San Juan County, Utah Sheriff’s Office
Sheriff Rick Eldredge Monticello, Utah 84535

Press Release: 09/11/2016

Missing Child/Presumed Drowning on Lake Powell

At approximately 7:30 pm on 09/10/16, an 18 month old child went missing while on a houseboat in the Halls Crossing area of Lake Powell. The houseboat was located at the Hall’s Crossing buoy field and was tied to a stationary buoy. The child was with their mother at the time the disappearance was reported to the National Park Service. The mother told authorities that she lost track of the child for just a few minutes while the family recreated on the houseboat. The mother and immediate family frantically searched the boat before suspecting the child had fallen into the water. The child was not wearing any type of life preserver. NPS Rangers were contacted and arrived within minutes of the reporting call. Rangers could not locate the child on the houseboat and turned their attention to the surrounding water. Immediately, multiple NPS boats with sonar capability were called in to search the depths of the lake in that area however, the search was called off around 10:30 p.m. with no success in locating the child. It is presumed that the child fell into the water and has drowned. The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office, in cooperation with the National Park Service and the DPS Dive Team, has resumed the search today. More information will follow as the search continues.

Update 09/12/2016
Recovery of child

At 1:54 this afternoon, the body of 18 month old Alleyah Janett Bell of Orangeville, Utah, was recovered from the Hall’s Crossing buoy field. Alleyah had fallen into the water around 7:30 pm on 09/10/2016 as she played on a family houseboat. The San Juan County Sheriff had requested assistance from the Summit County Sheriff, the Utah Department of Public Safety and the National Park Service. At around 1:00 pm today, the Utah Department of Public Safety Dive Team located the child in 240 feet of water using sonar. This depth was too deep for divers therefore; the Summit County Search and Rescue deep water robot was used to recover the child’s body. The body of the child will be transported to the Utah Medical Examiner’s Office to confirm the cause of death. The investigation is ongoing but there is no evidence of foul play.