CLAYTON, N.J. (AP) — Police removed a bicycle Tuesday from a home near where a 12-year-old girl's body was found in a recycling bin, a case that has spread fear and worry through a town that had been desperately searching for her since she disappeared while on a ride through the neighborhood.
Authorities did not confirm the bike was the one belonging to Autumn Pasquale, but it matched the description of the white BMX she was seen riding Saturday afternoon before she disappeared. They also recovered a backpack they believe was hers.
Gloucester County Prosecutor Sean Dalton would not call the death a homicide and said there were no suspects. Autopsy results were pending.
But if someone is found responsible for the death of Autumn, who would have turned 13 next Monday, "they don't deserve to be walking the streets," he said at a news conference Tuesday.
Three teenage brothers live at the home where the bike and backpack were found, said two friends of the brothers, Na'eem Williams and Jodie Robinson, both 16. One of the teens in the home traded BMX bike parts, according to a young man, Corey Hewes, 19, who said he was among those who traded with him.
The house was a place where teens frequently hung out and had parties, some neighbors said.
Autumn's body was found around 10 p.m. Monday in the bin just blocks from her house and from Borough Hall, where thousands of people gathered earlier in the evening for a tearful candlelight vigil to pray for her safe return. It was not clear whether the bin was on the same property where the bike was recovered or on the adjacent lot of a vacant home.
"The search for Autumn is over," Dalton said Tuesday. He called Clayton a safe community but said parents should continue to keep close watch on their children.
The girl's great-uncle, Paul Spadofora, gathered with other relatives at the news conference to thank the community for its help in the search. The victim's parents did not attend.
"There's evil everywhere, even in the small town of Clayton," Spadofora said.
Crime scene investigators arrived shortly before 9 a.m. in the neighborhood where the body was found. Authorities did not say exactly where the recycling bin was found.
But Tuesday was trash collection day, and many residents had dragged their trash cans and recycling bins to the curb the night before. The covered recycling bins are collected by an automated truck that picks them up and dumps the contents into the back.
Police barricaded the block, and friends and neighbors came by to see. Some mothers said they were keeping their kids out of school for the day. Even before the body was found, students reported that Spirit Week had been canceled because of the sorrow.
One young man rode a bike up, sat on a porch of a home and cried, then biked away.
Clayton Mayor Thomas Bianco walked to the scene, cried, hugged a police officer and gave a brief statement to the gathered reporters.
"You hear about it in other places but never think it would happen in our little town," he said.
Howard Kowgill, 60, who lives in town and, like many, knows members of Autumn's family, said the discovery of the body changes the nature of the town.
"Until they find out who did it, you don't let your kids out," he said.
Autumn was last seen around 12:30 p.m. Saturday pedaling her bike away from the home where she lives with her father, her two siblings, her father's girlfriend and the girlfriend's children, authorities said.
Relatives said they believed she was heading to see a friend, and they became worried only after she did not return by her 8 p.m. curfew.
Sunday morning, her disappearance became not only a crisis but a town-wide cause in Clayton, a town 25 miles south of Philadelphia. Volunteers by the hundred joined the search, scouring malls, nearby towns and passing out fliers.
By Monday evening, officials were thanking the volunteers for their help but asking them to call it a night.
Hundreds of people returned Monday for the vigil. Spadofora, the great-uncle, said he hoped the town could gather again a week later, with Autumn back, with candles to mark her birthday.
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