The body of 5-year-old Nevaeh Adams was discovered in a South Carolina landfill on Oct. 18, 4WWL reports.
Nevaeh had been missing and presumed dead since August.
Though the search for Nevaeh had been ongoing since then, Sumter, South Carolina, Police Chief Russell Roark confirmed Tuesday that her body was found in a Richland County landfill after a 25 day search of the area.
More than 400 searchers from 40 different state and local began sifting through almost 4 million pounds of material two weeks after gaining access to the landfill on Sept. 16–the time required to set up a work space, including lights and roads for workers and authorities to travel in and out.
“It had an unimaginable impact in our community, on the family who were not ready to bury their children,” Roark said. “It’s an impact that we will live with for the rest of our lives.”
Duante Johnson, 29, who has a criminal history spanning 10 years, confessed to fatally stabbing Nevaeh and her mother, Sharee Bradley on Aug. 5. and throwing their bodies in a dumpster. During a Aug. 26 press conference, Roark said there had been “forensic evidence, including blood, collected at the crime scene that led them to charge him with killing the girl, even though her body had not been located,” 4WWL reports.
Authorities believe that Nevaeh and her mother were both killed at the same time.
“I don’t have tears because of what they found,” Nevaeh’s father Dupray Adams said on Tuesday. “She’s with the father. She’s in heaven. If that’s the case then I know she’s resting well.”
As ESSENCE previously reported, the massive, multi-state search for Birmingham, Alabama, 3-year-old Kamille “Cupcake” McKinney also came to a tragic end Tuesday night.
The toddler had been missing since Oct. 12, after she was snatched from Birmingham’s Tom Brown Village housing community during a party.
Her body was discovered in a dumpster in a landfill in Warrior, Alabama—which is approximately 20 miles away from Birmingham.
Patrick Stallworth, 39, and 29-year-old Derick Irisha Brown were charged with capital murder and kidnapping in Kamille’s death.