WYATT SMITSKY - 4 yo - Greene Township PA

Police in Green Township, Beaver County are searching for a missing child who has a heart condition.

Police believe Wyatt Smitsky, 4, wandered away from his Georgetown Road home about 6:30 p.m. on Friday.The boy has a congenial heart defect and requires medication.Police say they aren’t treating this case as an abduction.They say they believe the boy walked away and got lost.Wyatt is 4 feet tall and has a skinny build.He
has blond hair and blue eyes and was wearing a brown military-type
T-shirt, blue denim shorts, and black and red Spider-Man flip flops.Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to call police at (724) 773-7400.

Authorities in western Pennsylvania are searching for a missing 4-year-old boy with a heart ailment.
State police in Beaver County say Wyatt Smitsky was last seen by his family
outside their Greene Township home shortly after 7:30 p.m. Friday.
Police say the boy may have just walked away from his home. They say they are
especially concerned because he has a congenital heart defect that
requires medication.
Almost 200 emergency personnel and volunteers searched dense woods with the help of dogs until 3 a.m. Saturday.
Authorities have also been using ATVs and a helicopter with infrared sensors to look for the boy.
The boy is described as about 4-feet-tall, with a skinny build and blond
hair and blue eyes. He was dressed in a military-style brown T-shirt,
blue shorts and Spiderman flip-flops.

Authorities plan to resume searching
in Beaver County on Saturday morning for a missing 4-year-old boy who
has a heart condition.Wyatt
Thomas Smitsky, who has a congenital heart defect that requires
medication, disappeared while playing outside his home in the 600 block
of Georgetown Road in Greene Township early Friday evening. Searchers
gathered in the 9 a.m. hour to prepare to resume a search at about 10
a.m., .Relatives said Wyatt
must take medication three times a day, and they believe he didn't get
his evening dose Friday night. They said Wyatt has undergone three
heart surgeries, including one five days after he was born and another
at age 2.Police said they think he may have wandered off and got
lost at about 6:30 p.m. Authorities received a call for the missing
child at about 7:30 p.m.

Hundreds
of volunteers -- some using all-terrain vehicles -- rescue team members
and firefighters scoured dense woods with search dogs until about 3
a.m. A state police helicopter with infrared detection joined in the
effort."Beaver County has a system in place where they can alert
residents ... of what's going on, and they immediately put that blast
out to everyone in this phone exchange. So, immediately, they're
notified that this little boy is missing and they can be on the lookout
for him," state police Lt. Steve Ignatz said.Wyatt was last seen wearing a brown military-style T-shirt, blue denim shorts and black-and-red Spiderman flip-flops.A Google Earth map showed the geography in the area is wooded, undeveloped terrain.If you have information regarding this continuing investigation, contact Pennsylvania State Police.

Authorities in western Pennsylvania say the body of a missing 4-year-old boy has been found stuffed in a septic tank. A suspect is in custody.

State police in Beaver County said Wyatt Smitsky was last seen outside his family's Greene Township home shortly after 7:30 p.m. Friday.
Trooper Robert Lagoon says a septic tank on a neighboring property was drained Saturday and the boy's body was found. He says authorities "have a known suspect and anticipate filing charges."
Hundreds of emergency personnel and volunteers searched dense woods with the help of dogs for the body, who had a heart condition, until 3 a.m. and resumed the search at 10 a.m. Saturday. Authorities had also been using ATVs and a helicopter with infrared sensors, and the FBI also assisted due to the age of the victim.

A young boy who was said to have
wandered away from his home was found this afternoon in a spetic tank,
said state police, who have launched a homicide investigation.
Four-year-old Wyatt Thomas Smitsky was reported last night as playing
outside his home in Greene Township near Hookstown in Beaver County,
when he was disappeared. An extensive search began. Wyatt has a
congenital heart condition that requires medication.

Authorities today obtained a search warrant and drained a septic
tank, where they found Wyatt's body, said Trooper Robert Lagoon of the
Beaver County state police barracks.

"We have located the body of the child in a septic tank. We have a known suspect and anticipate filing charges," Lagoon said.

An autopsy would be conducted Sunday, according to state police, and charges are not likely to be filed until after then.

Lagoon said the boy's father, John Smitsky Jr., was taken into
custody and being questioned. Authorities said they were also
questioning other family members and neighbors.

The septic tank is located between two houses and is less than 50 feet from the youngster's home.

"It's a homicide investigation," said state police Lt. Thomas
Dubovi. "We believe he could not have gotten into that septic tank by
himself. The cover is too big for a 4-year-old boy."

