Until this point, the scenario that the community and the police had feared was that an older male predator had snatched up the girl as she walked home alone through the woods. No one suspected that it was a member of the community, much less a teenage girl. But details began to emerge and rumors quickly spread.A teenager was described as a person of interest. The police had gathered some evidence, writings that led to the teenager. Bustamante didn't show up for school the day after the murderher first and only unexcused absence.
Shockingly, the teenager then led the police to the body. It had been in the very woods they had been searching.
"We had been in that area actually more than once. The body was very well concealed," Cole County Sheriff Greg White told the press.