Sad news to report out of Milford. The Worcester District Attorney’s Office on Monday identified the 17-year-old who died in an apparent drowning at a Milford quarry over the weekend as Yanick Rodrigues of Boston.
Rodrigues disappeared while swimming at Shadowbrook Quarry on Saturday. His body was recovered around 12:45 p.m. Sunday after an extensive search. Family members told WCVB-TV that he was an soccer player at Madison Park High School in Roxbury.
He had emigrated from Cabo Verde to the United States in 2016, settling with his family in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston.
The tragedy has renewed attention on the longstanding dangers of Milford’s abandoned granite quarries, where police have spent years trying to keep swimmers away.
Milford Police Chief Robert Tusino said officers regularly patrol the quarries to discourage trespassing and swimming.
“We do patrols there,” Tusino said Monday. “We’re constantly up there. The only time we’re not up there — and even then, we go sometimes — is in the dead of winter.”
Shadowbrook Quarry, located near the Shadowbrook Condominiums on Shadowbrook Lane, is one of several former pink granite quarries that operated in Milford from the 1870s until about 1940, according to the Milford Historical Society.
The site has been the scene of previous tragedies. In 2007, a Framingham teenager died after apparently striking his head while diving into Shadowbrook Quarry. At the time, then-Police Chief Tom O’Loughlin said officers frequently patrolled the area and even towed vehicles to deter swimmers.
Following the drowning of a Rhode Island teenager at Fletcher Quarry in 2014, the town installed warning signs at both Fletcher Quarry and Shadowbrook Quarry, informing visitors they were trespassing.
Most recently, on July 19, an 18-year-old woman was injured after falling about 12 feet while attempting to jump between rocks at Shadowbrook Quarry. The incident prompted the Milford Police Department to issue a public warning on Facebook about the hazards of the town’s quarries, emphasizing that they are not designated recreation areas despite their popularity with swimmers.
