Neighbor Gets Nixle Alert, Runs Outside And Finds Missing Child

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — Every parents' worst nightmare occurred for one South Brunswick family Wednesday night, when their 10-year-old son went missing. But after police sent a Nixle email alert out about the missing child, a neighbor — who did not know the boy — decided to help with the search, and ended up finding the boy in the woods three hours later that same night.

The terrifying chain of events started at around 7:15 p.m. Wednesday when a 10-year-old South Brunswick boy, who has autism and is non-verbal, ran out the front door into the cold, said South Brunswick police. The boy, Ethan Olivacce, left his family's Larry Court home to follow his Dad's car to the store.

The family's Nest home security video captures the moments Ethan slips outside, running after his Dad's car, and his mother's voice can be heard mere seconds later, looking for him: "Ethan? Ethan?"

The mother assumed her son had gone with his father, said police. But when dad Chris Olivacce returned home at around 8:30 p.m., both parents realized the boy was missing. Olivacce checked their home's Nest doorbell video and realized Ethan had run out of the home at exactly 7:17 p.m. The parents immediately called South Brunswick Police to report Ethan missing.

You can watch their doorbell video here:

A large-scale search began involving dozens of police officers, firefighters and EMS personnel, said police. They searched backyard by backyard, street by street for the child as Wednesday night's temperatures dropped into the freezing range. A New Jersey State Police helicopter even got involved and began searching nearby ponds and rivers.

As they always do for missing children, South Brunswick police notified the community in a public email Nixle alert. Fazil Syed said he was sitting at home watching TV when he got it.

Syed lives on the same street as the Olivacce family. He said when he saw the Nixle, he decided to get involved.

“I grabbed my jacket and a flashlight and began to check the area," said Syed in a statement provided by South Brunswick police. "Initially I went in one direction, but did not see anything so I decided to check towards the (South Brunswick) library."

That's where he spotted a child standing on the edge of the woods on Kingston Lane. By this point, it was near 10 p.m. and temperatures were very cold out. The boy was standing on the wood line, not moving.

"I called out to him, but got no response," said Syed. "As I crossed the street I called out again, and Ethan came running towards me and gave me a big hug. I immediately called 911 to say I found him."

You can also hear Syed's 911 phone call when he found the boy. He said the boy was "a little shaken up." South Brunswick Chief of Police Raymond Hayducka, dressed in plainclothes at that hour of the night, was actually the first car to pull up to meet them. Syed was initially a little cautious to hand the boy over to Hayducka without seeing a police badge.

Ethan was taken home to his parents and evaluated by EMS for his exposure to the cold.

“This was the outcome we had all hoped for," said Hayducka. "By using our Nixle system we expanded our searchers from 50 to 29,000 and we found him. We all knew with the falling temperatures and the amount of time he had been missing, time was of the essence.”

“We had dozens of police, firefighters, EMS searching along with a helicopter, but it was the use of our Nixle system combined with Mr. Syed’s actions that finally found him," he added.

Hayducka thanked all those who helped in the search including the Monmouth Junction, Kendall Park, Kingston Fire Departments; South Brunswick EMS, Monmouth Junction First Aid, South Brunswick School District, New Jersey State Police, and the Middlesex County Prosecutors Office.