RFK granddaughter Maeve Kennedy McKean’s cause of death is drowning: medical examiner

Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean and her son Gideon before their tragic demise.(Facebook)

Maeve Kennedy McKean, the granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy, died from accidental drowning.

The cause of death was confirmed Wednesday by a medical examiner two days after her body was recovered, reported People.

The mother of three, also the executive director of the Georgetown University Global Health Initiative, was playing kickball April 2 at her mother’s empty, waterfront house in Shady Side, Md., with her kids when the ball landed in Chesapeake Bay.

McKean and her 8-year-old son, Gideon, boarded a canoe to retrieve it but high winds and large waves pushed them further out into the water, said her husband David McKean.

"The cove is protected, with much calmer wind and water than in the greater Chesapeake, David McKean wrote on Facebook April 3. “They got into a canoe, intending simply to retrieve the ball, and somehow got pushed by wind or tide into the open bay.”

Before first responders were contacted, one onlooker — standing on a pier about half an hour after the McKeans took to the boat — noticed the two appeared distressed and not sporting life jackets.

“It looked like they were bing pushed out into the water and were having a hard time returning to shore,” Russ Davies, the captain of the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, told People.

While the canoe was recovered the same night of the family members’ disappearance, Gideon’s body wasn’t found until Wednesday.

His remains were located by divers 25 feet down and approximately 2,000 feet from where his mother was found.