Posted on 03/18/2002 12:47:31 PM PST by another cricket
Body of Andre Bosse found in Lapeer County
A young girl's body found in a rural area near Lapeer was identified Sunday as that of Andre Bosse, a Muskegon County girl who was kidnapped and murdered in 1997, state police said.
The 11-year-old's body, covered by debris, was discovered Saturday by a man walking through a field in Metamora Township, about 10 miles south of Lapeer, said Detective Lt. Curt Schram of the Michigan State Police's Sixth District Headquarters in Grand Rapids.
Authorities used dental records to identify the remains as Bosse's.
"It was not an obvious find," Schram said. "She was on the ground, but covered up with debris."
He said Bosse was killed at the site, which he described as "not real well-traveled."
Schram said the site was in the same general area where Bosse' killer -- Dean Metcalfe -- led authorities five years ago, without success. Metcalfe, a pedophile who was a friend of her family, had connections to Lapeer County.
The Bosse family was told Saturday.
"It brings closure to the not-knowing part. That's all," Andre's mother, Linda Bosse, said today. Linda Bosse said she and her husband, Matthew, are doing well, despite having always clung to hope their daughter would be found alive.
"Now we know. It doesn't make it hurt any less, or make it any easier.
"Things are OK," Bosse said from her New Era home. "We've gotten ourselves braced for this. We're going to get through this. We've gotten this far."
Andre was kidnapped, raped and fatally shot June 17, 1997.
Her remains were found in the woods just south of Dryden Road and east of Barber Road, about 7 miles south of Lapeer. Extensive and repeated searches, including one led by Metcalfe himself, were conducted north of Dryden Road.
The site where Andre was found was near a slate gray house, one of the landmarks Metcalfe insisted on.
The man who found the remains just before 2 p.m. Saturday was walking on private property looking for spots from which to set up deer hunting sheds when he came across skeletal remains and clothing and called police.
Lapeer County Prosecutor Byron Konschuh said a green jacket was found with the remains. Metcalfe told authorities he'd covered Andre's body with a green jacket and some brush. Konschuh said the remains also had black sneakers like those Andre was wearing when she disappeared.
Police and volunteers with dogs had previously searched more than a dozen areas in Lapeer County, but focused on the Metamora and Dryden township areas near the D-Bar-A Boy Scout Ranch, where evidence of Metcalfe's presence-- but not of Andre's -- was found. The Boy Scouts property is about 1 1/2 miles northwest of the place where Andre's remains were found.
Metamora Township police secured the area while evidence technicians from the state police crime lab at Bridgeport examined the remains. Metcalfe, a neighbor of Bosse's and the father of her best friend, admitted to kidnapping the girl at gunpoint near her Lakewood Club home. He told authorities he raped and later killed her, then dumped her body in Lapeer County.
Metcalfe pleaded no contest to five charges, including murder and sexual assault, in Andre's disappearance just as the case was about to go to trial in 1999.
The life term is mandatory for first-degree murder. Metcalfe also is serving two life terms for two unrelated child molestations.
Teresa Monroe, a friend of the Bosse family who coordinated searches and helped create Andre's House for child abuse victims, spoke with the Bosse family Sunday.
"Last night they had friends and family with them and their little girl, Miranda, was toddling around. She looks a lot like Andre," Monroe said.
The Bosse family is planning a memorial service in the Whitehall area, where Andre went to school.
"They were looking for a big place, they know it will be big," said Monroe, a volunteer with the Oceana Children's Help Center in Hart. The center, a small building with kid-friendly rooms to interview abused children, is known as "Andre's House."
"There is a big picture of Andre when you walk in," Monroe said.
She described the news of the discovery as bittersweet.
"It was hard not knowing what happened to her but it's like going through her death all over again," Monroe said.
James L. Smith of the Flint Journal and Lynn Moore of the Muskegon Chronicle contributed to this report.
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