GALVESTON, Texas — A body was recovered during the search for twin brothers who went missing Sunday evening in the water near Pleasure Pier in Galveston, according to officials.
According to Galveston Island Beach Patrol officials, a body was recovered around 2 a.m. Tuesday.
Galveston Island Beach Patrol Lt. Austin Kirwin said four people found a body near the shoreline, brought it to the sand and called 911.
Authorities were able to determine that it was one of the twin teen's bodies by what he was wearing and how he looked before notifying the family.
"It is some closure. We are keeping close ties and talking to the family, so we’re talking to them direct,” Kirwin said.
The missing boys were identified by family members as Jefferson and Josue Perez, who are both 13. It's not clear which boy was found.
“It does make us more hopeful, but everything out in this water is very unpredictable,” Kirwin said. “We did find one. That’s great news -- finding another one doesn’t mean it’s going to happen now or tomorrow.”
What happened
Officials said the teens went missing around 4:30 p.m. Sunday. Their family members spent about an hour searching for them before calling the police around 5:30 p.m. The mother of the boys said they couldn't swim.
"They were out in the water. The parents briefly lost sight of them and they looked back up into the area and they did not see them," Kirwin said.
The boys' parents said when they last saw them, the boys were in waist-to-chest-high water about 20 yards out on the west side of the pier.
The teens were last seen near Seawall Boulevard and 25th Street. Officials said no one reported seeing them go underwater.
The United States Coast Guard used helicopters to help search crews. Several other law enforcement agencies also helped with the search efforts.
Since there was some dense fog in the area, the Coast Guard had to stop searching with its chopper on Monday. At sunset Monday, the Galveston Police Department took over the search into Tuesday morning.
Family members said the boys had been begging to go to the beach. They said they had just moved to Houston from Honduras last November to join their mother who moved to the Houston area about 10 years ago.
Here's a map of the area: