Mike_Yoder / AP

Riders on horseback search culverts and drainage ditches along Kansas Highway 68 for 18-month-old Lana-Leigh Bailey, Friday.

Franklin County Sheriff Jeff Richards said early Sunday that remains believed to be those of Lana Leigh Bailey — who had been presumed dead — were found Saturday in Osage County in eastern Kansas.

"It is with great sadness that I report a body found in Osage County, Kansas, is believed to be the remains of 18-month-old Lana Bailey," Richards said in a statement he emailed to The Associated Press.

He said the body was found by an Osage County sheriff's deputy who was scouring an area for items that could be connected to the deaths reported at the farmhouse May 6 in nearby Franklin County. The evidence collected Saturday when the body was found led investigators to believe it was the infant's body, his statement said.

"We hope that a forensic examination will make a final identification," Richards added.

Richards told The AP by telephone that he would not have additional information beyond his statement early Sunday.

The search crews had been using boats and sonar equipment but Richards did not say in his statement exactly where the body was found. Earlier authorities had said investigators were scouring ponds and other waterways in the area looking for the body of Lana Leigh Bailey.

Kyle Flack was charged Friday with capital murder in the deaths of Lana Bailey, her 21-year-old mother, Kaylie Bailey, and 30-year-old Andrew Stout. The 27-year-old convicted felon was also charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder in their deaths as well as the death of 31-year-old Steven White.

The investigation has included searching the farm and other rural areas in the 50-mile stretch between Ottawa and Emporia, where Kaylie Bailey's car was found Tuesday.

Franklin County Attorney Stephen Hunting said Friday that a firearm was used against the victims recovered at the farm, but didn't elaborate on whether that meant they were fatally shot. Authorities have not commented on a motive.

Richards said previously that the extensive investigation has taken a toll and that members of the investigative team have required medical attention after searching in difficult areas. Others have sought counsel from a chaplain.

Related: Kansas man arrested, suspected of murdering three or four people

This story was originally published on Sun May 12, 2013 3:59 AM EDT

A newborn baby girl was found abandoned on a beach in Hawaii, according to reports.

The 8-pound child was “abandoned immediately after birth,” state Department of Human Services Director Patricia McManaman said, according to the Star Advertiser newspaper. She was found just before midnight on Sunday.

McManaman said the girl was “doing quite well” and drinking formula, HawaiiNewsNow.com reported.

Both reports said the child was found on Sandy Beach by a 21-year-old woman, who took her to a local medical center. The woman is not a suspect, according to police.

The mother has not been identified, HawaiiNewsNow.com said.

Jonathan Kamai, a Sandy Beach regular, told the website that he was glad “the child had an angel that came and helped her out.”

“It would have to be something tragic for someone to just leave their newborn here," he added. “Just as a father, how somebody could actually just do that kind of stuff – it's just crazy.”

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Abandoned baby's mom found dead; police chief starts drive for reward money

Miami-Dade Police are investigating after a 4-year-old girl died after she was shot inside a car Saturday night.

The shooting happened just after 6 p.m. in the 12000 block of Northwest 20th Avenue, as the girl was sitting in a parked Mercedes Benz with several other small children, police said.

Somehow the girl, later identified as Rahquel Carr, was shot in her upper body. Carr was taken to Ryder Trauma Center where she later died, police said.

Related: 3-Year-Old Girl Pulled From Pool at Miami Home, Rushed to Hospital

Police said it's unclear if one of the other children in the car was responsible for the shooting. An adult was nearby when the shooting happened, police said.

Under Florida law, a firearm must be securely encased when in a vehicle. It is unclear where the firearm was located at the time of the shooting.

"We will be looking at who this firearm belonged to, were the firearm was in the vehicle at the time, along with who was present when the gun was fired," said Miami-Dade Police spokesman Det. Roy Rutland.

Related: Miami Beach Holds First Ever Gun Buyback

No arrests have been made. Children were witnesses to the shooting and Miami-Dade Police will be forced to interview them, as well as many family members, Rutland said.

"There's a lot of speculation right now as to who had that firearm at the time, but we're not in the business of speculating, we're in the business of facts," Rutland said.

Distraught family members and friends arrived to the home Saturday night to give them support.

"Someone called my daughter, and told her she got shot," said Sonia Wheelers, who said she is like a grandmother to the child. "It's horrible, it's sad."

