Police said Wednesday that they have unearthed the body of a 13-year-old girl after being led to her burial site by the man convicted of killing her in 1986.
Eastpointe police Corporal Martin Genter Sr. said Chief Michael Lauretti confirmed that searchers found the remains of Cindy Zarzycki on Wednesday evening.
Genter says Lauretti told him the body was found where Arthur Nelson Ream had led police after being temporarily released from prison earlier Wednesday. The body was found in Macomb County's Macomb Township, about 15 miles northeast of Eastpointe, where Cindy was last seen alive on April 20, 1986.
Family members identified a purse and its contents, including cassette tapes, as Cindy's, Lauretti said.
Ream was convicted of first-degree murder June 18 in the girl's killing. He is to be sentenced this month to a mandatory term of life in prison without parole.
Ream told investigators Tuesday that Zarzycki's body was buried near a creek, Lauretti said. He also drew a map of the site 25 miles north of Detroit, the chief said.
Ream spent about an hour at the search scene with authorities before being returned to the Macomb Correctional Facility in New Haven.
He gets no legal benefit from helping to locate the body, prosecutor Eric Smith told the Detroit Free Press for an online story published Wednesday. Ream told investigators he wanted to clear his conscience, police said.
Ream is accused of meeting with Zarzycki the day she disappeared on the pretense of taking her to his son's surprise birthday party. Ream is serving a 15-year sentence in a state prison in Muskegon County on an unrelated molestation charge involving a 14-year-old girl.