On Monday, April 6, the body of Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean was discovered in Shady Side, Maryland by Charles County Dive and Rescue about 2.5 miles south of her mother’s home. On Thursday, McKean and her son, Gideon Joseph Kennedy McKean went missing after they took a canoe out into the Chesapeake Bay. Searchers will resume efforts to recover McKean’s son this week. Following rescue attempts on Thursday and Friday, Maeve’s mother and former lieutenant governor of Maryland, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, released a statement which said, “With profound sadness, I share the news that the search for my beloved daughter Maeve and grandson Gideon has turned from rescue to recovery.” Since Friday, recovery searchers had reported no signs of the canoe or the victims. Maeve is the granddaughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy and grandniece to former U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Tragedy is no stranger to the Kennedy family, as a number of its members have died prematurely. Perhaps the most popular being the assassinations of John F. Kennedy (1963) and Robert F. Kennedy (1968) and the plane crash that claimed the lives of John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife in 1999.
McKean’s and her husband David, who live in Washington, D.C., had taken their family to Maryland to escape the coronavirus.
