The FBI has found human remains in its search for two Oregon girls who have been missing for several months.
They have identified the body of one of the two missing 13-year-olds hidden in a shed and have found the remains of another person buried on the same property.
Investigators said no charges have been filed in the disappearances of Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis but that the man who had been living on the property, Ward Weaver, was a suspect. Weaver is in jail, accused of raping his son's girlfriend.
FBI agents began searching Weaver's rented property in the rural community of Oregon City, 20 miles south of Portland, early on Saturday and found a body in a shed.
FBI special agent Mr Charles Mathews told reporters at the scene yesterday that the body had been identified through dental records as being that of Gaddis.
Oregon City police chief Mr Gordon Huiras said agents recovered a second set of human remains in one of several barrels that were unearthed from underneath a recently laid concrete slab.
"I'm confident we have a case," he said. "I would say . . . Mr Weaver is a suspect in the case based on our findings here on this property".
Weaver's home is just outside the entrance to the apartment complex where the two teenagers disappeared. Pond disappeared in January and Gaddis vanished in March, both before school.