Body may be Monroe girl, 5
Clothing similar to what child was wearing, police say
Tanveer Ali, Mike Wilkinson and Paul Egan / The Detroit News
Monroe -- For nearly two weeks, Nevaeh Buchanan's family held out hopes of finding her alive.
Ever since the 5-year-old girl vanished May 24 from the parking lot of her apartment complex, relatives joined throngs of police, volunteers and investigators to scour fields, quarries and other sites to safely bring her home.
But about 8:30 p.m. Thursday, the news was the worst imaginable: Sheriff's deputies arrived with word that a body authorities found miles away, near the River Raisin, matched her description and likely was Nevaeh, relatives said.
"I'm very, very sad," Shaun Lawson, Nevaeh's uncle, told a crowd of about 200 people gathered outside of the Charlotte Arms Apartments, where the girl went missing. "It took Nevaeh's life to bring everyone together. ... (Authorities) are waiting for actual confirmation, but (the body) does match Nevaeh's description."
Monroe County Sheriff's Department and FBI officials would not confirm they had found the child's body, but a news conference was planned for this morning. Relatives said Thursday they believed it was Nevaeh's body based on the clothing authorities described, which matched what she wore when she disappeared.
Earlier, police cordoned off an area near the River Raisin around Dixon Road in the area of Ida-Maybee and Neiman roads. By 7 p.m., at least four people in white Hazmat suits were walking along the south bank of the River Raisin in an area just east of railroad tracks near Yensch Road.
Guy Bickley, 52, of Newport said he and his father starting fishing near Dixon Road about 9 a.m. Thursday from a concrete platform by the river.
Around noon, the pair detected an overwhelming smell, which they thought was from dead fish, and noticed a block of concrete that they believed had come from the structure they were standing on. Bickley said he started scraping away at the surface of the concrete block and saw maggots and what appeared to be human skin.
He immediately left and called police, who arrived about 2 p.m., he said late Thursday.
"I hoped to God it wasn't that 5-year-old girl," Bickley said.
As the sun set and news of the developments unfolded, about a dozen relatives huddled around a teddy bear-adorned memorial, which has been growing steadily since she disappeared. "I was eating dinner when I got the news they found something," Diana Lawson, Nevaeh's great-aunt, said. "I just about choked."
During an impromptu gathering at Charlotte Arms, some supporters cried, clutching their children in flickering candlelight as they struggled to grasp the apparent loss.
"I had high hopes she's alive," said the Rev. Dale Hayford of Crosswalk Community Church in Monroe, who had organized volunteers to search for Nevaeh. "Wherever she's gone now, she's free now. There is no suffering for her right now. ... Most likely, 99.99 percent, this is her because of the clothing, because of the description."
Family friend Mary Millsaps was at the apartment of Jennifer Buchanan, the girl's mother, when county sheriff's deputies arrived with the grim update.
"There is unbelievable pain going on in the apartment," Millsaps said, declining to comment on what was said. "That officer got a few words out of his mouth and ... screams, just ungodly screams..."
Nevaeh's grandmother, Sherry Buchanan, and Diana Lawson were later seen leaving in a car, followed by a sheriff's deputy.
When learning about the discovery Thursday, Trudy Greenlee, who lives on a farm that abuts the River Raisin, about a mile west of where the body was found, could only say: "Terrible, terrible. It's sad."
Greenlee said she thought the case would end this way because of the length of time that passed since her disappearance. "I was hoping not," Greenlee said. "It's awful. Absolutely terrible."
Officials had identified three people of interest in the case. George Kennedy and Roy Smith, both sex offenders who knew Nevaeh's mother, are being held on possible parole violations. A district judge has cleared James Easter, 64, as a person of interest, but Easter said the experience of having his home searched and being intensely questioned by investigators was upsetting and disorienting.
In an interview with the Toledo Blade on Wednesday from the Monroe County Jail, Kennedy said he didn't take Nevaeh. Kennedy told the Blade that blood police found in his motel room came from cutting himself while shaving and from his girlfriend after she got a tattoo. Human blood found on a multitool, he said, came from a fishing accident. The sheriff's office has said none of the blood is Nevaeh's.
Staff Writer Mark Hicks contributed.
tali@detnews.com. (734) 462-2094
Sickening. Just sickening.
