Teen brothers found drowned and hugging each other in popular river
Two teenage stepbrothers were tragically found hugging each other and dead in a popular river.
The bodies of D’andre Graham,16, and Tavayne Weir, 17, were pulled from the Mousam River in the village of Springvale in Maine on Monday morning. They lost their lives in the popular swimming spot in Sanford.
‘They showed incredible courage and loyalty, holding onto each other until the very end, demonstrating the deep bond they shared,’ wrote Sanford resident Ashley Brochu on a GoFundMe page for their funeral expenses.
The boys went to the Springvale Recreation Area and did not come back by their 10pm curfew on Sunday, police told WMTW.
Their parents called police, who found their vehicle in a car park at the recreation area. The Sanford Fire Department assisted in the search in the dark and cops and firefighters found their bodies after about an hour-and-a-half.
‘Using flashlights and high intensity lights, they were able locate them below the water,’ said police Maj Matthew Gagne.
Officials did not immediately determine what led to the boys’ death.
‘There was probably a one- or two-mile-an-hour current, too, so that can change where they were located,’ Gagne said.
While their bodies were taken to the Medical Examiner’s Office in Augusta, Gagne said ‘foul play is not suspected at this time’ and it appears they drowned.
They were found about a quarter mile downstream from a cliff where people go jump off a 30-foot cliff.
‘We don’t know if they were jumping or just swimming because we don’t know exactly what time they went in,’ Gagne said. ‘We assume they were probably by themselves as well because we had no calls from that area that anybody was in distress or actively drowning.’
The boys grew up in Jamaica and ‘did everything together’ including biking, playing basketball and gaming, according to the GoFundMe page.
‘Tavayne and D’andre always considered each other brothers, and when their parents Kerryan and Morris got married last year, it made their brother bond official,’ Brochu wrote. ‘They were more than stepbrothers; they were true brothers to each other.’
The GoFundMe page had raised more than $23,000 as of Friday afternoon.
They died just over a month after an 11-year-old girl drowned to death trying to save her little sister from a hotel pool in Ohio.
‘There’s no greater love than giving herself for her sister,’ said the girl’s aunt.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.