DNA analysis confirmed that the body recovered in the woods behind Ada H.H. Lewis Middle School in East Germantown is that of Kada Scott, the young woman who officials say was kidnapped two weeks ago, law enforcement sources said Sunday, and new details emerged about what led investigators to find her corpse.
An anonymous tipster contacted police Friday night, adamant that Scott’s body was on the grounds of the school.
Police had missed it in their earlier searches, the tipster said, and they should look along the old wooden fence that divides the school from the recreation center next door, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
“GO BACK YOU MISSED HER,” the tipster wrote, according to the sources.
And so, investigators returned to the school on Saturday morning, freshly scouring an area police had focused much of their search efforts on throughout the week after cell phone location data placed Keon King — the man suspected of kidnapping Scott, 23, from her workplace on Oct. 4 — nearby on the night she disappeared.
Days earlier, they had found Scott’s debit card and pink phone case behind the school, but nothing else.
Officers were walking through the densely wooded area again on Saturday afternoon, the sources said, when one stepped on a patch of earth that felt softer than the rest — leaves, sticks, and debris scattered loosely on top.
Police excavated the area, and, a few feet down, they found Scott’s body.
It’s not yet clear how she died. It could take days or weeks for the Medical Examiner’s Office to determine the cause of death.
But new video evidence suggests that Scott was likely killed within just 30 minutes of her leaving her workplace the night she went missing, the sources said.
The discovery of the shallow grave, two weeks after Scott disappeared, came after anonymous tips that grew more detailed with each passing day, the sources said, coupled with location data from Scott’s Apple Watch, and finally, new surveillance footage recovered near the school.
It was a painful end to a search and story that Scott’s family and people across Philadelphia had prayed would end differently.
Scott, a vibrant young woman from the Ivy Hill section of Mount Airy, disappeared from her workplace, a nursing home in Chestnut Hill, on the night of Oct. 4.
Investigators believe she and King, 21, had been texting, and that night, she walked out of work to meet him shortly after 10 p.m. but never returned.
Police are still investigating the nature and extent of Scott’s relationship with King.
After detectives identified King as a suspect, they pored over the location data from his and Scott’s phones. It showed that King was the last person in touch with Scott on Oct. 4, that his phone traveled with hers briefly before her phone was turned off, and that he was in the area of Awbury Arboretum later that night, a law enforcement source said.
Late last week, police learned that Scott had been wearing an Apple Watch on the night she disappeared. Location data showed that, around 1 a.m., the watch was in the parking lot of the Awbury Recreation Center, said the source.
Investigators went to the recreation center on Friday and recovered new surveillance footage that showed King pull into the parking lot around 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 4 in a Hyundai Accent that had been reported stolen, two sources said. He left the car there that night — most likely with Scott’s body inside, the sources said.
The footage appeared to show King return to the car two days later and retrieve and move what they believe to be Scott’s body, the sources said. It’s not clear whether he acted alone.
The next day, the sources said, the car was set on fire behind homes on the 7400 block of Ogontz Avenue. King’s cell phone data placed him there at the time of the blaze, the source said. (Police had initially been searching for a gold Toyota Camry that King was seen driving but no longer believe that car was used in the crime, the sources said.)
The district attorney’s office said prosecutors would wait for additional information from police and the medical examiner before determining whether to charge King in connection with Scott’s death.
King is expected to be charged with arson in the coming days for allegedly setting the car on fire in West Oak Lane, according to the sources.
Police don’t know the identity of the tipster who steered them to the location of Scott’s body. But if King had help moving it, the sources said, the accomplice may have confided in others, and one of those people may have contacted police.
The investigation is continuing.
Staff writer Maggie Prosser contributed to this article.
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