British police today said they had found the body of a missing 14-year-old schoolgirl after a massive five-week search and were hunting for a Latvian suspect.
The girl, Alice Gross, was last seen walking along a canal in west London and the Latvian man, a convicted murderer, was seen nearby at the same time and disappeared shortly afterwards.
"This is now a murder investigation," police commander Graham McNulty said.
The officer, who led the search, said the find was made in the night and "significant efforts were made to conceal the body".
The police later confirmed the body was that of Gross.
They believe the suspect, widely reported to be Arnis Zalkalns, who served eight years in prison in Latvia for stabbing his wife and burying her in a forest, may have returned to his home country.
There is no arrest warrant out for the 41-year-old man.
Hundreds of officers joined the search for Gross in the biggest police operation since a series of suicide bomb attacks in London in 2005. Royal Air Force drones were even used to find potential movements on the ground to focus on.
The River Brent where the body was found links to the Grand Union Canal where the teenager was last seen walking.
Thousands of yellow ribbons have been hung around the Hanwell area in west London where Gross's family lives in the past few weeks in solidarity.
The parents said in a statement they were "completely devastated".
Local member of parliament Stephen Pound said the investigation had shown up "pretty horrific gaps" in information-sharing between European Union countries, adding that British police should have been made aware of Zalkalns's murder conviction.
Zalkalns, who moved to Britain in 2007 after serving his sentence, was arrested but then released in 2009 following an accusation from another 14-year-old girl who said he had drugged and sexually assaulted her, British media reported.
