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Police: '99 percent sure' body is missing WA boy

By The Associated Press

Story Created: Mar 19, 2010 at 6:46 AM EDT

Story Updated: Mar 19, 2010 at 6:46 AM EDT

SEATTLE (AP) - Washington state authorities say they're "99 percent sure" that a child's body found earlier on an island beach in Puget Sound is that of an 8-year-old boy who vanished with his mother last weekend.

Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer says the body found Thursday by a beachwalker on Fox Island, southwest of Tacoma, has the same mohawk haircut and clothes as that of Azriel Carver.

The county medical examiner is planning an autopsy and will make the final identification.

A beach, water and air search was launched in the Fox Island area for the boy's mother, 29-year-old Shantina "Kat" Smiley of Silverdale, who disappeared with the boy on Saturday night. Her abandoned minivan was found on a remote Olympia-area beach about 12 miles south of the island.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)