The search for Audrii Cunningham came to a heartbreaking end on Feb. 20, five days after the 11-year-old from Livingston, Texas, left home to catch the bus to school and never made it onboard.
Amid an exhaustive investigation involving local, state and federal authorities, divers recovered the child's body from the Trinity River under the U.S. Highway 59 bridge, according to Polk County Sheriff Byron Lyons. Authorities previously announced that a small backpack that likely belonged to a child had been found Feb. 16 near the Livingston Dam, about 10 miles upstream.
"My heart aches with this news and I express with my deepest sympathies and condolences to everyone who knew, who cared for and loved Audrii," Lyons said at a news conference following the grim discovery. "The sheriff's office, we will continue to process the evidence that has been gathered to ensure justice for Audrii."
At the time they had a person of interest who was already in custody on an unrelated felony charge, Polk County District Attorney Shelly Sitton told reporters, and her office was in the process of preparing the "appropriate arrest warrant."
And on Feb. 21, Don Steven McDougal was charged with capital murder in connection with Cunningham's death.
He had been staying in a camper behind the house where the fifth-grader lived with her father and grandmother, according to authorities.