Pond Deaths: Grandmother Dawn Mullany And Six-Year Old Laurence Mullany-Mills Named As Victims

Pond Death Victims Named
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A 71-year-old woman and her six-year-old grandson found dead in a pond have been named locally as Dawn Mullany and Laurence Mullany-Mills.

Lincolnshire Police said the deaths of the pair,were not being treated as suspicious.

The alarm was raised by Laurence's mother, who is thought to live in Ketton, Leicestershire, on Thursday night, after he went to stay with Ms Mullany on Wednesday and did not return home.

Police went to the elderly woman's address in Castle Bytham and when no one was there a search began for the missing pair and Ms Mullany's car.

The pensioner was pulled from the water in Holywell Village, Lincolnshire, on Thursday evening. She was pronounced dead at the scene, despite resuscitation efforts at the water's edge.

The search continued into the night for the boy and just before 4am yesterday Lincolnshire Police underwater search unit officers recovered the body of a child from the pond.

Detective Chief Inspector Dave Wood told the BBC: "We don't believe this is suspicious. We believe this is a tragic accident."

He added: "Officers are working with the family providing them with support and we are working with the coroner to establish why this tragic accident happened."

He said one theory police were looking at was that the pair stopped at the pond to feed the ducks on the way back to the boy's home.

Post-mortem examinations will be carried out and formal identifications will not be concluded until Monday.

The pensioner's cleaner Hilary Barnsdale, 59, described her "great friend" as an "outgoing, bubbly and independent woman".

She said: "She was brilliant person who would do anything for anyone.

"She was very independent. I wouldn't have guessed she was 71.

"The news came as a shock to me and her friends in the village.

"Everybody knew her. She was a good person and a good friend."

She added: "I've seen a picture of the grandson. He was a good-looking boy with mousey hair.

"She thought the world of him."