Four teen boys were found deceased in a vehicle on Wednesday. They had left for a camping trip and were headed to Eryri National Park, aka ‘Snowdonia.’
Police are currently investigating how the car, which carried the entire group, ended up overturned and partially submerged in a river.
The boys, Harvey Owen, Wilf Fitchett, Jevon Hirst, and Hugo Morris, who were between the ages of 16 and 18, were from the town of Shrewsbury and were last spotted on Sunday morning. Their families reported them missing after they failed to return home three days later.
The police had received a tipoff from the public, which led them to the vehicle they were traveling in—a Ford Fiesta—which was discovered partly submerged and overturned in a river nearly ten kilometers from Porthmadog, the town where they were last spotted a couple of days prior.
The superintendent of North Wales Police, Owaian Llewellyn, described the incident as ‘tragic’. It’s currently believed the car they were traveling in ran off a narrow and steep winding road, which caused it to crash into the river.
Continuing, Llewellyn explained a number of agencies and volunteers had worked together on the search and that this was not the outcome they were hoping for. They are asking the public to give the family of the teens appropriate respect and privacy.
June Jones, the local councilor, told media outlets that the vehicle was only seen when a passing taxi driver saw it from a higher vantage point.
The residents of Shrewsbury are currently mourning the deaths of the teens, which is impacting everyone in the small, tight-knit community, where most adolescents have been going to school together since they were in kindergarten.
The vicar of the Oxon parish church described the incident as ‘utterly devastating’. He also added that several of the families are high-profile within the community, which means it will take everyone longer to deal with the situation.
After the vehicle was found upturned, Crystal, Harvey Owen’s mother, posted on Facebook that “[she] feels like [she’s] in a nightmare [she] wishes [she] could wake up from but [she] can’t.”
The school that the teens attended, Shrewsbury College, also paid tribute and offered “their deepest condolences to the family and friends of the four young men who tragically lost their lives in the accident.” They also thanked the local mountain rescue teams and emergency services for their help with the search for the vehicle.
