The body of missing Alice Springs 5-year-old Sharon Granites has been found after her alleged abduction, police have confirmed. Photo / NT Police

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this contains images and names of a deceased person.

The body of Sharon Granites has been found, five days after she was allegedly abducted from her Alice Springs home.

Police on Thursday confirmed the discovery of the 5-year-old, who disappeared from her home in Old Timers Camp on the outskirts of Alice Springs on April 25.

“Just before midday today, police members of the search party located the body of a young Aboriginal we believe to be 5-year-old Sharon Granites,” NT Police Commissioner Martin Dole said in a short press conference just two hours later.

“The body was found about 5km south of the crime scene at Old Timers Camp.

“This is an incredibly distressing development.

“Sharon’s family have been notified and our thoughts are firmly with them at this devastating time.”

He said police could not yet say how she died or how long she had been dead.

The body of Sharon Granites has been found, police have confirmed. Photo / NT Police

Assistant Commissioner Peter Malley, who is leading the investigation, said the focus now was to find Jefferson Lewis, who they allege abducted her.

He said child’s underwear found on Wednesday had been analysed and two DNA profiles were located on the underwear.

“What is expected, one belongs to the little girl, Sharon, and the other belongs to Jefferson Lewis,” Malley said.

“So the focus right now is to locate Jefferson Lewis. It is our sole job in this investigation right now.

“I say to the family of Jefferson Lewis that we believe he has murdered this child. Do not assist him. Get him to the police station and we will look after him.

“I say to Jefferson Lewis that we are coming for you.”

NT Police are hunting for Jefferson Lewis, who is wanted for the alleged murder of 5-year-old Sharon Granites. Photo / NT Police

Previously, NT Police had alleged 47-year-old Lewis – who they said was at the house at the time of Sharon’s disappearance – may have taken the 5-year-old.

Police said Lewis was seen walking out of the house “with the little girl, holding hands” about 11pm on April, 25.

She was reported missing two hours later in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Malley said there was a social gathering taking place at the house at Old Timers Camp, where Lewis was staying at the time.

“We believe Jefferson Lewis has led the little girl away,” he said.

Malley said Lewis – who they believe may have been “under the influence of alcohol” at the time of the alleged abduction – had been released from prison only six days earlier.

Her disappearance sparked one of the largest searches in the Northern Territory, with more than 100 volunteers on the ground alongside police, helicopters, ATVs, horses and the dog squad.

Aboriginal trackers have also assisted in the search, which stretched in the 20sq km radius of the Old Timers Camp, scouring through shoulder-high barrel grass and tough terrain.

Malley said the search for Sharon was “one of the biggest investigations we’ve had going for a while”.

“This is a declared major crime and as such I have got access to all the resources of the Northern Territory Police,” he said.

The moment the lead investigator received the final forensic packet, the air in the precinct seemed to vanish, replaced by a heavy, clinical silence that signaled the end of a long and agonizing hunt. A source present in the room described a scene of stunned stillness as the data confirmed what many had feared but few could prove: a perfect genetic match linking Jefferson Lewis to the very ground where Sharon Granites was discovered. For the officers who had lived and breathed this case for months, the confirmation was supposed to be a moment of triumph, yet the atmosphere shifted almost instantly from relief to a profound, unsettling confusion. The “match” was not the straightforward victory the prosecution had envisioned, because as the pages were turned, it became clear that the laboratory had identified two distinct biological signatures belonging to Lewis, and the second result introduced a variable that remains scientifically unexplained within the context of the timeline.

This second sample was recovered from an area of the scene that should have been pristine, and the state of the genetic material suggested a temporal impossibility that has left forensic experts baffled. According to internal theories currently circulating among the investigative team, if the data is accurate, it would imply that Lewis had been at that exact location on two separate occasions separated by a significant amount of time, yet the environmental degradation of the samples did not align with the known weather patterns or the biological decay of the primary site. This has led to a controversial hypothesis that the crime scene may have been “staged” or revisited long after the initial event, or perhaps even more disturbingly, that the evidence was subject to a rare form of environmental preservation that science cannot yet fully categorize. The speechlessness described by those in the room stemmed from the realization that while they had their man, the “how” and the “when” had just become infinitely more complex.

The weight of this unexplained second result creates a haunting narrative gap in the final hours of Sharon Granites. If we follow the speculative thread that Lewis returned to the site, it paints a picture of a suspect who was not only present at the moment of the tragedy but was tethered to the location by a psychological compulsion that forced him to revisit the scene of his secret. This potential for multiple visits suggests a level of obsession that goes beyond a singular moment of redirected passion, hinting at a ritualistic or hauntingly repetitive behavior that the initial investigation never accounted for. The second DNA result acted as a silent witness to a part of the story that Lewis has yet to acknowledge, suggesting that the ground itself held memories of his presence that he believed were washed away by time.

As the legal team prepares to bring this evidence before a jury, the unexplained nature of the second sample remains the ultimate wild card. It is the detail that keeps investigators awake, the statistical anomaly that refuses to fit into a neat chronological box. For the family and the public, the confirmation of the match provides a name and a face to the tragedy, but the second result remains a lingering shadow, a reminder that even when science provides an answer, it often uncovers a deeper, more chilling question. The atmosphere in that room changed because the detectives realized that while the DNA had identified the person, it had also revealed a mystery about his actions that might never be fully understood, leaving the final chapter of Sharon Granites’ story written in a genetic code that defies simple explanation.