STEWARTSTOWN, N.H. — The body of an 11-year-old New Hampshire girl who disappeared almost a week ago was found Monday in a river less than half a mile from her home, and authorities said they considered her death suspicious.
Celina Cass was reported missing July 26. Divers found her body late Monday morning near a hydroelectric dam that spans the Connecticut River between her hometown of Stewartstown and Canaan, Vt., ending a massive search, said Jane Young, senior assistant attorney general. The body was recovered from the river Monday evening.
“We have brought Celina home, obviously not the way we wanted to bring her home,” Young said.
Authorities had said that Celina, who lived with her older sister, mother and stepfather a mile from the Canadian border, was last seen at her home computer about 9 p.m. on July 25 and was gone the next morning. Police said there was no sign of a struggle, and there was no indication she ran away or that someone took her.
Young declined to say whether there were any suspects in the girl’s death. An autopsy was scheduled for today.
“Based on what we have seen visually, we are treating it as suspicious,” Young said.
According to several media outlets, Celina’s stepfather was taken to a hospital Monday morning. MSNBC reported that Wendell Noyes was taken by ambulance after repeatedly lying down in the family’s driveway and rolling around.
At the peak of the search, more than 100 federal, state and local law enforcement officers descended on the town of 800 residents, searching a mile-wide area around her home, including woods and ponds.
Because of the area’s remote location, law enforcement officers went so far as to have a cellphone tower erected to assist in communications.
Along with the MSNBC report about Noyes, there was video that showed him dropping to his knees in the driveway and then laying face- down, with his head resting on his hands.
In 2003, Noyes was involuntarily committed after he entered his girlfriend’s house in the middle of the night and threatened to throw her down the stairs, according to court documents. One document indicated Noyes suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and believed corrections officials implanted a transmitter in his body to keep track of him.
A court motion indicated at the time that Noyes served in Operation Desert Shield, the precursor to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and received a medical discharge from the Air Force because of schizophrenia.
