Jacoby Campbell's Daughter Kiaya Murdered, 15-Year-Old Boy Arrested

A 15-year-old boy was arrested Saturday by police in Thornton, Colorado, on charges of first-degree murder of Kiaya Cambell, a 10-year-old girl, who went missing Wednesday and was found dead Thursday.

Campbell’s body was recovered hours after an amber alert was issued around 1:30 p.m. local time (3:30 p.m. EDT) in the area of 128th Avenue and Jasmine Court in Thornton, which was about two miles away from where she was last seen, 9News reported.

The girl lived with her mother in Montbello, Colorado, and was not very familiar with the area near her father’s house in Thornton. She was last seen visiting a nearby shopping center near her father’s residence with a 15-year-old boy, her father’s girlfriend’s son. Campbell’s father, Jacoby Campbell, told the police his daughter and his girlfriend’s son were separated due to a rainstorm when either headed toward or back from the shopping centre. The neighbors contradicted this account by reportedly saying it was not raining at the time.

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It is not yet clear if the suspect taken into custody by the Thornton police was the same as the one accompanying Campbell before she went missing, Fox News reported.

When his daughter went missing, Jacoby posted the announcement on his Facebook page, asking people to help in her search. In fact, it was a resident of Thornton who was helping with the search for Kiaya that found her body.

After her death, Kiaya’s father also set up a Go Fund Me page to raise money for the 10-year-old’s funeral.

“I can't thank everyone personally one on one and I am sorry for that. I do want to say that we are so thankful that so many of you are helping our baby rest. As her memorial comes we will inform everyone about it,” he wrote on the fundraising page.

But this is not the first time that her father posted information about a missing child. In fact, making people aware of missing children seems to have been Jacoby’s part-time hobby, and starting June 2016, he began posting pictures and information regarding children who have gone missing.

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The last post he shared was on April 27, and it was about a 13-year-old Haley Doane in Evergreen, Colorado, who had gone missing.

One Facebook user expressed shock at the fact that a man who helps keeping people informed about missing children would himself end up losing his daughter to a crime of a similar nature, and insinuated some involvement on Jacoby's part.

If the 15-year-old suspect arrested by Thornton police is formally charged with first-degree murder, the maximum punishment that he can be given under the law would be life imprisonment with a chance of parole after 40 years. This is because the teen suspect is below the legal age limit, and Colorado law states that a juvenile convict cannot be given a death penalty or a life sentence without a chance of parole, regardless of how serious his crime(s) might be.

However, the district attorney could ask the teen be charged as an adult. This gives the court the freedom to take into account the maturity of the suspect, the severity of the crime, the manner in which it was committed.