Authorities have found the body of the grand-niece of former US President John F. Kennedy, who went missing with her son in a boating incident last week.
Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean, a human rights lawyer and professor at Georgetown University, went into the Chesapeake Bay off Maryland to fetch a missing ball with her son Gideon on Thursday evening.
The family were self-isolating at their relative's coastal Maryland home, husband David McKean said in a Facebook post. They were playing with a ball outside when someone kicked it into the water.
"They got into a canoe, intending simply to retrieve the ball, and somehow got pushed by wind or tide into the open bay," he added.
Mr McKean said that his wife and son were next seen half an hour later much further out to sea by an onlooker.
Police found their overturned canoe later that evening.
Ms McKean's body was found by a diving search-and-rescue team on Monday, police said.
The search for Gideon's body continues.
JF Kennedy in London
Mr McKean said Ms McKean was "magical" and "the brightest light I have ever known", while Gideon was "deeply compassionate" and "courageous".
Ms McKean’s mother Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a former senior Maryland politician, said on Friday night. “With profound sadness, I share the news that the search for my beloved daughter Maeve and grandson Gideon has turned from rescue to recovery,”
“Our Maeve devoted her life to helping society’s most vulnerable. She did everything with her full self and her whole heart. She gave the best hugs, sang loudly and out of tune, danced, wrestled, argued, forgave. Maeve shone. The fire emanating from her soul warmed us all.”
Maeve's great-uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas in 1963. Her grandfather Robert Kennedy, a U.S. Senator, was also murdered in 1968.
