2-year-old found dead after hours of searching in Indy neighborhood

INDIANAPOLIS — Flowers, stuffed animals and balloons now sit in front of a quiet pond in an Indianapolis neighborhood. The site was the scene of a tragedy Saturday night.

An Indianapolis Fire Department dive team found the body of 2-year-old Anna Mandanda Saturday night after searchers had been looking since earlier that afternoon.

Police said Mandanda was last seen around 3 p.m. Saturday afternoon near the 6900 block of Governors Point Boulevard. Mandanda’s family lives in a quiet southside neighborhood just off Southport Road.

Police released pictures of the little girl and asked people to keep an eye out as officers began searching around 7 p.m. Saturday.

Several neighbors also joined in the search inside and around the small neighborhood.

”We looked behind these houses, there are several woods over here,” said Jim Rusler, one of the neighbors searching. “We did go across Southport Road because they have ponds over there, we went along the side of Southport down there where they have taller weeds thinking maybe she’d gone down there. We checked bushes, we checked everywhere and any place we could for her.”

But in the end, Mandanda was found dead in the retention pond at the center of the neighborhood.

Rusler and other neighbors were there when the search concluded.

”Screaming terror,” Jim Rusler said, describing what he heard when officials delivered the news to Mandanda’s family. “There was so much screaming going on, you could just feel people were just devastated.”

Now, the memorial for the 2-year-old grows as the family and neighborhood mourn a tragedy all too common for toddlers.

”Drowning is the single leading cause of death for children ages 1-4 in the United States,” said Adam Katchmarchi, the CEO of the National Drowning Prevention Alliance . “It is not car accidents, it is not cancer, it is not gunshots, it is drowning.”

Katchmarchi said this is a tragedy that can happen to anyone.

”Every parent that I have worked with from the advocacy standpoint that has lost a child to drowning, they’re a good parent, they were watching their kids, we can’t watch our kids 24/7,” he said.

Katchmarchi and the NDPA work to educate and prevent drowning on multiple levels across the country.

The NDPA recommends five layers of prevention to stop drownings. Barriers and alarms to alert and restrict access to water, supervision during swim times, water competency, appropriate use of life jackets and emergency preparedness.

An IMPD spokesperson said the investigation into what led up to Mandanda ending up in that pond is ongoing as IMPD looks to support the family.

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