Search teams, dogs and helicopters looked for Wyatt until about 3:30
this morning and resumed the search at 10 a.m. The FBI also assisted
because of the boy's age.

At least 500 people from the community took part in the search.

State police in western Pennsylvania say an autopsy will be
conducted Sunday on the body of a 4-year-old boy found stuffed in a
septic tank.Authorities say charges are expected after the results are completed, but that it may take several days.Wyatt Smitsky was reported missing by his family around 7:30 p.m. Friday.

Police say the boy's body was found around 12:45 p.m. Saturday after
searchers drained a septic tank on property near his home in Greene
Township, Beaver County, about 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.Wyatt had a heart disorder and required medication.In reporting him missing, the boy's family told police he was playing outside with two sisters.

After an investigation led by Pennsylvania state police, the FBI and
the district attorney's office, authorities have announced that charges
will be filed in the death of a 4-year-old child found dead after an
extensive search near Hookstown, Beaver County, Pa, about 30 minutes
from Weirton, W.Va.Wyatt Smitsky, of Greene Township, Pa., who
was reported missing since Friday afternoon, was discovered in the
septic tank of a neighboring house Saturday morning.State police
announced in a press conference on Saturday that they have questioned
family and neighbors of the boy. An attorney for the boy's father said
that his client was released from police custody and he has not been
charged at this time. NEWS9 has learned that the boys grandmother lived
in Weirton and recently relocated to the Hookstown area.Police
have not named a specific person, but they did say that someone will be
charged with homicide following the conclusion of an autopsy scheduled
for 9 a.m. Sunday.Wyatt was last seen at about 5:30 p.m. Friday.
State police originally thought the boy might have walked away from his
home along Georgetown Road and got lost.The young boy, according
to police, had a congenital heart defect and required medication,
prompting an all-out search. Almost 200 emergency personnel and
volunteers searched dense woods with the help of dogs until 3 a.m.
Saturday. The search resumed at about 11:30 a.m. until authorities
uncovered the boy's body.After looking throughout the
neighborhood, authorities decided to look more closely at the area
immediately surrounding the boy's house. A Beaver County hazmat team
entered the septic tank on an adjoining property and found the
four-year-old inside.His exact cause of his death has not been
determined, but police do not believe Wyatt Smitsky could have
uncovered the lid to the septic tank by himself.

An autopsy was performed Sunday on the body of a 4-year-old boy
found stuffed in a septic tank, but a coroner said more tests are
needed to determine how he died. Police are calling it a homicide
investigation.Wyatt Smitsky was reported missing by his family around 7:30 p.m. Friday.His
body was found around 12:45 p.m. Saturday after searchers drained a
septic tank on property near his home in Greene Township, Beaver
County, about 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, according to
Pennsylvania State Police.

"We want to do more
tests," Beaver County Coroner Teri Tatalovich-Rossi told the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette, declining to say how long that would take. "The cause and
manner will be pending until they're done."Homicide charges are expected after the autopsy results are completed, but it may take several days, state police said."It
is a homicide investigation," Lt. Thomas Dubovi said. "We believe he
(Wyatt) could not have gotten into that septic tank by himself. The
cover is too big for a 4-year-old boy."In reporting him missing,
the boy's family told police he was playing outside with two sisters,
ages 3 and 6. Hundreds of emergency personnel and volunteers had
searched for the boy in dense woods with the help of dogs.Wyatt had a heart disorder and required medication.After
the body was found, the Beaver County Times reported, police questioned
the boy's relatives for hours, including his parents, Terri and John
Smitsky.John Smitsky left the police station accompanied by an attorney.The lawyer, Joseph Horowitz of Pittsburgh, said Smitsky maintains he had nothing to do with his son's death."As
far as he is concerned, it's an accident," Horowitz said. "He's just
very upset about the loss of his son, and he wants to go home with his
family."

The Beaver County Coroner's Office will not immediately release a
cause or manner of death for a 4-year-old whose body was found in a
septic tank in Beaver County Saturday.

Coroner Teri Tatalovich-Rossi said a three-hour autopsy began at
about 9 a.m. today but did not yield a final conclusion as to what
killed Wyatt Smitsky, of Greene.

"We want to do more tests. The cause and manner will be pending
until they're done,'' said Ms. Tatalovich-Rossi, declining to provide a
time frame for the tests. Tissue sampling is among the work that
remains.

The death is being investigated by state police in Brighton. The
child is the son of John and Terri Smitsky and has two sisters, ages 3
and 6.

