The body of a teenager missing in the US has been found in a river tied to a shopping cart – 13 weeks after she disappeared. Samantha Humphrey, 14, was last seen near a park in upstate New York at 11.30pm on November 25.
A fisherman on a pier saw the body in the Mohawk River, in the city of Schenectady, on Wednesday afternoon and alerted authorities.
Family members then confirmed to local media on Thursday that it was Samantha’s body.
The teenager’s head was seen floating under an old railway bridge and her body was tied up inside a shopping cart.
Officials expect autopsy results to be made public on Monday at the earliest.
“Obviously she didn’t tie herself up in a shopping cart and sink herself,” a family member told WNYT.
They added that the family “was prepared for this day”, and said “it is almost certainly a homicide”.
“When a s*** day becomes an even more terrible day, but at least now there is closure of sorts,” another family member wrote on Facebook.
“We’ve all dreaded this day and here it is.”
Officers have not said if foul play is suspected in the death of the person pulled from the water.
Grandad John Matarazzo told the Daily Gazette the family has been “distraught” since she disappeared after sneaking out of the house.