FORT FAIRFIELD – Bringing a sad end to a case that has tugged at the hearts of many, investigators said Friday afternoon that the body found at Tinker Dam in New Brunswick earlier this week has been positively identified as that of 3-year-old Alexandria Winship-Wright, who has been missing for more than eight weeks.

Fort Fairfield Police Chief Joe Bubar made the announcement in a written statement.

Final confirmation of the young girl’s identity was made by comparing a DNA sample taken from the child’s body to DNA samples taken from her parents.

As published in previous reports, the body of a young girl was found at 3:15 p.m. Tuesday on a ledge of the dam wall.

Officials believed from the start that it was the body of Winship-Wright, who disappeared from her Fort Fairfield residence on April 25. Police believe the child, wearing a light-blue shirt, dark-blue pants and tiny pink boots, trudged to the Aroostook River, about 50 yards from the back door of her apartment house, and was swept away by the fast-moving river and drowned.

When the girl’s body was found, it was clad only in bluejeans.

The child’s mother, Mandy Wright of Fort Fairfield, told officials that she had stepped away to use the bathroom and when she returned, her daughter had disappeared.

An official from the Maine Warden’s Service and Detective Stan Nicholson of the Fort Fairfield Police Department traveled to New Brunswick to obtain a DNA sample from the body. The sample was taken to the state police crime lab in Augusta for analysis.

An autopsy was performed Wednesday in Saint John, New Brunswick, but the results were not available Friday. The child’s body is now expected to be released by New Brunswick authorities.