Ten-year-old Lily Peters was killed after leaving her aunt's Wisconsin house to bicycle home, police said.
Ten-year-old Lily Peters died from blunt force trauma and strangulation, according to preliminary autopsy results released this week in a heartbreaking murder case that has rocked a western Wisconsin town.
The girl was allegedly killed by a 14-year-boy she knew, Chippewa Falls police said, as she headed home Sunday from her aunt's house, which is four blocks away, authorities said.
Her father called police at 9 p.m. Sunday after his daughter didn't come home.
After an intensive overnight search, Lily's battered body was found near a walking trail on Monday morning. Her bike was nearby. Her remains were just down the road from her home, police said.
On Wednesday, the teen boy was charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the child's killing. Chippewa County District Attorney Wade Newell said the boy punched Lily in the stomach, knocked her to the ground, hit her with a stick and choked her "to the point of death." Then he sexually assaulted her body, Newell said.
The teen told investigators told police "his intention was to break and kill the victim from the get-go as he left the house and walked down the street with her," Newell told the court.
The suspect has not been identified because of his age, and authorities have declined to say whether he is a relative of the child.
The house the boy and Lily left from belongs to the girl's aunt, according to authorities.
Chippewa Falls Police Chief Matthew Kelm said Thursday his town remains devastated by the killing.
"We were ready to continue looking for the missing girl, hoping that she was gonna show up to school the next day, that we could call off the search, and then when we learned that that wasn’t going to happen, it hit us all very hard," he told Fox News' "The Story."
The chief said hundreds of tips to police helped investigators make an arrest.
"I know that our tip line and other tips that came in, we had over 200, I believe, and tips from the public were of great help in solving this case as quickly as we did," he said.
