Authorities arrested Ryan Brunn on Wednesday afternoon. He is charged with killing 7-year-old Jorelys Rivera, who went missing from the apartment complex in Canton, Georgia, Friday.
"He was well-known in the apartment complex because he was employed there," said Vernon Keenan, the head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
"This investigation will continue on for several months. This is mammoth case. We believe that this horrendous crime was planned and calculated," Keenan told reporters.
Jorelys' body was found at the complex three days after she went missing.
"We have evidence that the murder occurred in (a) vacant apartment. At some point the child's body was then disposed of in the Dumpster and compacted into trash," Keenan said.
Authorities have said that she died of blunt force trauma to the head, was stabbed and had been sexually assaulted.
Jorelys likely died between an hour and an hour and a half after she disappeared, Keenan said earlier.
He also said that investigators discovered what they believe is blood in a vacant apartment unit.
Relatives of the little girl were devastated by her death.
"My world collapsed," her father, Ricardo Galarza, told CNN affiliate WAPA in Puerto Rico. "I couldn't believe that they robbed her from me."
"They destroyed my soul," her grandmother, Wanda Ivette Rivera, told the same network. "They took a piece of my heart."
Another family member, Miriam Rivera, urged the state of Georgia to "throw the full weight of the law to the person who did this."
Jorelys was last seen alive Friday near a playground at her apartment complex. Police initially thought she might have wandered off, but, after more than 48 hours of searching, they said they believed she was kidnapped.
"It's so close to home. To think she was just right there at the park and from there disappeared is the scariest thing," Maria Rodriguez, a friend of the girl's mother, told CNN.
Canton police, assisted by the FBI and the GBI, expanded the search area Monday and began canvassing for sex offenders living nearby.
Earlier in the day, as volunteers and police handed out fliers with information and a picture of the missing child, her mother spent the morning in court trying to regain custody of her other children, who were taken by the Department of Family and Children's Services over the weekend in the wake of Jorelys' disappearance for alleged lack of supervision.
Her request was denied and the children remain in the department's custody, according to the Cherokee County Sheriff's Department.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/07/justice/georgia-slain-girl/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
