Over nearly two weeks, a frantic search for a missing autistic boy galvanized law enforcement and a New Orleans East community, drawing volunteers from across state and national borders, before it ended early Tuesday with a grim discovery just 200 yards from where it started.

Aided by a drone, Jon Gusanders, a volunteer with United Cajun Navy , found the body of 12-year-old Bryan Vasquez floating in a lagoon lined with water hyacinth. Gusanders quietly separated himself from the scene and called his team.

"You need to get here," he recalled telling them.

Within what felt like "the longest 10-15 minutes of his life," he said, fellow volunteers and agencies including the New Orleans Police Department began to arrive.

They congregated on the Michoud Boulevard bridge near Lourdes Str

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