(KHON) – Heartbreak for a mother and father on Christmas Day.

The body of their missing 7-year-old son was found this morning not far from their home.

Paul “Kevin” Rozier III was reported missing from his family’s Mililani home on Lahe Street about 5:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve.

Just before 8:00 a.m. this morning, his body was found in a swimming pool at a home on Anania Drive. The Rozier family home is about half a mile away.

The family is devastated but is thanking everyone who helped in the search.

“We just wanted to say thank you for not making us feel alone in one of the worst times of our lives,” Kevin’s mother Jasmine Rozier said.

The boy’s parents tell us when they posted on Facebook that Kevin, who is autistic, was missing, the entire island responded to their cry for help.

“We had people coming from Waikele, and trying to get over from Makaha, and coming from Honolulu,” Kevin’s father Paul Rozier said. “Therapist, and his behavioral techs, and just random people who heard us calling him on the street and asked what was happening.”

His parents say their son was a bright child who touched the lives of everyone he met.

“His personality, his spirit, his heart, he was just the most caring loving amazing kid ever and we only had seven years with him. But those were the best seven years I could have ever asked for,” Jasmine Rozier said.

Family and friends took to social media asking to help them find Kevin.

“A symptom of autism is the elopement (wandering) urge, and on some cases on the spectrum, and Kevin had an elopement urge,” Paul Rozier explained.

Police tell us a neighbor walking past the home on Anania Drive called 9-1-1. Police also tell us no one was home at the time, and the house was apparently vacant.

“This is not how we wanted this to end, this isn’t the natural order of things,” Paul Rozier said.

“We appreciate all of you so much for getting your families to help our family, and in turn becoming a part of our family,” Paul Rozier said.

“Everyone was great and so that kind of helped ease a lot of the anxiety, the hurt, because it didn’t and doesn’t feel like we are alone. So we just wanted to say thank you to you guys,” Jasmine Rozier said.

The family tells us they were in the military from the mainland, but moved to Hawaii four years ago and made Hawaii their home.

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