ADDISON – A community continued to mourn Sunday as word spread that the body of a 17-year-old Columbia teenage girl, who had been the object of an intensive weeklong search, was recovered from the Pleasant River.

Marine Patrol Warden Russell Wright found Krystal Higgins’ body near the boat launch early Saturday morning while dragging the area. Someone on the shore spotted the body and pointed it out to law enforcement.

“[The warden] discovered the body about five feet from the shore,” state public safety spokesman Stephen McCausland said Saturday night.

Krystal Higgins had been missing since Saturday, Aug. 7, when she failed to return home after dropping off friends in Columbia Falls. She told friends she was headed home.

Police speculated that Higgins might have tried to visit a male friend she had a crush on who lived not far from the landing. She had tried calling him a couple times on her cell phone after midnight the night she disappeared.

“Everyone is just devastated,” Washington County Sheriff Joe Tibbetts said Sunday. Tibbetts lives in the area. “She was a good kid, not the kind to get into trouble,” he added.

McCausland said authorities planned to conduct an autopsy Monday in Augusta to determine the cause of death.

State police still do not know the circumstances that led to her death. “We will wait for the medical examiner to give us some indications after they’ve examined the body,” McCausland said. “She went into the water and the window was partially down and the theory at the moment is that she tried to escape.”

Authorities had searched that area in the past couple of days after Higgins’ car was found Thursday submerged off the Addison boat launch.

“It’s a tidal cove,” McCausland explained. “There’s no way to tell where it was, but that was an area where divers had searched and one possible explanation was she was out farther and then floated in with the tide overnight.”

Higgins did not live with her family. A senior in good standing at Narraguagus High School, she was legally emancipated from her parents just before she turned 16.

Her father is incarcerated at Down East Correctional Facility in Bucks Harbor. He is scheduled to be released in October.

Since April she had been living with Debra Skeate, the mother of Tara Skeate, her best friend since fourth grade. Before that Higgins had been staying since October with Janis Lesbine’s family, also in Columbia.

In between the two extended living situations, Higgins tried reuniting with her stepmother. That lasted just a few days. “She didn’t get along with her stepmom at all,” Tibbetts said. “She got emancipated and she worked two jobs. Everything she had, she bought herself. She worked hard, but she played hard.”

Debra Skeate said Saturday night she had been at the landing just before Higgins’ body was found. “I was down there saying prayers. I had put a blue candle down there. She liked blue and I had just left there and went to speak with Lenny Weaver, one of the people she worked for,” she said. “I no more got home and her father [Tom Higgins] called me from Bucks Harbor and said, ‘Is it her?'”

She went back to the landing and waited. “I waited until the hearse left,” she said.

Skeate said that Higgins’ mother, Lisa Fredette, was en route Sunday from Brockton, Mass. “I will probably go over with Lisa to make the funeral arrangements on Monday. We don’t expect Krystal back from Augusta until late Monday,” she said.

Skeate said that she hoped authorities would release Tom Higgins early. “He’s in there for a violation, driving without a license. Habitual offender,” she said.

Krystal Higgins had hoped to reunite with her father in October. “They were going out to his trailer,” Skeate said. “She would have been a senior this year.”

Pausing for just a moment, Skeate reflected on the past week. “I feel more at peace today then I have all week,” she said. “Because I know where she is now.”

Friends hope to raise money to help pay for funeral expenses and establish a scholarship in Krystal’s name.

Anyone who would like to donate should make checks payable to Kimberly Bailey Look in the name of the Krystal Higgins Memorial Fund. They can be sent to Look at P.O. Box 129, Columbia Falls 04623.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.