Missing Linda Stoltzfoos Update: Human Remains Found Believed To Be Of Pennsylvania Teen

Human remains found Wednesday in a rural area in southern Pennsylvania were believed to be those of a teenager who had gone missing 10 months ago, the police said.

Linda Stoltzfoos, 18, was reported missing on June 21, 2020, after she didn’t return from a youth group, which she was supposed to be attending in Lancaster County, ABC News reported.

Following initial investigation, authorities in Pennsylvania had arrested a 34-year-old man named Justo Smoker in July on suspicion of kidnapping the girl. Smoker was charged with felony kidnapping and misdemeanor false imprisonment in connection with Stoltzfoos' disappearance, and was facing an additional charge of criminal homicide in December after investigators concluded the teenager had died, and the former caused her death, ABC News had reported at that time.

Investigators believed Stoltzfoos was kidnapped on her way to the social gathering.

The area was searched by law enforcement and volunteers for a total of 15,000 hours as of April, but they found no trace of Stoltzfoos. The members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Pennsylvania State Police, and the East Lampeter Township Police Department in Lancaster County conducted a search operation Wednesday during which the remains were found, the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office said in a statement.

"The scene will be forensically processed, and the remains will then be released to the Lancaster County Coroner for official identification and determination of cause and manner of death," the district attorney's office said in the statement. "The Stoltzfoos family has been notified of this update and are understandably still processing this information."

"We ask that the family be given privacy during this difficult time," the statement further read.

Smoker was arrested from the place of his employment after articles of clothing suspected to belong to Stoltzfoos were found buried in a wooded area near to her place of disappearance, and the description of the vehicle which was used to kidnap the teenager matched with that of Smoker's.

He is currently being held at Lancaster County Prison awaiting trial. He was deemed ineligible for bail due to the nature of the crime and the ongoing investigation.