Detectives searching for a missing 7-year-old girl say a child's body has been found.
Authorities have tenatively identified the body as that of Somer Thompson, who disappeared Monday near her home in Orange Park while on her way home from school.
Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler said early Thursday that clothing and a birthmark found on the body matched Thompson's.
Investigators had focused a large effort on landfills in North Florida and Georgia searching for Thompson, and a massive hunt soon followed with amber alerts posted from Miami all the way north into Georgia.
Sam Thompson, the child's father, said in an interview from his home in North Carolina on Wednesday that he just wants his daughter's captor to let her go and the suspect can move on. Police suspect foul play, but have had no clues.
"Somer disappeared off the face of the earth. We just don't have a clue right now where she is," Beseler said yesterday.
Thompson said police in Jacksonville told him they have more than 200 leads. He said officials also told him there were 85 sex offenders within a five-mile radius of the area where Somer disappeared.
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Somer vanished on her mile-long walk home from school Monday in Orange Park, near Jacksonville. She was squabbling with another child, and her sister told her to stop. The girl got upset, walked ahead of the group and wasn't seen again.
The landfill where the body was found is some 48 miles from the Thompson house.
