This handout photo provided Monday Dec. 5, 2011, by the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department, shows Jorelys Rivera, 7, of Canton, Ga. A team of state law enforcement officials specially trained in child abductions has been brought in to join the search for the 7-year-old Georgia girl missing since Friday. (AP Photo/Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department)CANTON, Ga. (AP) – A body found in a trash container is believed to be that of a 7-year-old girl who went missing last week from an apartment complex playground north of Atlanta, authorities said Monday.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said that “everything points to it being” Jorelys Rivera of Canton. Bankhead said officials were awaiting results of an autopsy to confirm the identity and a cause of death.
Bankhead told The Associated Press the body appeared to have been severely beaten and sexually assaulted. He said the girl’s mother had been notified.
No suspects were in custody, Canton emergency management director Jeff Hall said Monday afternoon.
Hall said authorities had not searched the trash container until Monday because it was a large garbage compacting bin that needed to be moved offsite so they could go through it.