Montgomery County police said they believe they have found the body the 11-year-old boy whose mother was found slain in her Germantown home last week.
At about 9:15 a.m. Tuesday, search crews found the remains in a wooded area off Route 121, about a quarter-mile west of Route 355 in Clarksburg.
Capt. Paul Starks said the body appears to be 11-year-old William McQuain. They are sending the remains to the medical examiner’s office to confirm the identity and determine the manner and cause of death, Starks said.
Detectives recovered surveillance video from a self-storage facility in Germantown that they say indicates McQuain’s body might have been in the wooded area since Oct. 1.
The video shows William and his step-father, Curtis Lopez, going in and out of a storage unit on the morning of Oct. 1, police said. William appeared to be in a playful mood and showed no signs of distress, they said.
The clothing that the sixth-grader was wearing in the video is similar to the clothing found on the boy’s body that was located Tuesday, police said.
Dana Davison, principal for Martin Luther King Middle School, said William loved to play all sports, especially football.
“We are grieving today for William — one of our children, one of our students, one of our members of our community,” Davison said. The school has been keeping students and parents apprised on the case since the news of William’s disappearance broke last week, she said.
Extra counselors will be on hand for the rest of the week.
William was last seen Sept. 30 at his mother’s apartment in the 13100 block of Briarcliff Terrace in Germantown. Last Wednesday, police found 51-year-old Jane McQuain in her bedroom, beaten and stabbed. She had been dead about 10 to 12 days, police said.
Lopez, 45, was arrested last Thursday at a hotel in Charlotte, N.C., on a warrant for first-degree murder in the slaying of 51-year-old Jane McQuain.
Charlotte police said they recovered a box cutter knife and nine $100 bills in Lopez’s hotel room and 18 copies of a marriage certificate inside his car.
Lopez has not been charged in connection with the William’s disappearance.
But, Starks said Tuesday morning, “he is our prime suspect.”
Ronald McCombs, a former boyfriend of Jane McQuain’s told The Associated Press, that Lopez had tried to become a role model for William and asked the child to call him “Dad.”
McCombs said William’s mother told him several weeks ago that she feared that Lopez would hurt her.
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