Body of missing Jiangxi schoolboy found

The body of the 15-year-old boy who went missing from a high school in Yanshan county, Jiangxi province last October has been found in the woods near the school, local police said on Sunday.

On Oct 14, Hu Xinyu, a student at Zhiyuan Senior High School, was reported missing. According to video footage provided by the school, he was last seen at 5:48 pm in the school's dormitories. Hu was believed to be on his way to classrooms in a nearby building for an evening study session.

The search for the boy had been ongoing ever since.

Around 12:25 pm on Saturday, police received a call from a member of the public saying they'd seen a body in the woods in Jinji Mountain near the school. After investigation, it was found that the clothes on the body matched those Hu had been wearing at the time of his disappearance, Yanshan police said in a statement.

The police then asked local prosecutors, representatives of the family and the family's lawyer to preside over the investigation. According to DNA results that came out on Sunday, the body is indeed of Hu.

A digital voice recorder found at the scene has been sent to be analyzed while criminal investigation experts have been invited to join the investigation, according to the statement. It added that details of the case will be made public in a timely manner.

Zheng Xiaojing, the family's lawyer, told Southern Metropolis Daily on Sunday that the family has given the police permission to carry out an autopsy.

Hu's disappearance has been a hotly discussed topic in China. On Jan 7, the investigation team said in a letter to the public that the police were making their every effort to locate Hu and four rounds of investigations had been carried out.

All school properties had been searched and there was no indication that Hu had been killed, committed suicide or had an accident on school grounds. The team also searched 39.27 hectares of woods south of the school and found no sign of the missing boy.

Since Jan 9, the investigation has mobilized locals to widen the search in the woods near the school. About 5,000 people were involved, local media reported.

In the early hours of Sunday, Li Lianying, Hu's mother, posted a video on social media saying: "Xinyu, we are on the way to finding the truth. We won't stop".