BRUNSWICK, Ga. - A 6-year-old boy who vanished a week ago while playing near his trailer-park home was found slain Thursday after a registered sex offender and three other suspects stymied investigators for days with conflicting stories of the youngster's fate.

Glynn County Police officer Shane Nolen guards the entrance to Canal Road where the body of missing six-year-old Christopher Michael Barrios was found in a black trash bag in Brunswick, Ga., Thursday, March 15, 2007. [AP]

Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering said all four suspects would probably be charged with murder in the slaying of Christopher Michael Barrios. Doering said it was obvious the boy had been killed, but he would not say how and would not disclose how long the body had been there.

The body was found in a black trash bag among some trees and brush just 15 feet from a roadside behind the Glynn County Airport. A Department of Natural Resources game warden helping in the search, Cpl. Jesse Cook, said he and a co-worker stopped to investigate when they spotted tire marks where a car had pulled off the road.

Once they got out to look, they found the bag in plain sight.

"It was obvious," Cook said. "But if you weren't looking for it, you probably would've thought it was just a trash bag."

About 60 volunteer searchers, many wearing T-shirts printed with the boy's photo, hugged and wept as Doering confirmed Christopher's death to reporters.

"You suspected all along in your heart, it's just not the outcome you want," said Mari Charnock. "At least we know, though. At least it's over."

Earlier this week, police arrested four people - a convicted child molester living in the trailer park, his parents and a friend of theirs - in connection with the boy's disappearance.

Investigators said the four told a tangle of conflicting and ever-shifting stories - that they knew nothing about the boy's disappearance, that the boy was still alive, and that he had been abducted, killed and buried. But repeated searches of the spots where the boy was supposedly buried turned up nothing, investigators said.

Doering said none of the tips from the suspects led to the discovery of the body. The body was found near the county airport, miles away from the patch of dense woods close to the trailer park where investigators were led to believe the boy had been buried.

Christopher lived with his father in a neighborhood of about 50 mobile homes along a narrow, U-shaped road just outside of Brunswick. Neighbors told police that they last saw the boy on the evening of March 8, playing by himself on the swing set outside a friend's home. One of his toys, a Star Wars lightsaber, was found beside the road.

George David Edenfield, a mentally slow 32-year-old man who lived with his parents across the street from the boy's grandmother, was arrested and charged with violating his probation from a 1997 child molestation conviction, which prohibits him from contact with children. Police said he admitted playing a role in Christopher's disappearance, but they would not be more specific.

Neighbors say the Edenfields moved into the mobile home park less than a year ago. Word soon spread that one of them was a convicted child molester, a rumor neighbors easily confirmed via Georgia's online sex offender registry.

Many kept their distance from the Edenfields' ramshackle trailer, with filled trash bags and aluminum cans piled under the rickety porch.

Neighbors said the man sometimes behaved like a child. Doering, the police chief, said the man is not mentally retarded - "he's just not too bright" and sometimes responded to questions like a 5-year-old.

Edenfield's parents were jailed on charges of obstruction and lying to police because they first denied knowing anything about the boy's disappearance, then later said they knew he had been abducted, authorities said.

The same charges were brought against a fourth suspect, Donald Dale. Police said he told them he helped bury the boy.