MINNEAPOLIS _ The biological mother of a missing 16-year-old Minnesota teen has been charged with murder after her remains were found in a burn pit in southern Missouri.
Ozark County Prosecutor John Garrabrant said Rebecca Ruud was charged Tuesday with first- and second-degree murder in the killing of Savannah Leckie, who had gone to live with her mother in Missouri.
Leckie was reported missing in July and her remains were verified Monday.
Ruud is now in jail, according to authorities.
Ozark County Sheriff Darrin Reed said Monday that dental records from Minnesota helped confirm that the skeletal remains belong to Leckie, who had been missing from the 81-acre farm home where she had been living for 11 months with Ruud. The remains turned up about 1,200 feet from the home during a search on Aug. 4.
"From information I received (Monday) from forensic specialists, and evidence that was obtained, the remains that were recovered are those of 16-year-old Savannah Leckie, of Longrun (Mo.)," Reed said in a statement. In a follow-up statement Tuesday, Reed said, "The investigation has intensified."
There had been little doubt among Leckie's adoptive parents, Tamile Montague of Minneapolis and David Leckie of Park Rapids, who are divorced, that the remains would be anyone but their daughter's.
"Our family is in deep grief and is mourning Savannah as her remains were identified (Monday)," Montague said in a statement released late Tuesday morning through the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center. "This is not the outcome that we were hoping and praying for."
Montague went on to say that her daughter's family is "grateful for the countless hours that the Ozark County Sheriff's Office has dedicated in searching for Savannah. We know that their work continues as they investigate her death."
Jail records Tuesday morning list the 39-year-old Ruud as being in custody. She has yet to be charged. Ruud had volunteered publicly that she was being investigated as a suspect in the case. She started an online campaign on GoFundMe to raise money to pay for an attorney.
Ruud has told authorities that the teen was home when she went to sleep on the night of July 19 and was not there the next morning. Ruud said she and a neighbor searched the property and then contacted authorities later that morning.
"Police are investigating me, which is good that they are eliminating me as a suspect," she explained on a GoFundMe campaign to raise money online for an attorney. The page has since been taken down.
Ruud's boyfriend also was living at the farm at the time Leckie disappeared. Ruud and Robert E. Peat Jr. were married on the day the remains were found. Jail records in Missouri do not list him as being in custody.
Montague last spoke with her daughter on the teen's 16th birthday on June 3, family friend and spokesman Cary Steeves said.
