The body of a College of Charleston student was recovered Saturday morning by authorities in South Carolina, a week after he was reported missing.
Charleston Police Department Harbor Patrol units, with assistance from Mount Pleasant police, Charleston County Rescue and the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office, responded to a report of a body in the water near Patriots Point at around 8:45 a.m., police announced in a press release.
The body was identified by the county coroner’s office as 19-year-old Owen Tillman Kenney, who was last seen a few miles away in the early hours of Oct. 31.
Kenney, a native of Tinton Falls, N.J., was last seen by friends around 2 a.m. in the area of King Street and Burns Lane, close to the College of Charleston campus, after attending a Halloween party that night.
According to a message shared on social media by his family, the college freshman was walking home on Bull Street when he went missing.
“He was minutes from his house but never made it home,” his mother, Tanya Searcy Kenney, wrote in a Facebook post.
Video evidence later confirmed that Kenney was walking alone onto the Ravenel Bridge pedestrian walkway shortly after 3 a.m., police said, adding that his cellphone’s last recorded location was also on the bridge around that same time.
On Thursday, Charleston police said the investigation had shifted from search operations to recovery efforts after they concluded Kenney had died by suicide.
“After reviewing recently recovered video evidence, detectives confirmed through direct observation that at 3:49 a.m. on Oct. 31, 2025, Owen took his own life after walking onto the Ravenel Bridge pedestrian walkway,” officials said.
When confirming the recovery of the body on Saturday, Charleston Police Chief Chito Walker thanked everyone who helped return Kenney to his family and asked the public to respect their privacy.
“We hope this recovery brings some measure of closure to a family experiencing unimaginable loss,” Walker said.
