Bucks County Coroner Meredith Buck has concluded that the 9-year-old boy pulled from a pond in New Britain Borough this week drowned in a tragic accident.
Buck did not name the child, but an obituary and a GoFundMe for the child’s family identified him as Joey Edward Malcolm Jr., of Doylestown, who had just finished third grade at Doyle Elementary School in the Central Bucks School District.
According to the obituary at www.lifecelebration.com, Joey “enjoyed playing soccer for Rush P.A., singing, dancing, fishing, with his brothers and sister, building anything he could from Legos, wood, cardboard, and playing basketball.”
Police responded to the pond at Vaux and Hickory roads just before 6 p.m. Monday for a report of a missing boy. When officers arrived, they saw a boy’s bicycle with a fishing pole next to it.
A quick check of the area around the pond came up empty and a dive team from Point Pleasant Fire Department was called to the scene and located a young boy within a few minutes, police said.
He was rushed to Doylestown Hospital where he was pronounced dead on Monday.
An aunt and uncle — Nicole and Tom Malcolm — organized the GoFundMe, saying “words cannot describe the pain our family is going through.” They added so many people had expressed a desire to help that they created the page to provide an outlet for donations.
By Friday morning, the fund had exceeded $17,000 in donations.
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