Wyatt had been reported by his family as missing from their
Georgetown Road home near Hookstown on Friday evening and the search
began about 7:30 p.m. His body was found at 12:45 p.m. yesterday
following a search by about 500 volunteers.

Police described the investigation Saturday evening as a homicide probe.

Among the key responsibilities of a coroner's office is to determine
the cause and manner of death, specifically whether it is accidental,
natural, a suicide or a homicide.

State police noted at a press conference Saturday that Wyatt's body
was found inside a septic tank near his home and that the cover would
have been too heavy for a child to remove and that, furthermore, the
lid had been found by searchers in its proper place.

The autopsy was conducted at the Beaver Medical Center by Dr. James
Smith, a forensic pathologist retained by the Beaver County Coroner's
Office.

A western Pennsylvania coroner says she's not prepared yet to say how a 4-year-old boy found stuffed in a septic tank
died. An autopsy was performed Sunday on Wyatt Smitsky, but Beaver
County Coroner Teri Tatalovich-Rossi said Monday more tests are needed.
She declined to say how long it may be before she rules.
Smitsky's body was found around 12:45 p.m. Saturday after searchers
drained a septic tank on property near his home in Greene Township,
about 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The child had been reported
missing by his family around 7:30 p.m. Friday.
State police are calling it a homicide investigation, but say
they're waiting for autopsy results before charging anyone. Smitsky's
parents have been questioned.
Several hundred people attended a vigil for Smitsky at the Hookstown Free Methodist Church on Sunday night.

Beaver County officials have taken custody of the sisters of a 4-year-old boy who was found dead Saturday in a septic tank.

Tally Smitsky, 6, and her sister Paige, 3, were removed this weekend
from the Greene home of John and Terri Smitsky, according to Giuseppe
Rosselli, an attorney for Mr. Smitsky.

The girls' brother, Wyatt, 4, went missing on Friday and was found
in the septic tank around 12:25 p.m. Saturday after an extensive search
of the area.

A Beaver County Children and Youth Services official ruled yesterday
that the daughters should remain in county care, and they may be placed
with one of the sets of grandparents, Mr. Rosselli said.

He said he didn't know why the girls were removed.

Police are treating Wyatt's death as a homicide and are awaiting
autopsy results. Coroner Teri Tatalovich-Rossi could not be reached for
comment yesterday.

On Saturday afternoon, state police interviewed Mr. Smitsky for
several hours and released him. He has not been charged with his son's
death, Mr. Rosselli said.

The attorney said he has spoken to about 30 friends and family
members, and "No one thinks Mr. Smitsky is capable of such an act."

The family reported that Wyatt was missing from their Georgetown
Road home near Hookstown on Friday evening, and the search involved as
many as 500 volunteers.

The septic tank lies along a fence line separating the Smitsky home
from a neighbor's property. It is deep enough for an adult man to enter
it, police said.

Mr. Rosselli said Mr. Smitsky, who was making funeral arrangements for his son yesterday, is deeply distraught.

"The family still wants answers," Mr. Rosselli said. "The family still wants to know what caused the death."

Visitation services will be held
today for a 4-year-old boy whose body was found in a septic tank near
his family's home last weekend.Visitation services for Wyatt Smitsky are being held from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Hookstown Free Methodist Church.Earlier this week, the Beaver County coroner said Wyatt's heart condition is complicating the autopsy results.An
autopsy was performed Sunday on Wyatt, but coroner Teri
Tatalovich-Rossi said Monday more tests are needed. She declined to say
how long it may be before she rules.Smitsky's body was found at
about 12:45 p.m. Saturday after searchers drained a septic tank on
property near his Georgetown Road home in Greene Township.On
Tuesday, the attorney for Smitsky's father, John, said a judge ruled
during a CYF hearing that two of the boy's siblings be removed from the
home to "err on the side of caution," even though no homicide charges
have yet been filed.State police are calling the case a homicide
investigation and said the lid was put back on the tank once the boy
was inside. Police said they're waiting for autopsy results before
charging anyone. Smitsky's parents have both been questioned."Our
position has been that this is an accident. We don't know what
happened; everyone guesses who's in this community that it was an
accident and the size of the tank suggests that a child could fit in,"
said the Smitsky family's attorney, Guiseppi Roselli.Several hundred people attended a vigil for Smitsky at the Hookstown Free Methodist Church on Sunday night.

Wyatt Smitsky would have grinned or given Barb Reed his ornery smile when she told her 4-year-old neighbor that the Spider-Man flip-flop he’d lost weeks ago was now in her garage.

