Police Find Girl's Body in California Lake

(CBS/ AP)  Last updated at 6:36 p.m. EST

Authorities have resumed the search for 17-year-old Chelsea King in Southern California. Meanwhile CBS TV Affiliate KFMB, San Diego reports law enforcement officials have Photos: Chelsea King Missing Crimesider: Who is John Albert Gardner III? The San Diego Union-Tribune said Tuesday that Gardner had faced a maximum of nearly 11 years in prison under terms of his plea agreement. Prosecutors urged six years - the sentence later ordered by a judge.In their 11-page sentencing memo, prosecutors said Gardner "never expressed one scintilla of remorse for his attack upon the victim" despite overwhelming evidence.The girl was beaten before escaping from his home and running to a neighbor.Psychiatrist Dr. Matthew Carroll wrote in sentencing documents, "There is no known treatment for an individual that sexually assaults girls and does not admit to it in any way."Gardner is now in custody without bail for investigation of murder and rape as thousands of authorities and volunteers search for the 17-year-old King, who disappeared Thursday from a wooded park in San Diego County."Until I hear differently, I believe she's alive," her father Brent King said Tuesday on CBS' The Early Show.Chelsea King is a straight-A student at Poway High School who plays French horn for the San Diego Youth Symphony, competes on her school cross-country team and volunteers in a peer counseling program.Police have said they found unspecified physical evidence linking Gardner to the disappearance and would decide by Wednesday whether to file charges.Investigators found an article of clothing belonging to King, according to KTLA. Police have not described the evidence, but King's mother reportedly told several news outlets Monday that her daughter's underwear was found in the Lake Hodges area, about 30 miles north from San Diego, according to the station.

Gardner of Lake Elsinore pleaded guilty in May 2000 to molesting a 13-year-old female neighbor. Prosecutors said he lured the victim to his home with an offer to watch "Patch Adams," a 1998 movie starring Robin Williams.

Investigators also suspect Gardner could be tied to a Dec. 27 assault on a female jogger from Colorado who fended off her attacker in the same park where King disappeared.

In an interview Monday with The Associated Press, the Kings, who also have a 13-year-old son, recounted learning that their daughter had disappeared.

Brent King had returned from the gym around 5:30 p.m. Thursday, the same time his wife, Kelly, 48, got home with groceries. Chelsea, who always kept them advised of her whereabouts, wasn't home.

"Because it was so out of character for Chelsea not to tell us or call us and say I'm going to be late ... we just had that feeling," Brent King said.

For more with the Kings and Klaas, who has counseled the couple since the disappearance of their daughter, click on the video below.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

[Dgunner]

LETS CONDEMN THE GUY BEFORE THE PROOF COMES IN THAT WAY THE JURY CAN BE SWAYED BY A PREDJUDICE MEDIA. iM NOT STICKING UP FOR THE GUY IM ACTAULLY SAYING IF THE ARTICLE APPEARS IN THE CBS SITE IT MUST BE GOSPEL.THE IGNORANT AND SHEPPISH PEOPLE ARE THE TYPE THAT PUT HITLER IN HIS COMMAND.

[cambry1]

Prisons are full of non-violent offenders because of the "law & order" philosophy perpetrated by politicians and swallowed whole by a majority of the public. It is time to become realistic, stop incarcerating pot heads, pimps, drug trafficers and johns, and start providing sociopaths with sentences that fit the crime. But this isn't going to happen. Business as usual.

[justinwhit99]

Wow, that is so sad. She was so pretty. I hope they catch the loser who did this and deal with him harshly.

Jess
www.anonymous-web.es.tc

[quotelawrence]

I say they legalize everything and if you have a problem you take care of it if not than go about your business stop all this lock up crap and just start getting busy.

[culturechang]

This is the priority problem with the system. In my town, they gave 8 years each (no parole) to a group of poeple who operated massage parlors busted for prostitution. They determined that the operators recruited consenting women for sexual services. No kids....no force....no restraint.

And instead of keeping a child molester in prison, the system will release him to make room for these political persecutees of moral crimes.....drug offenders included. This is all because the prisons are overfull with convicts from too many regulations on everything.

We no longer have room for criminal in prison because we have too many persecutees from political grandstands in Congress.

[th9876]

BRAVO! You took the words right out of my mouth!

[jnostromo]

It is time for the people in this country to wake up and demand that the legal system be changed. There should be an automotatic death penalty for rapists, murders and sex offenders. As has been shown in hundreds of cases , sex offenders cannot be rehabilitated. How many more innocent lives are we going to allow to be destroyed by these pieces of human refuse. I have served on numerous juries in my city and it amazes me the number of people who don't have the guts to apply the proper punishment to fit the crime. All you have to do is put yourself in the shoes of these victims families, imagine if it happened to one of your children or family members.

[vietnamwar]

Sex offender will continue to rape and kill our children unless we change the law to punish this criminals...(like chope it off)..if ya'll look at the pattern, they all end up rape and kill our children when they got out the JAIL...PUNISH LIKE SAUDI....

CHOP IT OFF ON THE SECOND STRIKE .....

[andacar]

This is all starting to take on a wearyingly familiar cast. Yet another incorrigible pervert is released early after committing a heinous crime. Then he goes out and kills somebody. One wonders what exactly needs to happen before lawmakers wake up.

[leeanna59]

I don't know why young women go out jogging or walking alone? It could be argued that they have a right to go out any time and do whatever whether with someone or not. Yes, that is correct, but why not be safe rather than sorry?