Amber Dubois Update: Police Investigating Link to Sex Offender John Gardner
ESCONDIDO, Calif. Investigators in the Amber Dubois killing announced Monday that they are focusing on John Gardner, the sex offender charged with the murder of Chelsea King.
PICTURES: Chelsea King MissingPICTURES: Chelsea King Vigil
Amber disappeared Feb. 13, 2009, near Escondido High School, about 10 miles north of the site where Chelsea vanished on Feb. 25, 2010. Amber's bones were found, over a year after her disappearance, in a remote area of the Pala Indian Reservation, about 30 miles from where she disappeared.
A body presumed to be Chelsea's was found March 2 in a shallow, lakeside grave, but authorities have said they would not make an official identification until Gardner's preliminary hearing.
Escondido Police Lt. Craig Carter did not elaborate on the investigation and only said the scene where Amber's body was found was still being processed.
Investigators also would not say what led them to the location of Amber's remains, less than a week after Chelsea King disappeared, but did say that Gardner has not been cooperating with the investigation.
Gardner, 30, pleaded not guilty last week to murdering and raping or attempting to rape 17-year-old Chelsea King of Poway and attempting to rape another woman in December in the same park where King disappeared.
Gardner was expected to make his second court appearance Tuesday in the potential death penalty case.
Amber's mother, Carrie McGonigle, said she was grateful for the sense of closure after the long hunt for her daughter.
"I'm managing," McGonigle said in a brief interview. "It was a roller coaster the last year and now we have closure, which is more than a lot of parents have."
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