NOAH WOODS DISAPPEARED IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. THEN POLICE FOUND A CHILD IN DECOY POND.

For more than 24 hours, 1,300 people searched desperately for three-year-old Noah Woods — walking streets, checking fields and waterways, and hoping against hope that the missing toddler would be found alive.

Then came the discovery that brought the search to a devastating end.

Police divers recovered a child’s body from Decoy Pond.

Suffolk police have now formally confirmed the identity.

It was Noah.

The three-year-old disappeared at around 2:37 p.m. on September 15 after becoming separated from a relative following a visit to a playground in Brantham, Suffolk.

CCTV captured Noah running down an alleyway before vanishing from sight.

Within hours, a huge search operation was underway, bringing together police officers, specialist search teams, dogs, helicopters, firefighters, coastguard crews, volunteers and Metropolitan Police divers.

People came from across the area to search for a little boy many had never met.

They were looking for Noah.

They were hoping to bring him home.

Instead, after more than 24 hours, the search ended at the pond.

Police say Noah’s death is not being treated as suspicious, although the circumstances remain unexplained and further enquiries are continuing.

His father, Rhys Woods, remembered his son as “the sweetest and most innocent little boy.”

Now the playground where Noah was last seen has become a place of mourning, with flowers, toys and messages left by a community struggling to understand how a desperate search for a missing child could end this way.

A three-year-old vanished. Thousands searched. And the final discovery changed everything.