Avonte Oquendo

Case background and investigation

Avonte Oquendo was a 14-year-old nonverbal boy with severe autism who disappeared from school in Long Island City, Queens, on October 4, 2013. He attended a District 75 special-education program housed in the Center Boulevard School building (also home to the Riverview School), which served students with disabilities. School surveillance video captured him leaving his classroom, moving through the building, and exiting alone through a side door shortly after 12:30 p.m. He was known to be drawn to trains and water.

His disappearance triggered one of the largest search efforts in recent New York City history. Police, volunteers, and the family searched for more than three months, deploying search dogs, reviewing surveillance footage, and repeatedly canvassing the city's subway system and waterfront areas because of Avonte's known fascination with trains. Recordings of his mother's voice were played in subway stations in the hope he might respond. The case drew national media attention and a large public reward fund.

On January 16, 2014, human remains were discovered along the East River shoreline in the College Point section of Queens, near Powell Cove Boulevard. On January 21, 2014, the New York City Medical Examiner's Office confirmed through DNA testing that the remains were Avonte's. The location was consistent with the tidal East River near where he had gone missing.

The medical examiner was unable to establish how Avonte died. On February 26, 2014, the office ruled that both the cause and manner of his death were undetermined, in part because of the condition of the remains after months in the water. Authorities treated the death as a likely accidental drowning of a child who had wandered to the waterfront, but no cause of death was ever officially confirmed, no evidence of foul play was reported, and no one was charged with a crime. His attorney publicly noted that it could not be determined whether Avonte was alive when he entered the water.

The case prompted school-safety and wandering-prevention reforms known as 'Avonte's Law.' A New York City measure requiring the Department of Education to evaluate and install audible alarms on exterior doors at elementary and District 75 schools passed the City Council by a 49-0 vote on July 24, 2014, and was signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio on August 7, 2014; alarms were subsequently installed across nearly all city school buildings. At the federal level, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer proposed a companion 'Avonte's Law' in 2014 to fund voluntary tracking technology for children with autism; related provisions were later enacted as 'Kevin and Avonte's Law' in 2018.

Avonte's mother, Vanessa Fontaine, filed a negligence and wrongful-death claim in 2014 against the City, the Department of Education, and school-safety personnel, initially seeking $25 million. The City settled with the family for $2.7 million, with the settlement reported in 2016. The case remains classified as an unsolved suspicious death because the exact circumstances and cause of death were never determined, though it was never charged or investigated as a homicide.