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Female Body Found At Dam Near Missing N.H. Girl's Home

Updated at 1:40 p.m.

Investigators searching for an 11-year-old New Hampshire girl missing for almost a week found a female's body, but authorities didn't immediately identify it, a Vermont prosecutor said Monday.

The body was found near a hydroelectric dam that spans the Connecticut River between Stewartstown and Canaan, Vt., Essex County state attorney Vincent Illuzzi said.

Celina Cass was last seen in her Stewartstown, N.H., home on July 25.

This 2010 photo provided by the New Hampshire State Police shows Celina Cass of West Stewartstown, N.H., in a basketball team uniform in Canann, Vt. (AP)
This 2010 photo provided by the New Hampshire State Police shows Celina Cass in a basketball team uniform in Canann, Vt. (AP)

A dive team searched the river Monday. They surfaced, and investigators blocked off the area and asked reporters to leave.

Cass, who lived with her older sister, mother and stepfather a mile from the Canadian border, was last seen at a computer around 9 p.m. and was gone the next morning, authorities said. Police said there was no sign of a struggle, and there was no indication she ran away or that someone took her.

No one was more baffled than friends and family, who described Cass as studious and reliable, shy and timid, not the type to run away from home.

State police and FBI agents from as far away as New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia turned the local school into a bustling command post. Because of its remote location, law enforcement officers went so far as to have a cellphone tower erected to assist in communications.

At the peak, more than 100 federal, state and local law enforcement officers descended upon the town of 800 residents, searching a mile-wide area around her home, including woods and ponds. The FBI brought in a special team specializing in child abductions.

This program aired on August 1, 2011. The audio for this program is not available.

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