‘Our goal is to bring them home;’ Sheriff hopeful to find bodies of boys thrown into Ohio River

CAMDEN — The bodies of two area boys thrown into the Ohio River just weeks apart remain missing despite numerous searches by rescue crews and law enforcement over the last several months.

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While the searches have so far been unsuccessful since the deaths of Nylo Lattimore and James Hutchinson, Preble County Sheriff Mike Simpson said all agencies involved in the investigation and search efforts remain committed to finding their bodies and bringing them home.

>>PREVIOUS REPORT: Rescue crews search Ohio River for bodies of James Hutchinson, Nylo Lattimore

“I think anytime that we maybe get some credible information or we’ve got resources that are available to continue to search, we will do that,” Simpson told News Center 7′s John Bedell Wednesday.

“Those little boys are out there somewhere and we need to bring them home.”

>>PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Sheriff: Divers to resume Ohio River search for James Hutchinson after conditions improve

According to investigators, 3-year-old Lattimore was thrown alive into the Ohio River in Cincinnati in December 2020 by his mother’s boyfriend. The man, identified as Desean Brown, 21, is accused of killing Nylo’s mother, 21-year-old Nyteisha just hours before Brown threw Nylo into the river, prosecutors allege.

>>RELATED: Timeline: How the investigation into James Hutchinson’s death unfolded

Weeks later in late February, 6-year-old Hutchinson was killed by his mother Brittany Gosney at Rush Run Wildlife Area in Preble County while she tried to abandon the boy and his two siblings. Investigators said Hutchinson suffered a fatal injury when he grabbed the vehicle as Gosney tried to drive away.

About a day later, Gosney, 29, and her boyfriend James Hamilton, 42, drove Hutchinson’s body to the Carroll Cropper Bridge over the Ohio River, tied a concrete block to his body, and threw it into the river, investigative records indicate.

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Monday, Gosney entered guilty pleas to charges of murder and two counts of endangering children as part of a plea deal that saw 13 other charges dropped. Despite the court case coming to an end, Simpson said he hopes the plea deal will be a sign the justice system worked.

“Hopefully (this plea deal is) some accountability on her part for the actions that she had. And it’s our hope that she spends the rest of his life in prison for what she’s done,” Simpson said.

“We’ll let the system work. Let the system do what it needs to do and go on. But hopefully one day we’ll recover James and Nylo and we can bring them home I hope.”

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In the days and months after Hutchinson’s death, searches were being conducted on a daily basis. But weather and river conditions severely hampered the search efforts.

“Early on, based on that information, we were doing everything we could to hopefully recover those two boys. And if you remember the weather — Mother Nature just did not help us at all with the rise of the river and the levels that it was at,” Simpson said.

>>Court records: Mother, boyfriend ‘hog-tied’ James Hutchinson, siblings before boy’s death

As the months have passed, the searches are not as frequent, but Simpson said the determination to find the boys remains as strong as the first days.

“We’ve exhausted everything that we know of now. But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to end up back up on the river looking again. And we’ll continue to do that,” he said.

“Our goal is to bring them home. So hopefully we can fulfill that,” Simpson said.

Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser was asked Monday during a news conference after Gosney’s guilty pleas and said he believes Hutchinson’s body is still in the Ohio River, hinting at details that are contained in Hamilton’s case that he was not able to comment on. Gmoser added the conditions in the river remain extreme for search crews.

“I absolutely believe (Hutchinson) is in the river, for the reasons that will become clear later,” Gmoser said.

“As you know from the atmospheric conditions over the past year, that river has been raging. The visibility, as a scuba diver myself, I can tell you, if you dive in the Ohio River when you go to the bottom you’re likely to hit a rock on your facemask. The visibility is almost nothing. When you have a current that is sweeping along as fast as it is, its very difficult to work in those conditions.”

While Gosney now awaits her sentencing in Hutchinson’s death, Hamilton is awaiting a trial that’s scheduled to start in October. Hamilton is schedule to appear in court Monday for what’s listed as a pretrial hearing, according to court records.

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