Elizabeth Collins, Lyric Cook-Morrissey Update: Mother of dead girl, 8, says police are eyeing specific people

By: Crimesider Staff
Topics: Daily Blotter

Undated photos of Lyric Cook-Morrissey (left) and Elizabeth Collins (right).

/ Personal Photos

(CBS) EVANSDALE, Iowa - Nearly two weeks after missing Iowa cousins Elizabeth Collins and Lyric Cook-Morrissey were found dead, police say they have made no arrests and have taken no persons of interest into custody in the case.

PICTURES: Bodies of missing Iowa cousins identified

But Heather Collins, the mother of Elizabeth, told CBS affiliate KCCI that police are looking at specific people.

Blackhawk County Chief Deputy Rick Abben didn't go nearly as far in a phone interview Monday afternoon, according to the station.

"We haven't aimed in on any one specific person or gender or anything like that," Abben said.

Elizabeth Collins was 8-years-old and her cousin Lyric Cook was 10 when they disappeared on July 13 in the northeast Iowa community of Evansdale.

"I can't imagine somebody hurting someone, let alone a child," Heather Collins said.

A hunter discovered the cousins' bodies Dec. 5 near a park about 25 miles from their homes.

"...They (police) are looking for some people, but they can't give us the exact, because they don't want to leak anything out. But there are people they are looking at," Collins told KCCI.

Due to a lack of evidence, chief deputy Abben reportedly said they can't even come up with a profile of the killer.

The state medical examiner has not released an official cause of death for the cousins.. It could take weeks before that information is known, the station says.

"We don't want to know how they were murdered. We don't want to know any details," Heather Collins told KCCI. "We just want to know when they got the person... that's it."

Complete coverage of the case of the missing Iowa cousins on Crimesider