Family and friends of an Avon, Massachusetts, man who was missing for nearly three months before his body was found in a well on his property this weekend say they are devastated by the outcome.
Keith McKechnie's family members and neighbors say a group was getting ready to gather in a nearby church parking lot to start searching the area for McKechnie on Saturday afternoon but that never happened because state and local police, as well as the Avon Fire Department, surrounded the area near the East High Street residence where the 45-year-old lived with his mother until he was last seen on Sept. 7.
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"They had the whole street blocked off and they were up there for four or five hours," said longtime neighbor John Hegarty, who was part of the group that had planned to conduct a search on Saturday.
The Norfolk County District Attorney's Office said McKechnie's body was found Saturday by a relative.
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According to McKechnie's brother who lives out of state and a cousin who is local, their relative used a GoPro camera to look in the well, noticed something and called 911.
"It just seems kind of strange that he was right there in the backyard the whole time," Hegarty said. "It doesn't make sense because that was the first place I would've looked if I knew there was a well there."
Avon police confirmed they had previously visually searched that well.
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McKechnie's cousin Christine Connolly tells NBC10 Boston, "The family made several calls as well as in person and asked them that the well needed to be looked at."
"We felt something nefarious happened because Keith didn’t have his wallet, cell phone or his glasses. The glasses were found by the well on the ground. We were told that they had determined due to the size of the well and Keith’s build, he wouldn’t fit," she added.
McKechnie's brother Aaron said in a text message, "I told them he was a large size and if his body was being concealed the most likely place to find him would be in the well by the side of the garage where he stays."
The district attorney announced late Saturday night that the man's body had been removed from the depths of the well and positively identified by family members on scene. The district attorney added that were no obvious signs of trauma to McKechnie's body and initial indications from an autopsy conducted Sunday did not suggest any foul play contributing to his death. Toxicology and other testing is still pending.
McKechnie hadn't been seen since Sept. 7 and was known to walk around the neighborhood.
Hegarty says the end result is just devastating.
"I'm just so sad that it happened," he said. "I mean he was a nice guy."
This case remained under investigation as of Monday.
