area street and honked, police said.
Today, Martin County Sheriff's Department officials arrested Chester
Duane Price, 42, who recently lived in Haleyville, Ala., and charged him
with first-degree murder and kidnapping of a child under the age of 13,
after he was indicted by a grand jury.
Price was acquainted
with Andrea at the time of her disappearance, and also knew another man
police once eyed as a potential suspect, officials told ABC News
affiliate WPBF in West Palm Beach, Fla.
"The investigation has
concluded that Price abducted and killed Andrea Gail Parsons," read a
sheriff's department news release.
"Tragically, at this time, her body has not been recovered."
The sheriff's department declined to specify what evidence led to
Price's arrest for the crime after 19 years or to provide details to
ABCNews.com beyond the prepared news release.
Reached by phone, a sheriff's department spokeswoman said she did not know whether Price was yet represented by a lawyer.
Price was being held at the Martin County Jail without bond and was
scheduled to make his first court appearance via video link at 10:30
a.m. Friday.
In its news release, the sheriff's department
cited Price's "extensive criminal history with arrests dating back to
1991" that included arrests for cocaine possession, assault, sale of
controlled substance, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and
violation of domestic violence injunction.
"The resolve to find
Andrea and get answers surrounding the circumstances of her
disappearance has never wavered as detectives and others assigned have
dedicated their careers to piecing this puzzle together," Martin County
Sheriff Robert L. Crowder said in a prepared statement. "In 2011, I
assigned a team of detectives, several 'fresh sets of eyes,' to begin
another review of the high-volume of evidence that had been previously
collected in this case."
A flyer dating from the time of
Andrea's disappearance, and redistributed by the sheriff's office after
the arrest, described her as 4-foot-11 with hazel eyes and brown hair.
She was last seen wearing blue jean shorts, a dark shirt and clear
plastic sandals, according to the flyer.
The sheriff's
department became involved in the case after Andrea's mother, Linda
Parsons, returned home from work around 10 p.m. on July 11, 1993, to
find her daughter missing and called police, according to the initial
sheriff's report.
11/30/2012: Andrea Gail Parsons Missing Case Update: Police have arrested a 42-...