A child's body found in Harford County was conclusively identified yesterday as that of a missing 8-year-old city girl whose abduction and killing have brought criticism of Baltimore police for not keeping closer tabs on a suspect who has now disappeared.

The body of Marciana Monia Ringo, found fully clothed in a wooded residential area in Joppatowne, was taken to the state medical examiner's office in Baltimore for an autopsy.

Police defended yesterday their investigation of Jamal Abeokuto, 22, the boyfriend of Marciana's mother, who became the main suspect in the case only after he posted bail on a routine gun charge and apparently fled.

Abeokuto was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges that he mailed a ransom note the day of Marciana's kidnapping, threatening to kill her if he didn't receive $5,000.

Authorities described Abeokuto as possibly armed and dangerous.

Police think Abeokuto was the last person to have seen Marciana alive; he told detectives that he dropped her off at Northwood Elementary School. But court records show that investigators quickly discovered inconsistencies in his statements and other evidence suggesting that he could be tied to her disappearance.

He was arrested on a handgun possession charge Saturday, but officers did not have enough evidence to charge him directly in Marciana's case, Baltimore police spokeswoman Ragina C. Averella said. Court records show that police found a pair of bloody jeans that they thought belonged to Abeokuto the day after Marciana disappeared, but they did not have proof that it was the girl's blood.

"At that point, we didn't have anything to physically tie him to her disappearance or to a murder," Averella said.

Family members have begun making funeral plans for Marciana, a third-grade honors student who loved bowling and would offer to read the newspaper to her great-grandfather.

Averella said detectives did successfully argue for a relatively high bond of $75,000 on the gun charge. But Abeokuto posted bail late Sunday, was released from jail and disappeared - frustrating authorities and the girl's grieving family as they realized yesterday what had happened.

"They had him locked up, and then they let him get out," Marciana's great-grandfather, Roberto Sanchez Vaddy, 65, of Govans said yesterday. "Why'd they let him go?"

Vaddy said family members liked and trusted Abeokuto and were shocked by the news that he could be tied to Marciana's death. He said Abeokuto and Marciana's mother, Milagro White, were making plans to move to a new home together: "I thought he was like one of the family,"

But Vaddy said all signs point to Abeokuto playing a role in the girl's death, and he wonders what he didn't know about the man. Court records show that Abeokuto was given probation before judgment last year on weapons and assault charges. He was also charged with second-degree rape in 1997, but the record was sealed because he was a juvenile.

"I'd give him an award because he played a good part in this movie," Vaddy said. "He fooled us all."

Two days after Marciana's abduction, her mother received the scrawled, handwritten ransom note that demanded $5,000 be left in a bag in the men's bathroom at Druid Hill Park "or the girl dies."

On Tuesday, a week after Marciana was last seen, authorities matched a fingerprint on the back of the letter to the left index finger of Abeokuto and used that evidence to secure a federal warrant for his arrest on the charge of mailing a threatening communication.

When officials went to serve the warrant, however, Abeokuto couldn't be found.

Averella yesterday declined to say what methods police were using to track Abeokuto. But she said that in the days after Marciana's disappearance, police conducted physical surveillance at the homes of Abeokuto's family and friends and used electronic surveillance.

Barry A. Maddox, an FBI special agent and the spokesman for the bureau's Baltimore field office, said he couldn't discuss what role the FBI played in tracking Abeokuto or why authorities did not seek a warrant for him sooner. He said Abeokuto's whereabouts remained unknown yesterday.

"We're still out there looking," Maddox said.

In Harford County yesterday, investigators continued combing the area where the girl's body was discovered Thursday afternoon by two boys walking home from a nearby elementary school. State police also interviewed neighbors in the residential area to ask whether police saw any suspicious people or cars in the area last week.

The area where Marciana's body was discovered is roughly equal distance between Abeokuto's home in Baltimore and Aberdeen, where he worked at a grocery warehouse.

Authorities suspect that Marciana was killed in Harford County. Police expect to bring murder and kidnapping charges in the case, but no charges had been brought late yesterday.

Marciana's great-grandfather said the additional charges would bring a small measure of comfort, but would not bring back the happy little girl who should have had a long life ahead of her.

"I know she'll go to heaven because she was a good girl," Vaddy said. "She was like a little star. She was raised to be bright, and somebody came up and took that away from her."

Sun staff writers Reginald Fields and Lane Harvey Brown contributed to this article.