The shooting is still being investigated and the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner Department will be conducting an autopsy on the child, police said.

A 6-year-old girl -- shot and left for dead by the Taliban in Afghanistan earlier this year -- received free reconstructive surgery at a hospital in the U.S. Friday.

"She's OK. All is good, thank God!" said Elissa Montanti of the Global Medical Relief Fund.

The nonprofit children's organization, based on Staten Island, helped bring Marizeh to the U.S. after the attack that cost the girl her right eye.

Taliban fighters ambushed Marizeh's family as they drove home in a remote, unidentified region of Afghanistan last spring, said Montanti.

Her father tried to hide the girl under his feet inside the family car but she was shot in the face, after watching both her father and brother murdered.

Read more from NBCNewYork.com

"They thought she had died. She was there for three hours before she was discovered," said Marizeh's doctor, Kaveh Alizadeh.

The plastic surgeon, who founded a nonprofit group that provides medical care to needy children, first heard Marizeh's story during a trip to Afghanistan.

On Friday, Alizadeh performed surgery on Marizeh at South Nassau Communities hospital on Long Island to help repair lingering damage to her breathing and facial structure. She had previously been fitted with a temporary prosthetic eye.

Malala, 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot by Taliban, can recover, UK doctors say

The medical care should have cost upwards of $100,000, Alizadeh said; but in this case, it was all done for free.

"To think about the trauma she’s been through and to see her come down and have a smile on her face, it’s unbelievable," said hospital chief operations officer Joseph LaMantia.

Marizeh is expected to leave the Oceanside hospital this weekend and return to the Global Medical Relief Fund's headquarters in Staten Island.

Thousands rally in Karachi for Malala, 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot by Taliban

It's unclear when she will go home to Afghanistan. Montanti declined to reveal Marizeh's last name or hometown, for fear the Taliban will target her again.

"If they know the Americans are helping them, it's dangerous. So we have to be cautious," Montanti said.

For all who helped Marizeh, it was a danger worth facing, to restore a little girl's smile.

"She is a very happy little girl, a lovely girl," Montanti said.

A six-year-old girl whose father and stepmother were sent to prison for keeping her chained up has been found dead, authorities said.

NBC station KNWA reported that the FBI and police in Bentonville, Arkansas, were investigating the suspected homicide of Jersey Bridgeman.

Her father David Bridgeman was given an 18-year prison sentence in 2011 after pleading guilty to false imprisonment, permitting abuse of a minor and endangering the welfare of a minor, The Associated Press reported. Prison records show he has a tattoo that says "Jersey."

The AP said Jersey’s stepmother Jana Bridgeman, also identified as Jana Slinkard in court records, admitted the same charges and was given a 12-year prison sentence, plus three years for a probation revocation, according to online Department of Correction records.

It reported that it was not clear who the girl had recently been living with or who reported her missing.

'Best investigation we can'
KNWA printed a press release from Bentonville Police Department that said Jersey was reported missing at 6:43 a.m. local time (7:43 a.m. ET) Tuesday.

“A neighborhood search resulted in the discovery of the child's body within a vacant house,” just 10 minutes later, the police statement said.

It added that certain details of the case were being withheld “to maintain the integrity of this investigation.”

"It's just a matter of trying to do the best investigation we can and cover all the bases," Bentonville Police Chief Jon Simpson told KNWA.

"I think if you look at any individual, a child included, by the time you add up all the people they know, all the contacts they have, if you did it for yourself, you can see how extensive that might be, and it's really no different with a child. So, that's some of the areas that we're trying to cover,” he added.

Jersey 'such a delight'
More than 100 people gathered to mourn the child at a candlelight vigil Tuesday at the Children's Advocacy Center of Benton County near Bentonville, the center's executive director, Beverly Engle, told the AP.

"There was a unique quality about Jersey," she said. "A little old soul, but such a delight."

Read more from NBC station KNWA

Engle told the AP that Jersey was interviewed last year at the center when the abuse allegations were reported to police in nearby Rogers.

According to a court document, the girl told officers she slept on the floor in the same room as her father and stepmother.

"She said that Jana and David chain her to the dresser because she had gotten up and eaten some pies, cereal, and bread," Rogers Police Detective Larry Taylor wrote in the court affidavit, the AP reported.

He added that the girl "stated that they put a belt around her waist so that she could not get up and get any food."

