The murdered body of a 13-year-old girl who vanished from her school bus stop in Northern California was found in a park not too far from where she lived.

Police released a disturbing photo of Genelle Conway-Allen taken by a surveillance camera minutes before her disappearance on the afternoon of Jan. 31, after she exited a bus and was en route to her residence from Green Valley Middle School, where she was a seventh grader.

Eric May, a 54-year-old homeless man, found her lifeless body in the parking lot of a park in Fairfield, Ca. on Feb. 1, roughly five miles from where she was last seen alive. However, the police didn't officially identify Genelle as the victim until Tuesday afternoon.

"She looked like a mannequin. It hurts my soul to think someone could do that to a little girl. I'm haunted by the image of her laying there without a stitch of clothing," May told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Police are currently on the lookout for the murderer in the considerably quiet suburb between San Francisco and Sacramento. The girl was said to be living a troubled life prior to her death.

"She had a hard life, and this is how it ends. It's tragic. She was always the one looking out for her family, even when her family wasn't looking out for her," Allen's aunt Natalie Paasch, 20, told the news publication.

Genelle's relatives said the young girl was last witnessed getting off the bus from the school. The video footage shows her walking with her backpack about five miles from the park that her body was found last week.

The girl's foster parents reported her missing at about 5:45 p.m. on Jan. 31 when she never came home after school.

Police have yet to state the cause of her death, but it was revealed that there were no clear signs of trauma.

Tags
Offbeat