Ashleigh Moore update - body found and identified

Thanks to reader Anne for letting me know about this, even though the news is sad. Ashleigh Moore, the 12-year old girl in Savannah who disappeared April 18th, was found, dead, by a fisherman on Wednesday, in a wooded area behind a hotel.

Savannah police have confirmed that the body found near the Savannah Marriott Riverfront Wednesday is that of missing 12-year-old Ashleigh Moore.

At a news conference at 1 p.m., Maj. Willie Lovett said Moore's family was informed this morning by two Savannah police investigators and a department chaplain.

"With deep regret, our investigative process did not work out as we expected," Lovett said

Although police will not identify any suspects, Lovett said they do have "a number" of them.

Ashleigh's case has been reported on in several blogs, noting how much less attention the national press had given to her disappearance than they had to other missing girls - with the primary, noticable difference being that Ashleigh came from a lower-income black family, and the cases that tend to get the most attention usually come from middle- or upper-class white families.

Though the police are not saying yet is the mother's boyfriend, who had previously been convinced of the molestation and statuatory rape of a different 12-year-old girl, is a suspect or not, he was the last person known to have seen her and is the one who reported her missing.

Posted by thorswitch at May 15, 2003 03:38 PM | TrackBack