Homicide: 8-year-old girl's body found in West Frankfort home
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The West Frankfort Police Department is investigating the death of an 8-year-old girl whose body was discovered in the crawl space of an East Oak Street home early Tuesday morning.
West Frankfort Chief of Police Jeff Tharp told the media that the girl had been reported missing by a parent earlier in the morning.
Authorities are treating the girl's death as a homicide.
West Frankfort Fire Chief Wes Taylor said West Frankfort police officers requested an ambulance to the residence, located at the 1704 East Oak St., at 2:30 a.m concerning the missing child. Taylor added that officers were already on scene and had discovered the body when the ambulance arrived.
Emergency workers used a heart monitor on the girl, but no signs of life were present. Herrin Hospital was then contacted and granted personnel permission to transfer the girl to the coroner's office.
The girl's body was removed from the home after 6:30 a.m., making the residence and the surrounding premises a crime scene.
Dispatchers indicated that police officials were conducting a number of interviews with witness late Tuesday morning and were unavailable for further comment Tuesday morning.