Sarah Payne disappeared on Saturday 1 July.
She had been playing with her brothers, Lee and Luke, and her sister, Charlotte, in a field near to their grandparents' home at Kingston Gorse, West Sussex.
Lee was the last person to see her alive as she walked through the field towards her grandparents' house.
She had been wearing a dark blue Fred Perry-style sports dress and black fabric shoes.
Minutes later, her brother realised that she had disappeared.
Despite thousands of phonecalls providing possible leads - including a possible sighting at a motorway service station in Cheshire just nine hours after her disappearance, Sarah's body was found around 15 miles away from where she disappeared.
Discovery
The discovery by a farm labourer came in the mid-morning on the A29 between Pulborough and Billinghurst, near to Brinsbury Agricultural College, West Sussex.
The naked corpse was concealed by ferns and other plants which in places were more than 4ft high.
The road is used by thousands of motorists every day and there is also a public footpath not far from where the body was found.
The discovery was immediately given top priority by the Forensic Science Service who sealed off the surrounding area for a fingertip search for clues - including the slightest scrap of DNA evidence.
Chief Inspector Mike Alderson said Sarah's parents had visited the spot where Sarah's body was discovered shortly after midday on Tuesday.
The body had been removed during the previous evening.