SEATTLE &#8212 A child&#8217s body found Thursday on an island beach in Puget Sound is

that of an 8-year-old boy who vanished last weekend with his mother, a Pierce County

sheriff&#8217s spokesman said.

Positive identification was based on Azriel Carver&#8217s clothing, mohawk haircut and

"looking at pictures of him," spokesman Ed Troyer said.

The Pierce County medical examiner&#8217s office plans an autopsy today to determine cause

of death.

The body was found on Fox Island, southwest of Tacoma.

No sign was found Thursday of the boy&#8217s mother, Shantina "Kat" Smiley, 29, of

Silverdale, who disappeared with him on Saturday night. Troyer said the beach was searched

about 500 yards in each direction from the boy&#8217s body. Divers on a boat searched as well

and a Coast Guard helicopter and sheriff&#8217s office plane flew overhead.

That search may resume today, depending on weather, he said.

Smiley&#8217s abandoned minivan, partially submerged with its doors open, was found Sunday

on a remote Olympia-area beach about 12 miles south of Fox Island.

A wallet containing her driver&#8217s license, some cash and credit cards was found in the

van, but neither she nor her son was anywhere in sight.

Jed Carver, Azriel&#8217s father who flew here from Lancaster, N.Y., this week, went to the

beach where the boy was found. Troyer said the father was not involved in identifying the

body.

"You really don&#8217t know what you have in your life until they&#8217re gone," Carver

told KING-TV. "It&#8217s a sad turn of events."

Two mismatched shoes, a partially full and corked wine bottle, an inhaler and an orange

ball have washed ashore since the van was found.

Thurston County sheriff&#8217s Lt. Chris Mealy said the items apparently belonged to the

boy or his mother.

Smiley was heading from her home in Silverdale to her stepfather&#8217s house in southwest

Washington when she and her son disappeared Saturday night. Silverdale is about 16 miles west

of Seattle, across Puget Sound.

Besides searching the area, investigators looked at phone records and talked to people who

know Smiley and her son or may have met her Saturday night as she drove through the back roads

of Washington state. Her fiance, Robb Simmons, told authorities she was a recovering alcoholic

who had relapsed last week.

"We are grieving the loss of Azriel, and praying for Shantina. We are all severely hurting.

We are getting the family together so we can grieve together, and so we can have some sort of

peace right now," Simmons told the television station late Thursday.

Mealy said there was no indication that a crime took place inside Smiley&#8217s 2005 Dodge

Caravan.

Smiley called Simmons on Saturday evening during a roadside stop. Her van was found about

50 miles north of her stepfather&#8217s home.

Jed Carver was expected to meet up with Simmons in Washington State to aid in this

week&#8217s search. Carver had recently re-established relations with Azriel and Smiley, his

former girlfriend, from whom he had been estranged for about six years, his family said.

Carver family members had prayed for "a positive return" to Western New York.

A woman who answered Simmons&#8217 cell phone Thursday afternoon said he was not available.

Phone calls and e-mails to several of Smiley&#8217s relatives were not immediately returned.