By NBC News staff
Courtesy Lomax family
Linnea Lomax, 19, was last seen on June 26, 2012.
Volunteers searching for 19-year-old Linnea Lomax, a University of California, Davis freshman missing since June, discovered a body Friday near the shore of the American River in Sacramento.
Sacramento police were called to the scene but authorities said they could not confirm the identity of the body, which, they told NBC station KCRA, was badly decomposed and appeared to be female.
The body was found at 10:18 a.m. in the Glenn Hall Park area, not far from where Lomax was last seen walking away from a mental health appointment, police said.
Members of HelpFindLinnea.orgissued a statement saying the Lomax family "is asking for continued support, prayers and privacy" until confirmation of the body’s identity.
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A news conference will be held within 24 hours, it said.
"As long as this question remains unanswered, we will be continuing with the search efforts," it said.
According to her parents, the teen suffered a breakdown while studying for finals.
Police say Lomax was last seen at 1 p.m. on June 26, leaving an outpatient therapy center off Howe Avenue in Sacramento. She was considered missing and at-risk due to her disappearance being "inconsistent with her normal behavior patterns," police said.
She didn’t have her wallet or cell phone, Craig Lomax told NBC News in July. She had been prescribed medication for anxiety and depression, but she left her drugs behind, vanishing into California’s capital, he said.
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The search Friday was the latest in a series organized by the Klaaskids Foundation.
Last month, a search party turned up a notebook belonging to Linnea Lomax near the American River bike trail.
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