a ransom message on Facebook.
After learning of this, VBPD treated the case as an abduction and contacted state police to send an AMBER Alert, which was issued on Saturday around 7 a.m.
Neudigate shared that either the family or someone on behalf of the family paid $500, but after that, there was no additional communication.
When asked if the ransom note could have been a scam, Neudigate responded, “This would not be the first time that that type of scam has been perpetuated on a family that is going through difficult circumstances. Is that a possibility? It absolutely is."
He added that the possibility of the ransom being a scam was one of police's theories, but not treating it as an actual threat or kidnapping would be negligent.
Police haven’t identified potential suspect(s) behind the ransom, but Neudigate says it's still part of their investigation.
“Unfortunately, because it involved out-of-state transactions, we need search warrants, subpoenas, to try to identify who that individual was who received that money," he shared.
Neudigate thanked the community for the outpouring of support and care during the search.
This is a developing story. Email the CBS 6 Newsroom if you have additional information to share.
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