Alfa Barrie and Garrett Warren

Medical Examiner Says Missing Boy Found Dead in Harlem River Died From Accidental Drowning

Alfa Barrie, 11, and Garrett Warren, 13, had been missing for a week. Warren’s body was found Thursday; Barrie’s on Saturday.

One of two boys pulled from New York rivers this week after they went missing died of an accidental drowning, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Garrett Warren, 13, was found in the Harlem River on Thursday near the Madison Avenue Bridge, which was not far from where he and 11-year-old Alfa Barrie were last seen, as CrimeOnline previously reported. Barrie’s body was pulled from the Hudson River Saturday morning.

The medical examiner made the determination of accidental drowning for Warren and has not yet examined Barrie’s body, WPIX reported. That will come on Sunday, the station said.

The boys were last seen a week ago, on May 12. They were seen on video at about 6 p.m. at Ana’s Fish Market in Harlem, where they made a small purchase, and the clerk said they were regular customers.

Witnesses later spotted them near the 145th Street Bridge, just a block from the fish market. Police sources told WPIX that someone called 911 that night and reported seeing two boys in the water, but a police boat that checked the area found nothing.

Warren’s body was found a few blocks south.

Officials said that the two boys were friends and that Barrie, who lived in the Bronx, attended a charter school in Harlem but did not go home after school on the day they went missing. Warren lived in Harlem and went to a different school.

The waterways around Manhattan — the Hudson River, the Harlem River, and the East River — are not technically rivers which flow in one direction. They are tidal estuaries, which reverse direction with the tides of the Atlantic Ocean.

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[Featured image: Alfa Barrie and Garrett Warren/handout]