Fulton County

Police find body that could be missing 2-year-old whose father claimed he was kidnapped

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Police are investigating if the week-long search for J’Asiah Mitchell has come to a tragic end.

Authorities confirmed to Channel 2 Action News that they have found a body that could be J’Asiah at a garbage facility in East Point. They have not yet confirmed the body to be him.

“We’re very interested to make sure or find out if this is the child. I don’t think this is a coincidence since that 2-year-old child is missing, the body is the size of a 2-year-old, so it’s a possibility that’s the case,” East Point Police Chief Shawn Buchanan told Channel 2′s Tom Jones.

J’Asiah was reported missing on Wednesday night after his father, 23-year-old Artavious North, said he was kidnapped during an armed robbery.

[TIMELINE: The disappearance of 2-year-old J’Asiah Mitchell]

Investigators learned that was a lie and J’Asiah had not been kidnapped. North was charged with lying to police. He was already in jail on an unrelated charge.

On Friday, crews began draining a small lake near North’s apartment complex to search for the boy’s body. Crews also searched in a landfill in Griffin.

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Over the weekend, family members gathered at the apartment complex where they believe J’Asiah had last been seen in a desperate hope to find him.

“My daughter wants to look for her son, so that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to look wherever she wants to look, wherever she wants to go. Whatever idea she comes up with and thinks she might need to go check it out, we’re right behind her,” J’Asiah’s grandmother Leriesa Mitchell told Channel 2′s Larry Spruill.

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