BERLIN – German prosecutors said Thursday they have closed their investigation of the mysterious disappearance and death of a 9-year-old girl nearly two decades ago after being unable to build a satisfactory case against the most recent suspect.

Peggy Knobloch disappeared on the way home from school in Bavaria in May 2001. Her remains were found in woods in neighbouring Thuringia state, about 16 kilometres (10 miles) from her home, in 2016.

A mentally disabled man was convicted of the girl’s murder in 2004 but acquitted in a retrial a decade later.

In 2016, investigators found the DNA of a member of a far-right group that killed 10 people at the site where the body was found, but then determined that a contaminated tool was to blame for that.

Two years later, Bavarian officials said a man had told them that he had transported the child’s body to the woods after another man gave him the body at a bus stop. He claimed to have tried to revive her and denied having killed her.

The man later retracted that account. A court ordered his release.

Prosecutors in Bayreuth said Thursday they hadn’t been able to find sufficient evidence to back up potential charges that he was responsible for or involved in the girl’s death. Other possible charges would fall under the statute of limitations.

It wasn’t possible to establish the cause of death after Knobloch’s body was found.

Prosecutors said they closed the proceedings and the investigation has now been “completely terminated.”