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| Family and friends react to the news Tuesday that search teams have found the body of a young white male wearing clothing similar to what Ben Stanford was last seen wearing. Photo: Andy Johns/The Anniston Star |
VILLA RICA, Ga. — The weeklong, two-state search for a missing Lincoln teen ended Tuesday with the discovery of a young man’s body. Now, investigators are trying to learn what happened to him.
Just before 2 p.m., Carroll County, Ga., officials stepped into an RV in a grocery store parking lot to deliver grim news to the family of Donoho School student Benjamin Preuitt Stanford. The body of a teenager wearing clothes similar to Stanford’s was found in a wooded area near where the missing boy’s SUV had been abandoned a week before. An official said there was no sign of what caused the young man’s death.
| Star Multimedia |
 Slideshow: Search for Ben Stanford  |
The discovery came at the end of a search by more than 100 volunteers, who combed through nearly a square mile of kudzu and pine trees south of Interstate 20 near the west Georgia town of Villa Rica.
Carroll County Chief Deputy Brad Robinson confirmed volunteers had found the body of the young man about three-quarters of a mile from where Stanford’s 2007 Jeep Cherokee was found Nov. 5, a few hours after he failed to show up for class at The Donoho School in Anniston. Robinson said authorities would not be able to confirm the body’s identity until after a Georgia Bureau of Investigation autopsy today.
State Sen. Jim Preuitt, Stanford’s grandfather, said Alabama State Troopers told him the body found was his grandson’s.
Lynne Stanford, Ben’s mother, confirmed Tuesday that the clothing description “matched what he was wearing the last time he left the house,” and that the body was discovered “not a great distance from where the vehicle was abandoned.”
The discovery ended more than a week of searching by Stanford’s friends and family, but left many questions as to how he died, where he had been that day, and how his body came to rest in the kudzu-knotted field where he was found.
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