Man jailed for life for murder of UK 5-year-old girl

LONDON (AP) - A former slaughterhouse worker has been jailed for life for abducting and murdering a girl whose body was never found despite a massive police search.

April Jones, 5, was last seen getting into a van in the town of Machynlleth, Wales, last October.

Mark Bridger was arrested the next day. He was convicted on Thursday of abduction, murder and unlawfully disposing of the girl's body.

Traces of the girl's blood and bone fragments were found in Bridger's cottage. Hundreds of volunteers combed woods and fields for little April after her disappearance.

Bridger maintained that April had died accidentally. But judge Griffith Williams said Bridger was "a pedophile who ... harboured sexual and morbid fantasies about young girls."

He jailed Bridger for life without the possibility of parole.

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