The case came to light after a woman who was staying with the couple contacted police about possible child abuse, according to court records.

Dog collar
That woman said she found the girl chained to a dresser with a silver chain and what appeared to be a dog collar.

David Bridgeman told an investigator that his daughter got into medication and other things around the house, so he and his wife decided to chain her to the dresser at night so she couldn't wander off, according to court records.

"He said that he thinks she may be sleepwalking and that they discussed buying a child gate, but since he does not have a job, they could not afford to buy one at that time," Taylor, the detective, wrote in the court affidavit.

Read more US stories from NBC News

The father said he cut a belt to make it fit around his daughter's ankle and added a lock on the chain after she pulled it off, according to court records.

At some point, his daughter complained that the collar hurt her leg, so he chained her by the waist instead, court records indicate.

"It should be noted that the chain that David used was approximately one to two feet in length and appeared to be a dog choke collar," Taylor wrote in the affidavit. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Barry Gutierrez / AP

Police search near the 9800 block of Alkire St. on the west side of Stanley Lake in Arvada, Colo., on Thursday. Police are not saying whether a body found in Pattridge Park on Wednesday is linked to the disappearance of 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway.

A body found in Arvada, Colo., during the search for missing schoolgirl Jessica Ridgeway is "not intact," delaying the official identification of the remains, police said Thursday.

AP

Jessica Ridgeway disappeared while making the short walk to school Friday.

Westminster Police spokesman Trevor Materasso said police have not tied the discovery of the body to the search for the missing girl, however, they hope to have a positive ID on the body by Friday.

The body was removed from Pattridge Park in Arvada -- an area dotted with abandoned coal mines about five miles southwest of Westminster -- by police just before 9 p.m. Wednesday (11 p.m. ET).

Authorities said Wednesday that they believed Jessica, a fifth-grader with blond hair and glasses who loves math and gym class, had been abducted. She disappeared Friday on what should have been a short walk to school in Westminster.

In their search for Jessica, police have dismissed any connection to several related cases. 

In one, police in Portsmouth, N.H., said there was no link between an abandoned car with a Colorado license plate found at a Walmart and the investigation into Jessica’s disappearance. Instead, police said the car belongs to a woman who recently moved from Colorado to New Hampshire, and she parked at the Walmart because she doesn’t have parking at her home.

In another, police said they were investigating whether Jessica’s case might be related to that of another girl who was abducted for several hours Monday in Cody, Wyo.

Police explore link between missing Colorado girl and Wyoming abduction

In that case, a man lured the 11-year-old girl into a sport utility vehicle, saying he needed help finding his puppy. The girl was released four hours later and was discovered by hunters. Police there are looking for a white man, between 55 and 60 years old, with short, strawberry-blond or white hair and a neatly trimmed mustache.

Westminster police spokeswoman Karlyn Tilley noted there is "no specific connection" between Jessica's disappearance and the Wyoming case. "It's just like everything else they're looking at," Tilley said Wednesday. "They just don't want to leave any stone unturned."

Adding to the mystery was a reported sighting more than 2,000 miles away in Dexter, Maine.

A woman reported seeing a girl who looked like Jessica on Sunday, in a blue Buick station wagon with Colorado plates. Authorities issued a statewide alert for officers to stop any blue Buick station wagons with Colorado plates, Dexter police Sgt. Alan Grinnell said.

Citizens also have passed on tips from Maryland, Texas and Nevada, Materasso said.

Police release new photos, video in search for missing Colorado girl

Backpack, water bottle found
Police in the Denver suburb of Westminster repeatedly have urged the public to study the details of Jessica’s face in a photo — a small, gap-toothed grin, a slight bruise on her nose — and a short home video, in hopes they may have seen something or come across the girl.

The only real clue police have revealed is the discovery over the weekend of a backpack and water bottle that Jessica had with her when she disappeared.

The items were found in the town of Superior, some six miles from her home. Police won't discuss what was found in the bag or testing results on it.

The search for Jessica went national, thanks in part to social media and a Facebook page set up to help find the girl.

"Do your good deed of the day and retweet Jessica's photo," hundreds of Tweets urged Wednesday.

Kathryn Scott Osler / The Denver Post via AP

After giving the interview, Jessica's mother Sarah Ridgeway and father, Jeremiah Bryant, embrace at the Westminster Police Department Tuesday.

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