A 15-year-old Fairfax County girl was found slain in Prince George's County on Tuesday morning, 10 days after her parents told authorities that she had run away, police said.
Prince George's police said yesterday that the body of Dalia Harir, who lived in Springfield, was found in a wooded area about 25 feet from Route 50, near the exit for Kenilworth Avenue in Cheverly. They declined to release details of her slaying, saying only that her death was ruled a homicide.
Mary Ann Jennings, a spokeswoman for Fairfax County police, said Dalia, of the 8100 block of Kenova Lane, was reported missing by her parents Dec. 4. The parents told police that she may have run away.
Her disappearance initially was classified as a possible runaway case, Jennings said, but the focus of the investigation changed after authorities learned that Dalia had violated the terms of her probation. Because the probation stemmed from a case in juvenile court, Jennings would not say what crime Dalia had been charged with.
After learning she was missing, investigators applied for a warrant for the girl's arrest, Jennings said, and her disappearance was reclassified as a fugitive case.
Dalia's body was found about 30 miles from home. Police said she had probably been dead for at least a day when road crews working near the exit ramp found her body about 10:30 a.m. She was wearing a black spandex top, jeans, black sneakers, hoop earrings and a Mickey Mouse watch, police said.
The circumstances surrounding Dalia's departure from her home remained unclear yesterday.
A woman who answered the phone at Dalia's house said in a broken voice that it was too soon for the family to talk about the girl's disappearance and death.
Prince George's police said the body, whose identity was unknown for several hours after it was found, was identified late Tuesday after Dalia's parents saw a news report about the discovery of a girl's body.
Neither a suspect nor a motive was immediately established in the slaying, which brought the year's total number of killings to 142.
Last year, 128 people were slain in Prince George's. If the pace is unchanged in the last two weeks of December, the 2004 homicide total would be the highest since 1995, when 145 people were slain in the county.
