SAN DIEGO (AP) — For weeks Danielle van Dam's parents kept hoping as volunteers combed canyons and desert, looking for the 7-year-old who disappeared from her bedroom. The hopes and the hunt are over now: An autopsy has confirmed that a body found by a roadside was that of the missing girl.

Police Chief David Bejarano informed Danielle's parents, Brenda and Damon van Dam, of the positive identification Thursday. The couple thanked volunteers at an office that had been used as a base for the search, then left quietly. They did not speak with reporters.

"They mentioned that Danielle's in good hands now," Bejarano said. "There's a lot of tears and a lot of anger at dealing with the loss of their daughter."

The Rev. Joseph Acton, who has been counseling the family, described the couple as devastated.

"Brenda said today that love conquers evil," he said.

The autopsy made the identification Thursday through a comparison of the missing girl's dental records and X-rays taken from the body, San Diego County District Attorney Paul Pfingst said. The cause of death could not immediately be determined — and may never be — because of the body's state of decomposition, he said.

A neighbor, David Westerfield, 50, was charged Tuesday with murder, kidnapping and possession of child pornography. He has pleaded innocent and is being held without bond.

Authorities said they found traces of Danielle's blood in Westerfield's motor home and on an article of his clothing. The self-employed engineer spent the weekend of Danielle's disappearance traveling around San Diego County in his motor home, stopping in the desert east of the city.

Westerfield has said he was at the same bar where Brenda van Dam was spending time with friends the night Danielle vanished. Her husband was home with their daughter and two sons.

Danielle disappeared after her father put her to bed Feb. 1 in her family's north San Diego home. She was discovered missing the next morning.

As the weeks went by, Brenda and Damon van Dam made plea after plea for their daughter's safe return. A methodical search was organized, with hundreds of volunteers combing an area stretching from Mexico to the desert east of San Diego.

Nothing turned up for nearly a month. But on Wednesday afternoon, a hunch led volunteers to the area where Danielle's body was found.

Volunteers had first checked the site Saturday and found nothing. Ten volunteers returned after investigators decided the area needed to be checked again. Searchers found the body about 25 feet from the road under a cluster of oak trees across from a sand mine.

The remote road about 25 miles east of San Diego was one Westerfield might have taken the weekend Danielle disappeared, said Bill Garcia, a private detective who coordinated searches in the area.

"Someone who would try to evade or stay low-key would have picked that route," Garcia said.

The search for the missing girl had been coordinated in part on an elaborate Web site, where a memorial to Danielle was posted Thursday morning. A message on the site quoted singer Sarah McLachlan: "You're in the arms of the angel. May you find some comfort there."

The police chief and the district attorney thanked the volunteers whose unflagging efforts helped find Danielle's body. Family and friends, meanwhile, were left to cope with the news.

"As unlikely as it was, everybody was still harboring some hope that she was still alive," said Jane Hurst, who lives near the van Dams. "Now that's gone, and at least we can start dealing with that."