McKean's body was recovered 25 feet of water about 2½ miles south of her mother’s Shady Side residence following a search involving aviation and underwater imaging sonar technology, police and dive crew members, Maryland Natural Resources Police announced late Monday.
A search was continuing on Tuesday for young Gideon.
The family had been self-quarantining in an empty house to give their children space away from their Washington, DC residence in a home on the bay that’s owned by Maeve’s mother, Kathleen, according to McKean’s husband, David.
"Gideon and Maeve were playing kickball by the small, shallow cove behind the house, and one of them kicked the ball into the water,” he posted on Facebook. “The cove is protected, with much calmer wind and water than in the greater Chesapeake.
It was this past Thursday when they both “got into a canoe, intending simply to retrieve the ball, and somehow got pushed by wind or tide into the open bay,” McKean wrote. “About 30 minutes later they were spotted by an onlooker from land, who saw them far out from shore, and called the police.
“After that last sighting, they were not seen again.”
SEE: John F. Kennedy’s Grand-Niece And Her Son, 8, Missing After Boating Accident, Reports Say
Choppy water and strong winds apparently prevented them from returning to shore.
The Coast Guard recovered their capsized canoe miles away, he said.
McKean was the granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy, the grandniece of former President John F. Kennedy, and daughter of former Maryland lieutenant governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Robert F. Kennedy's eldest child.
A public health and human rights lawyer, she was the executive director of the Georgetown University Global Health Initiative and had two other children with her husband, Gabriella, 7, and Toby, 2.
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