The body of missing 11-year-old Audrii Cunningham was found in a Texas river Tuesday afternoon, six days after a desperate for her began, authorities said.
The slain girl vanished Thursday after she failed to get on a school bus near her Livingston home, and her body was found in the Trinity River, Polk County officials said.
The man who was last seen with her, Don McDougal, is expected to face a capital murder charge in the case, they added.
“My heart aches with this news,” Polk County Sheriff Byron Lyons said during a news conference streamed by KHOU.
“And I express with my deepest sympathies and condolences to everyone who knew, who cared for and loved Audrii.”
Polk County District Attorney Shelly Bush-Sitton said an arrest warrant for capital murder will be leveled against McDougal, who was taken into custody on an unrelated charge Friday as a person of interest in Cunningham’s case.
“I understand that this is a very difficult time for Audrii’s family and for our community,” the prosecutor said.
McDougal, 42, became a recent friend of Cunningham’s family and lived behind the house where the girl resided with her father and grandmother, Sheriff Lyons previously said.
He would occasionally walk Cunningham to the bus stop and, at times, even took her to school when she missed the bus, Lyons said.
McDougal also had a past criminal history that involved another young girl more than a decade ago, but was not registered as a sex offender.
The sheriff said the investigation into the now-murder case would be ongoing. A cause of death was not revealed Tuesday as officials await an autopsy report.
Cellphone analysis, video footage and information from McDougal helped lead investigators to the grim discovery, Lyons said.
“We are still processing mounds and mounds of information and data,” he added.