Police Find Body During Search For Missing Student

Monday, July 9th 2007, 12:10 pm

By: News On 6

FITCHBURG, Wis. (AP) _ Investigators think a body found in a field Monday is a college student who vanished last month in Madison, where the woman was last seen after a night out at the bars.

Police searching an area about 10 miles south of Madison found the body on private property in a wooded area dotted with homes.

Dane County coroner said the body was tentatively identified as 22-year-old Kelly Nolan, while Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain said detectives were investigating the death as a homicide.

DeSpain declined to describe the condition of the body, but said it was obvious to detectives that the person had been slain.

Monday morning, police had focused their search for Nolan on a 3-square-mile area around Fitchburg that included part of the neighboring village of Oregon, just off U.S. Highway 14. DeSpain said that he was not aware of any specific suspects in Nolan's disappearance and that the area was one of several areas identified during the investigation as worth searching.