Missing Boy Found Dead in Arkansas

LITTLE ROCK, AR (AP) -- Searchers on Wednesday found the body of a 3-year-old boy missing for more than a week, floating in a southwestern Arkansas lake near his mother's home.

Ouachita County Sheriff David Norwood said authorities found the body of Dominick Arceneaux, barefoot and clad in denim shorts, floating in White Oak Lake. Dominick's body was only 10 feet from the shore, Norwood said.

The body was taken to the state Crime Laboratory in Little Rock for an autopsy. Norwood said foul play was not suspected in Dominick's death, but "nothing's been ruled out."

Dominick disappeared outside his mother's mobile home on Feb. 10. Amber Arceneaux's home in Chidester is separated from the cove where the boy's body was found by thick briar patches and woods.

Norwood said it was possible that the boy drowned elsewhere and his body floated down the shoreline.

Authorities with search dogs previously scoured a one-mile radius around Dominick's home without coming across anything, and an extensive search of the lake turned up no sign of the boy.

Cadaver dogs aboard boats twice alerted handlers near where the boy was found, but divers and searchers found nothing, Norwood said.

"Someone of his size and body mass, it would take seven to 10 days before he would float," Norwood said.