ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 2, 1996 TAG: 9611040050
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
Police investigators poked through woods and a small park Friday, looking for clues to how a 2-year-old girl might have made her way from her mother's side to the river where she died.
An autopsy Friday confirmed a body pulled from the Occoquan River was 2-year-old Karynne Sheldon, who disappeared Oct. 21.
Prince William County Police Chief Charlie Deane said the body showed no sign of foul play or trauma and it appeared the child drowned on the day she disappeared.
The body was clad in the pink-and-white outfit Karynne's mother described over and over last week in televised appeals for her daughter's safe return.
Deane said several questions remain open, including how divers who searched the Occoquan shoreline could have missed the body.
The body was found nearly a mile downstream, in a wide, shallow portion of the river. Deane said investigators cannot explain how the child might have walked that far undetected before falling in, or whether her body floated there.
Police will continue the investigation at least into next week, he said.
- Associated Press
LENGTH: Short : 33 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB