Four Bahamian boys have been charged with manslaughter following the death of a missing 12-year-old boy.
The dead child, named as Jake Grant, was one of five schoolboys who have disappeared on the Grand Bahama Island over the past five months.
The four defendants, aged 11 to 15, were charged in connection with his death in a closed court session on Friday.
The disappearance of the students has been the biggest mystery to hit the Bahamas in recent years and residents there feared a serial killer or satanic cult was at large.
Angry crowds
Police have not disclosed details of the charges and have not said whether or not the dead boy's body had been found.
Armed guards held back angry, shouting crowds as the boys - with their faces concealed - were escorted to a police van.
The suspects are being held at a juvenile detention centre in the Bahamian capital, Nassau, on New Providence Island.
Jake Grant was a student at Jack Hayward High School in the resort town of Freeport.
He disappeared on 9 May after leaving his family home in an apartment building.
Four other schoolboys have since disappeared from Freeport.
The five all worked bagging groceries at the same supermarket and played games at a nearby arcade.
Their disappearance caused shockwaves across the Bahamas - a nation of about 300,000 people and some 700 islands between Florida and Haiti.
Local police are being helped in their investigations by FBI agents from the United States and British officers from Scotland Yard.
Assistant Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade told the Associated Press news agency on Friday that police were treating each of the five cases as "a distinct and separate matter."
They are still searching for the other four missing boys: Mackinson Colas, 11, DeAngelo McKenzie, 13, Junior Reme, 11, and Desmond Rolle, 14.
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