After searching for 11-year-old Terry Smith since Sunday, the investigation came to a close when his body turned up, buried under his family’s property on Wednesday. In the midst of the situation, a teenaged relative of Smith was arrested under charges related to the murder. 

The body was discovered around noon in what was reported as a “shallow, dirt-covered grave.” The discovery was made after four days of searching nearly a 55-square mile radius of the Lake Elsinore area.

From L.A. Times:

“News that a body had been found was a crushing blow to a tight-knit community near Lake Elsinore and the roughly 1,000 searchers who had been looking for Terry since his disappearance was announced Sunday. 

Riverside Sheriff’s Capt. John Hill, who announced that the body had been found, would not give the name of the arrested teenager, saying only that he was a family member. “This was a domestic issue within the residence,” he said at a news conference. During the search, investigators said one of the last people to see Terry was a 16-year-old stepbrother who lived at the house. The boy’s name was never officially released.”

According to the mother of the young boy, he had last been seen in blue basketball shorts and was described as “high-functioning autistic.” Without his autism medication, concerns about Smith being frightened by all of the searchers became more prominent.

Information on the case, including the time and description of the murder, is still being withheld to possibly be released at a later time.

 

Reach Executive Producer Eric Parra here.