Posted on 07/07/2005 3:56:40 AM PDT by joshhiggins
FLOYD (AP)(Iowa) --- After nearly a week of hundreds of volunteers searching each day in hopes that Evelyn Miller would be found alive, the grandfather of the 5-year-old said her body was discovered in the Cedar River.
One person is reportedly being held in her death, but no further details were given.
Richard Christie, of Des Moines, said he learned from the Floyd County attorney at about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday night that his granddaughter's body had been found.
"She was murdered and her body was put in the river," Christie told The Gazette. "She was not drowned."
He said he was told that one person was being held in custody. He did not know when or how Evelyn was killed, he said.
Authorities called a news conference for Thursday morning but wouldn't say whether the girl's body had been found.
"We can't confirm anything at this time," a dispatcher at the Floyd County sheriff's office said early Thursday.
Police launched a criminal investigation earlier this week into the disappearance of the girl, who was last seen by two acquaintances of her mother's fiance at about 2 a.m. Friday, asleep on a loveseat in the family's apartment.
Those two men have been questioned by authorities and a search of their residence was conducted. But authorities have not called them suspects.
Noel Miller, Evelyn's mother, has said she left her children including Evelyn, Gabriel, 2, and Damian, 1, with her fiance, Casey Fredericksen, 26, at their apartment in this small farming community about 110 miles northeast of Des Moines.
When she arrived home from her overnight job later Friday morning, the apartment door was slightly open and Evelyn was gone.
Authorities have said Fredericksen passed a lie-detector test.
Evelyn's family has insisted that the girl would not have gotten up in the middle of the night and walked out of the apartment on her own. They suspected she was abducted.
Andy Christie, Evelyn's father, and his wife, Lindsey, spoke earlier Wednesday during a news conference about their hope of finding their daughter alive. They recently found an abandoned puppy on the side of the road, a present intended for Evelyn.
"We haven't named him yet," Andy Christie said. "We are waiting until Evvy gets home, so she can name him."
Workers with the Virginia-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children arrived over the weekend to coordinate the release of flyers and organize searchers. Auxiliary military personnel, like the Civil Air Patrol and the National Guard, assisted in search efforts.
Hundreds of citizens turned out each day to search for the girl since her disappearance. They used dogs and searched by horseback, kayak and all-terrain vehicle.
The FBI and Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation were involved in the investigation.
It usually doesn't happen that way. The killer usually is familiar with the victim. Often stalking them or acting upon the happenstance opportunity to grab them up. But usually they are in a position to observe the victims' abodes on an ongoing basis.
Bring back the guillotine. It struck terror in the hearts of the French... but that doesn't say much, does it?
if it dont stop these sick bastards from killing kids,it will damn sure make it highly unlikely they will ever do it again-i say guilloitine to good,lets go with the chinese preferred method of killing-death by a thousand slices-slowly bleed to death
Good Grief, Eva! That's a scary story! Don't know how you did that...I'd have gone nuts.
I have had worse things happen. This is a dangerous world. You never know who your neighbor is.
I have a friend who is a psychiatrist who used to do consultations for social services. He told me that my stalker is a sociopath, and that I should always keep track of him so that I know where he is, because he will know where I am. He went to prison and the week he got out, he started making the phone calls to me. I knew immediately who it was and called his probation officer and told him that I had had a trap put on my phone and that if he called again, he would likely be going back to prison ( I had a restraining order). He has never bothered us again, except one time that my daughter went into a sub shop and ordered sandwiches for the family and he was working there. He made some obscene comments and told her that he had done some obscene things to the food. I just threw them in the trash, but other people in the shop reported what was said and he was fired. That was the last we have heard from him.
So...where is he now?
He's still in the county, somewhere. He moves between his grandparent's houses and his mother. I don't think that he ever lives with his father. His father was the only normal one in the family.
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