A look back nearly 1 year after tragic loss of Noah Chamberlin

PINSON, Tenn. — It’s been nearly one year since 2-year-old Noah Chamberlin went missing in the woods on a walk with his Grandmother in Pinson.

“I think it changed all of us,” Chester County Sheriff Blair Weaver said. “It is something that is etched in my mind, because it seems like I remember every minute of all eight days.”

Noah was on a nature hike with his grandmother and then 4-year-old sister in the woods behind their Pinson home when he disappeared.

His grandmother told officers she was paying attention to her granddaughter for a moment, and when she looked up, Noah was gone.

That Thursday, Jan. 14 of 2016, hundreds of first responders and volunteers searched the woods all night long.

“At that point, we thought everything kind of fell together for us. That very first day we throughout everything was in our favor,” Sheriff Weaver said. “Everybody came together, and it was just amazing the support we had from the beginning.”

That pattern held up for the next week, with thousands of volunteers coming from all across the country to help search for Noah day and night, no matter the weather.

Pinson Baptist Church and the Ruritan Club opened up their doors for that week, becoming a donation drop-off, volunteer headquarters, and place of refuge.

Throughout the week, first responders and volunteers alike never gave up hope, searching for a small child many would never meet.

“It brought the community together. It brought the United States together,” Madison County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Tom Mapes said. “We had prayer warriors all over the country and all over the world.”

Exactly one week later, on Jan. 21, officials confirmed the body of Noah had been recovered.

“I had faith that we were going to find him, and we did find him, and like I said it wasn’t the outcome we wanted,” Sheriff Weaver said.

Later in 2016, the community dedicated a two-mile stretch of Highway 45 South to Noah with the purpose of making sure West Tennessee would never forget the impact that little boy left behind.

“There’s still a lot of good people in the world,” Sheriff Weaver said. “Most all you hear is bad, bad, bad. But when we saw all the the people that came out to volunteer and the churches and the public in general — if we were here and they were needed, they were here with us.”

Noah’s death was ruled accidental, and he was found to have died from environmental hypothermia.