Terri and Johnny Smitsky Jr. bought their son a new pair, but Wyatt would have been thrilled to know that he had two pairs of Spider-Man flip-flops to wear when he ran around the Greene Township countryside with his sisters, Tallylynn and Paige.

Reed, whom Wyatt called grandma, never got to tell him about that flip-flop in the garage.

On Saturday, his body was discovered in a septic tank near his Georgetown Road home, about 18 hours after a family member reported him missing.

He was last seen Friday afternoon playing with his sisters outside their home. He was wearing a T-shirt, blue denim shorts and his new pair of black-and-red Spider-Man flip-flops. State police continue to investigate the death as a homicide.

Thursday morning, Reed and her husband, John, and many of the several hundred family and friends gathered at Hookstown Free Methodist Church wore green ribbons to honor the little boy.

Wyatt told his parents at the Hookstown Fair two weeks ago that green was his favorite color, Reed said. That came as no surprise. Afterall, Wyatt was a green John Deere kind of kid.

He had his own mini-John Deere pedal tractor. His paternal great-grandparents, Tom and Shirley Smitsky, had real John Deere tractors on their nearby farm, Reed said.

And nothing made this little country boy happier, his uncle, Jeremiah Smitsky, said, than hopping into the front seat of Smitsky’s 1970 Ford F-250 pickup for a bumpy ride in a loud, souped-up truck painted two tones of green.

Inside the crowded church, Wyatt’s pedal tractor, with its pedals and seat fixed and ready for a tractor pull he’d wanted to ride in, was parked beside his small white coffin, associate pastor Jeremy Olszewksi said.

Neighborhood children had given their friend a Spider-Man toy, a monster truck and colored drawings.

“We’re going to cry and, yes, we have tears and we have questions,” Olszewski said, but “(Wyatt) would want us to keep smiling, keep persevering, keep being crazy.”

And to get through this, the associate pastor said, everyone needed to remember Wyatt as he was.

For all of the 1,620 days of his life, he was a country boy.

The Rev. Wilmer L. Olszewski, the pastor, said Wyatt was his mother’s cowboy. His dad called him Buck. He loved monster trucks, the movie “Cars” and sweets of any kind: moose track ice cream, lollypops, gum and the candy that his great-grandfather pulled from his pockets.

Mourners listened to Johnny Cash sing “Ring of Fire,” Wyatt’s favorite song, as a video rolled photographs of the baby boy born with a congenital heart defect, who weathered three heart operations, who packed each day with dirt and noise and fun.

“Cast your cares on God because God cares for us,” the elder Olszewski told the mourners. And God cared for Wyatt, he said. He’s in heaven now working on his monster trucks and pedaling his John Deere tractor, the pastor said.

In his white casket, he had a cowboy hat in his hand and Blacky, his teddy bear, wore a Harley-Davidson T-shirt.

And he’s smiling that ornery smile because his uncle, grandfather and father placed the coffin in the Ford pickup bed for a final ride to the cemetery.

A district attorney says a 4-year-old boy could have moved the lid
off a western Pennsylvania septic tank where he was found dead earlier
this month.Beaver County District Attorney Anthony Berosh says
the tank's lid was a 14-pound sheet of corrugated metal, not a heavy,
dense manhole cover as previously described by state police.Autopsy
results on the boy, Wyatt Smitsky, are pending further tests. The boy
was found dead in the septic tank on Sept. 5 on property near his home
in Greene Township, about 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.Berosh says authorities still aren't sure if the boy's death was a homicide, the result of negligence or an accident.The boy was playing with two young sisters when he went missing, prompting an 18-hour search by hundreds of volunteers.

Poster's Commentary: If it was just a piece of diamond plate then there should be charges of negligence at minimum as his older siblings, or any neighbor child, could also have removed it. It was an accident waiting to happen IMHO

A 4-year-old boy may have been able to move the metal cover of the
Beaver County septic tank where his body was discovered this month,
investigators said yesterday, suggesting that his death was an accident.

State police are still conducting a homicide investigation, but a lawyer for
the boy's father, who has been treated as a suspect, said he was
encouraged by the announcement.

Wyatt Smitsky went missing Sept. 4 and was found dead the following day in a septic tank on a property
next to his family's Greene Township home.

At first, police described the tank's lid as a heavy manhole cover. Yesterday, Trooper
Craig McKean of the Beaver County state police barracks said it was
14-pound sheet of corrugated metal.

He said the initial description in media reports was based on a misunderstanding.

