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DRAPER, Utah (AP) — More than two years after a 15-year-old girl's battered body was found in a Utah river, police arrested a Colorado teenager in her death Thursday.
Authorities say she knew the 17-year-old boy, who was arrested Thursday morning in Grand Junction, Colorado.
Police did not name the teenager, who they say lived in Utah on March 11, 2012, when Anne Kasprzak was found dead of blunt force trauma to the head.
Draper police Chief Bryan Roberts released few details about the investigation at a press conference Thursday. He said police never stopped looking for her killer.
The girl's mother, Veronica Kasprzak, said the news was overwhelming.
"It feels incomplete to say that it is any sort of a relief," she said. She said she's hoping in the future she'll be able to focus on pleasant memories of her daughter rather than the girl's death.
The teenager has been charged with homicide and will be extradited to Utah. Prosecutor Blake Nakamura said it isn't yet clear whether he'll be tried as an adult.
Police made two previous arrests in the case, but officers now say those men had no connection to the girl's death. The ex-convicts, then 31 and 32, were arrested a few weeks after the death, when someone told police they knocked the girl out and drove away with her body.
Investigators later said the story was made up by a drug addict who wanted to get back at the pair, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
Police said they're confident in the latest arrest, though.
Anne Kasprzak's body was discovered after a jogger noticed blood and a shoe on a footbridge over the Jordan River about 20 miles south of Salt Lake City. A helicopter search located her body, which police say was badly beaten.
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