Shawn Morgan, a 43-year-old Missouri resident, has confessed to police that he suffocated his three-year-old neighbor, Breeann Rodriguez, for playing in his backyard swimming pool, MSNBC is reporting. He was charged with first-degree murder, armed criminal action and tampering with evidence in connection with the girl’s disappearance.

Morgan told an agent of the Bootheel Drug Task Force that he grabbed Rodriguez and took her inside his home after finding her standing on the ladder of his pool. He suffocated her with a white plastic trash bag, and then threw her body, which he kept in the bag, in a floodway ditch along Missouri 164. The girl’s body has yet to be found, however.

When he arrived home, Morgan said he dismantled the bicycle Rodriguez was riding, and later tossed in the same water system as her body. Police have found a bike that has been identified as belonging to her in the water system.

Dunklin County Sheriff Bol Holder has said that investigators have been looking for Rodriguez’s body in a series of ditches in Hornersville. The ditches are about six miles from Senath, where the girl lived and was last seen on August 6. Holder added that police have helicopters and dogs searching for the body.

Morgan is being held without bond, and has yet to hire an attorney. His arraignment is scheduled for August 16 in Dunklin County Circuit Court in Kennett.

Written by: Karen Benardello