11-year-old’s grandfather, mom adjusting after Gypsum Creek drowning

On a recent Wednesday night, David Cooley sipped four cups of coffee at the same Denny’s on Harry Street he has come to for decades.

He playfully ribbed the workers and got hugs from other Denny’s regulars as usual, but this time he did not have his usual dinner partner with him.

“He used to sit right there,” he said, gesturing toward a bar stool near the back.

Cooley’s grandson, Devon, 11, drowned in Gypsum Creek about two months ago. He was found only after a week of exhaustive searching by the Wichita Fire Department and other emergency rescue workers.

Now that he is out of the public eye – and the intense focus of the media – David Cooley is trying to lead a normal life, or as normal as possible.

Some days he can; other days he can’t keep Devon off his mind.

“I try to keep my mind busy because when I think about it I get like this,” he said, teardrops streaking his cheeks. “He was a big part of my life.”

David Cooley, a 57-year-old widower, had been Devon’s primary caretaker since the boy was 2. He discussed life after Devon.

That week

It’s the three friends who were with Devon the day he was swept away that David Cooley grieves for most.

“They’re traumatized. … What it must be like to witness something like that, too,” David Cooley said of the three boys. “What’s it do to a kid’s mind?”

The three boys live with David Cooley because their mother is incarcerated in Sumner County.

Firefighters have said Devon was swept away in Gypsum Creek on May 27 after he told the three boys he could cross the rushing water.

Devon was overwhelmed by the current, and his friends ran to call for help.

“At times I get bad and I say, ‘Damn it, Devon, why the hell did you do that?’ but that’s who he was,” David Cooley said. “He was going to push the limits.”

David Cooley calls the boys heroes – if they had not been with Devon when he went under, he thinks Devon may never have been found.

“I try to stress to them that (they’re) not at fault here,” he said. “I still feel that they blame themselves.”

Rescue crews were unable to find Devon’s body until June 4, when kayakers in the Arkansas River spotted him.

He was tangled in a large brush pile, David Cooley said. It took about 30 to 40 minutes just to untangle him, he said.

The kayakers who found him were not mere recreation enthusiasts, according to Cooley. One was an off-duty firefighter who went kayaking with the intention of keeping an eye out for the boy’s body, Cooley said. The other kayaker was an EMS medic, according to Wichita police Sgt. Nikki Woodrow.

They have asked to remain anonymous.

“They weren’t officially looking for him at the time, but they were looking for him,” Cooley said.

Devon’s mother

Nicole Stevenson, 33, doesn’t like to talk about the day she heard the news of her son’s disappearance in the Gypsum Creek.

She doesn’t like to think about screaming in the telephone booth at the Florida federal penitentiary where she is incarcerated for identity theft and fraud.

“This whole time I’ve just been trying to be positive and everything else, thinking that I’m going to change my life because I’m going to go home and be a good mom,” she said. “I don’t even have two years left to the door, then this happens.

“I’m crushed, but I just have to keep going and keep pushing, because I have to.”

She was kept updated on the situation through phone calls, “video visits” and by reading media coverage of the search online.

Devon’s biological father is dead.

She called David Cooley about 20 minutes after he first broke the news of her son’s presumed death, speaking with surprising resolve, Cooley said of his daughter.

“She said to me over the phone, ‘I’m looking at it this way – he gets to meet his dad in heaven, gets to lay with grandma … .’

“I’m going to be up there to see him one day, and he died doing what he wanted to do, being a daredevil,’” David Cooley said.

“I said, ‘Wow, after 20 minutes of finding out your son’s dead.’ ”

In the weeks since, she has become somewhat of a mentor to her fellow inmates, teaching them how to handle difficult situations, David Cooley said.

“They’re all talking about (how) the way she’s handling this has inspired them,” he said. “She kind of became a leader in making other girls want to do right and be in touch with their family more, and try to make their life right again like she does.”

‘You do want to see his face that last time’

It still bothers David Cooley that he never saw Devon’s body after it was pulled out of the Arkansas River.

The mortician told David he didn’t want to see Devon’s body – he had no skin from the chest up.

“They told me I don’t want to see him that way,” David Cooley said. “I was prepared to see him bloated, beat-up, blackened … just because I wanted to see his face.

“I don’t know if you understand that kind of closure, when you want to see and make sure that that’s who that is. … Oddly you do want to see his face that last time.”

Officials were able to identify the body found June 4 as Devon’s by cross-checking his dental records.

“There’s still that thing where you don’t get the closure fully without seeing the body,” David Cooley said. “It’s a thing that bothers me a little bit. I’ve tried not to let it.

“I’m pretty sure it’s him.”

Scattering the ashes

One of Devon’s favorite holidays was the Fourth of July, his grandfather said.

To honor Devon one last time, the Cooleys strapped bags of his ashes onto fireworks they launched on the Fourth of July this year, he said.

“I’m just trying to celebrate his life in every way I can,” he said. “I blew him up over the neighborhood. I’m just trying to … make sure he’s not forgotten.”

When Devon was cremated, initially there were 45 glass vials filled with his ashes, though “everyone wanted one – they went like crazy,” David Cooley said.

An additional 36 glass vials were filled, and now only one remains.

His ashes are being sprinkled in Canada, at the Statue of Liberty, at Niagara Falls and on the Brooklyn Bridge.

“He never got to travel, but he’s traveling now,” David Cooley said.

David Cooley plans on getting a tattoo of a skateboarder in honor of Devon, infused with his ashes. The ashes are sterilized and added to the tattoo ink, he said.

Moving forward

Whenever he talks about his grandson’s death, David Cooley always makes sure to talk about the rescue crews who searched daily for him.

“I know how hard they worked – I watched them every day,” he said. “They were absolutely amazing.”

On Aug. 23, a new skateboard rack at Mead Middle School will be unveiled in honor of Devon. His classmates organized an online fundraising campaign that brought in $2,825.

The Cooley family still plans on creating a water-safety organization in Devon’s memory, though no solid plans have yet materialized. The group would visit local schools and inform children about the risks of swift-flowing water.

It’s one more step, David Cooley said, to ensure Devon is not forgotten.

This story was originally published August 3, 2016 at 8:02 PM with the headline "11-year-old’s grandfather, mom adjusting after Gypsum Creek drowning."