Police: Body Is Infant Thrown From Bridge

The body of one of four children allegedly thrown from a coastal bridge by their father was recovered Saturday, Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran announced.

At a press conference this morning, Cochran said, "The inevitable nightmare that we had feared has now been confirmed."

A search of waterways around Dauphin Island for the children - ranging in age from a few months to 3 years - began Tuesday.

The father, Lam Luong, has been charged with capital murder in the deaths.

According to CBS affiliate WKRG, the body of an infant was found this morning by a duck hunter about five miles west of the bridge, in a marshy area called Pointe aux Pines, near Bayou La Batre, home of the Luong family.

A forensics team is on the scene.

Search crews entered the water about 7 o'clock this morning, concentrating on the area around the center of the Dauphin Island bridge where sonar picked up something of interest late Friday afternoon on the bottom of Mobile Bay.

Law enforcement says sonar showed images of what they believed to be three children. Strong currents prevented police divers from reaching that location until returning today.

Earlier this week, a district attorney said the father had confessed to investigators that he had thrown the children off the bridge after an argument with his wife. But the father later recanted and claimed two Asian women took the children Monday and never returned them.

Yesterday, a witness reported seeing four children in their father's vehicle on the bridge from which investigators say he tossed them, and another witness later saw the father leave the area without the children, a sheriff said Friday.

Sheriff Cochran said the witness accounts contradict Luong's claim that he was coerced by authorities into saying he threw them from the bridge Monday morning.

If convicted, he could be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.