Breeann went missing on Aug. 6 and was last seen in front of her home near Senath in southeast Missouri.

Morgan told authorities he had suffocated her with a white plastic trash bag and that it “felt like it took an hour for the girl to die.” He also told police that he tossed the girl’s body in the same trash bag he used to suffocate her and threw it over a railing along Missouri 164 and into a floodway ditch.

He said that when he got home, he dismantled the bicycle the girl had ridden earlier and tossed it in the same water system as the body. A bike found in the water system has been identified as belonging to the girl. Her body has not yet been found.

Morgan was being held without bond. He was charged over the weekend with first-degree murder, armed criminal action and tampering with evidence.

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A 65-year-old minister who mainly serves his area’s senior citizens, Ridulph once shared a bedroom with his sister and already has his headstone placed on a burial plot next to her grave. With McCullough’s arrest, he worries about a drawn-out legal process that will dredge up bad memories but also perhaps answer some nagging, stomach-churning questions about what happened to the little girl who loved to play dress up.

Maria disappeared Dec. 3, 1957, while doing what kids in Sycamore did then — playing. Maria’s friend, Kathy Chapman, who was 8 at the time, recalled that she and Maria were under a corner streetlight when a young man she knew as “Johnny” offered them a piggyback ride. Chapman, now 61 and living in St. Charles, Ill., told the AP she ran home to get mittens and that when she returned, Maria and the man were gone.
The search for Maria grew to involve more than 1,000 law enforcement officers and numerous other community members, ultimately catching the eye of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who requested daily updates.

Jack Daniel McCullough, 71, has been held in Seattle on $3 million bail.

Police suspected McCullough, who lived less than two blocks from the Ridulphs and who fit the description of the man said to have approached the girls, Thomas said Friday. But McCullough seemed to have an alibi, claiming he took the train from Rockford to Chicago the day of the abduction.

His story fell apart last year after investigators reinterviewed a woman who dated him in 1957 and asked her to search through some personal items, the Seattle Times reported, citing court documents. She found an unused train ticket from Rockford to Chicago dated the day the girl went missing.
“Once his alibi crumbled, we found about a dozen other facts that helped us build our case,” Thomas said.

The Times reported investigators also determined a collect phone call McCullough purportedly made to his then-girlfriend from Chicago actually came from his Sycamore home the day Maria vanished — and he gave a ride to a relative when he should have been on the train.

Ridulph doesn’t believe a conviction will bring closure or help the town heal.

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Phillip Garrido, 60, will be housed in Corcoran State Prison’s Protective Housing Unit for inmates whom officials believe wouldn’t be safe in the general population, the California Department of Corrections said. The unit is the longtime home of 1960s cult killer Charles Manson. Other inmates include John Albert Gardner III, who pleaded guilty last year to raping and killing two teens in San Diego County, as well as mass murderer Juan Corona and Michael Markhasev, the killer of Bill Cosby’s son.

Garrido admitted to snatching Dugard off a street in South Lake Tahoe in June 1991, when she was 11. He held her captive in a secret backyard compound in the San Francisco Bay area suburb of Antioch. During her captivity, she gave birth to two daughters fathered by Phillip Garrido, the first when she was 14. Garrido’s wife also admitted to kidnap and rape. She has also began her serving her decades-long sentence earlier this month.

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Nestor Gabriel Caballero Gutierrez and two others attempted to rob and kidnap the chairwomen of Columbia Sportswear, Gert Boyle in November. Last month, the ringleader, Gutierrez, begged for forgiveness when he was sentenced to 14 1/2 years in jail.

Boyle was approached at her suburban home in Portland, Oregon by a man offering a gift basket who then pulled out a gun when she refused to sign a copy of her book. She was able to trigger a silent alarm and police captures Gutierrez hours later, limping and covered with mud. She claims that the defendants caused her to suffer indignity, violence and indescribable fear-changing her life forever.

It remains unclear why the three defendants targeted Boyle and what would have happened to her had they succeeded, prosecutor Rusty Amos said. Investigators know that Caballero Gutierrez was going to take her back to his house. Police said last year that Boyle was roughed up when her hands were tied, but she wasn’t seriously injured. The three defendants were expecting to make $300,000 from the plot, The Oregonian reported.

Along with Gutierrez, 47-year-old Arevalo will serve almost six years in prison, and the 42-year-old Midence will serve 9 ½ years.