Hailey Dunn, a student and cheerleader at Colorado City Middle School in Colorado City, Texas, was reported missing on Dec. 28, 2010. (Colorado City Police Department).
The remains of a 13-year-old Texas cheerleader Hailey Dunn have been found more than two years after she was reported missing.
Hailey's remains were found in a remote West Texas location last month, and the Texas Department of Public Safety informed her mother, Billie Jean Dunn on Friday that the remains are her daughter's, attorney John Young said.
"She's trying to process the entirety of this," Young said. "She has to process that Hailey isn't coming home."
Scurry County Sheriff Trey Wilson said later Friday at a news conference that the remains were found near Lake J.B. Thomas in Scurry County on March 16. The girl's disappearance and cause of death remain under investigation.
Officials are expected to hold a news conference Friday afternoon.
Hailey had been the subject of months of intensive searches in and around her hometown of Colorado City and surrounding fields and landfills.
More than 100 billboards featuring her picture and information about the case have been set up along interstates in West Texas and other states.
Hailey was last seen walking to a friend's house and was reported missing Dec. 28, 2010, when her mother discovered the girl had never arrived.
Billie Jean Dunn told officials she had gotten into a fight with her daughter the night she disappeared. She was arrested a few months later for lying to police about the whereabouts of Adkins, her live-in boyfriend.
Dunn was given a year's probation and reportedly moved to Austin. Adkins had been named a person of interest in the case but was never charged.
Police records revealed Adkins had made troubling statements before Hailey disappeared. According to a police affidavit filed in the investigation, Adkins had remarked to a relative that hurting a teenager would be "like killing a deer." The affidavit also noted that Dunn and Adkins had an apparent fixation on slasher movies and serial killers -- something Dunn called a "hobby."
The affidavit mentioned that in February 2010, police responded to a domestic violence call at the house. Adkins allegedly threatened to kill Billie and Hailey Dunn during a heated argument. After telling police he never issued these threats, he later allegedly confessed to police that he threatened the two. However, both Adkins and Dunn denied having any involvement in the girl's disappearance.
Adkins told The Associated Press that he would "never ever do anything to harm Hailey."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
