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A 4-year-old girl was murdered by her own parents and dissolved in corrosive chemicals before being poured into a creek, police said.

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According to the Daily Mail, Javeayah Harris was believed to have been dead for a month before her parents, Michilae Herring and Johnmarea Harris, reported her missing on June 30. The pair told police she was last seen at the family home just outside Aiken, South Carolina, and claimed she vanished into thin air.

Police now believe Herring inflicted a fatal injury on Javeayah and then used corrosive substances to dispose of her. She was "poured" into a lake in what Aiken County Sheriff Marty Sawyer branded "repulsive and revolting."

Sheriff Refuses to Call Them Parents

"I will not refer to them as mom and dad or mother or father, they don't deserve that title," Sawyer said. He added that the couple had taken "extensive and deliberate efforts" and used "corrosive chemicals and other tools" to "accelerate the destruction of her little body."

Parts of Javeayah's body were discovered in the Cedar Creek Reservoir and identified through DNA testing. Her father is a fisherman, sharing images as recent as late May fishing in a creek.

"They went through great lengths to cover their repulsive and revolting actions. In my 37-year career in law enforcement, I've never heard of anything so horrific. It is unlikely the entirety of her body will be recovered," Sawyer said.

He called it "one of the most difficult, deeply disturbing, and emotionally taxing investigations this office has ever worked."