7-Year-Old Girl Found Dead Near School Football Game

Kentucky state police didn't take long in finding Gabriella Doolin's body. Her mom reported the 7-year-old missing from an Allen County-Scottsville High School football game Saturday evening in Scottsville, Kentucky, and 25 minutes later, police found Gabriella behind the school. Her body was in a creek in a wooded area, WAVE-TV reports. Police are calling it a homicide but haven't named any suspects or persons of interest. "You know that everybody is going to be diligent on trying to do the most that they can to help solve it," Kentucky State Police Trooper BJ Eaton tells WBKO. "Nobody wants to go home on a call like this until something can be found out."

Interviews of witnesses led police to search a property "here in rural Allen County," says Eaton, who adds that "we followed up on that and the investigation is going to continue." An autopsy, meanwhile, is expected to determine the cause of Gabriella's death. "We've never been this empty," her father Brian Doolin writes on Facebook. "I'd give anything to hold my baby girl just one more time. ... I would of gladly traded places with my baby girl.. I don't know why anyone would do this to a baby or anyone for that matter." Hundreds attended a vigil Sunday night in Scottsville, reports the Bowling Green Daily News, and a local reporter tweeted that families have been visiting the school in memory of Gabriella. Scottsville, the seat of Allen county, is a city of around 4,200 in southern Kentucky. (Alabama authorities are wrestling with the case of an 8-year-old accused of murdering a 1-year-old.)