Beaver County District Attorney Anthony Berosh has said Wyatt could have moved
the cover himself, according to The Associated Press.

"It was not a heavy, dense manhole cover, and we've been saying that since the
beginning. Obviously it's very good news for my client," said Giuseppe
Rosselli, an attorney for Wyatt's father, John Smitsky.

Mr. Smitsky was questioned for several hours by state police the day Wyatt's body was discovered.

"The way the case was handled initially suggests that my client was a
suspect," Mr. Rosselli said. "We believe [the death] was an unfortunate
tragedy."

He said his client has not been questioned again, nor
will he permit police to question Mr. Smitsky as long as he's being
considered a suspect.

"We'll investigate for a homicide until we know the truth," Trooper McKean said. "That way nothing gets left out."

He didn't comment specifically on Mr. Smitsky.

The Beaver County coroner is awaiting final autopsy results for Wyatt. A funeral was held last week.

Mr. Smitsky is also trying to regain custody of his two daughters -- Tally,
6, and Paige, 3 -- who were taken by county officials after Wyatt's
death and may be turned over to one of their sets of grandparents.

A coroner says the cause of death for a 4-year-old Pennsylvania boy found dead in a septic tank was drowning.But
Beaver County Coroner Teri Tatalovich-Rossi said Tuesday that she
couldn't determine the circumstances of Wyatt Smitsky's death. State
police are investigating whether his drowning was intentional or an
accident.Wyatt's body was found Sept. 5 after searchers drained
a septic tank on property near his home in Greene Township, about 25
miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

The boy was playing with two young sisters when he went missing, prompting an 18-hour search.A district attorney has said it's possible that Wyatt moved the tank's 14-pound lid by himself.

Poster's Note: Based on the autopsy results and subsequent investigations I have moved this topic to FOUND CHILDREN

Throughout the afternoon Saturday, Johnny and Terri
Smitsky were awash in the kindness of family, friends and even some
strangers, all of whom gathered to remember their little boy.


Volunteers put together a spaghetti dinner fundraiser to help pay for funeral and burial expenses for 4-year-old Wyatt Smitsky.


The Greene Township boy was found at the bottom of
a septic tank adjacent to his 635 Georgetown Lane home on Sept. 5,
nearly 18 hours after the boy was reported missing.


State police are still investigating the boy’s
death, which Beaver County Coroner Teri Tatalovich-Rossi said was
caused by asphyxiation due to drowning.


By Saturday evening, a little more than 200 people
from all across the tri-state area had made their way to American
Legion Post 952 in Greene for the fundraiser, hosted by the post’s
auxiliary, post regulars and the Sons of the American Legion.

Smitsky family friend Jessica McCartney said the spaghetti dinner and related raffles raised a little more than $2,000.


“It was nice to see the community come together and
help us,” McCartney said. “It shows the community stands behind us and
the family. It shows they’re supporting the Smitskys.”


Johnny and Terri Smitsky asked that some of the
proceeds from the dinner go to Heart to Heart, a group sponsored by
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh that hosts an annual picnic for
children with heart disease.


Wyatt Smitsky, who battled heart problems from birth, loved going to the picnics, said McCartney and family friend Barb Reed.

Johnny Smitsky and his wife were both
questioned by state police after their son died in a septic tank on a
Greene County property beside their home in September.The
sisters of Wyatt Smitsky, 4, were removed from the home after their
brother’s death, but now an attorney for the family said they are back
with their parents.“They’re happy to be reunited,” said attorney Giuseppe Rosselli.However, Rosselli said the possibility of charges in the case still loom over his clients and that gives an uneasy feeling.A
coroner said the 4-year-old boy found dead in a septic tank had
drowned, but she said his manner of death couldn't be determined.Wyatt
Smitsky's body was found Sept. 5 after searchers drained a septic tank
on property near his home in Greene Township, about 25 miles northwest
of Pittsburgh.Beaver County Coroner Teri Tatalovich-Rossi said that the manner of death could change with more information.Investigators
have been trying to determine whether his death was a homicide, the
result of negligence or an accident. The boy was playing with two young
sisters when he went missing, prompting an 18-hour search.The
attorney for Smitsky's father, John, said a judge ruled during a CYF
hearing that two of the boy's siblings be removed from the home to "err
on the side of caution," even though no homicide charges have been
filed."Our position has been that this is an accident. We don't
know what happened. Everyone guesses who's in this community that it
was an accident, and the size of the tank suggests that a child could
fit in it," said Guiseppi Rosselli.