WASHINGTON -- A police search team on Tuesday discovered the body of a boy they believe to be 11-year-old William McQuain, whose mother was found murdered in her Germantown, Md., condominium on Oct. 12. The boy was last seen on Sept. 30 and the woman's estranged husband, Curtis Lopez, was arrested last week in North Carolina and stands accused in her murder.
According to WTOP, Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger found the remains in a wooded area off Route 121 in suburban Clarksburg, about 30 miles northwest of the nation's capital. At a press conference, the chief said that the forensic investigation was "just beginning."
Over the weekend, police searched Damascus Recreational Park and Bennett Regional Park for William McQuain. According to Germantown Patch, police deployed 80 people, five K-9 teams and seven mounted teams to search for him. Community members have also been part of the search effort, according to Patch.
The search continued on Monday in Clarksburg, where police combed an area adjacent to Interstate 270. A Montgomery County Police captain, Paul Starks, told WTOP on Monday that they still held out hope in finding the boy alive, but "there's the reality with these types of investigations sometimes that isn't the case."
On Friday, friends of the McQuains and other supporters held a candlelight vigil outside William McQuain's middle school.
Lopez reportedly did not cooperate with police in the search for his stepson. On Monday, Lopez signed papers in a North Carolina courtroom that will start the extradition process to Maryland, though no timetable has been set, according to The Washington Post.
According to The Associated Press, Jane McQuain, the murdered mother, told people that she feared Lopez. Ronald McCombs, McQuain's ex-boyfriend, told the AP that she told him that she and Lopez had been arguing about money and that Lopez refused to leave her condominium several times.
This post has been updated to reflect new information on the search.