Alexander Whipple has been charged with aggravated murder in the death of his sister Jessica’s five-year-old daughter, Elizabeth  ‘Lizzy’ Shelley

The bloodstained 21-year-old murder suspect reportedly, LICKED his ‘filthy’ hands clean in the interrogation room after arrest 

Cooperating with authorities  in return for avoiding the death penalty, Alexander Whipple led cops to the body of Elizabeth Shelley Wednesday

Lizzy’s body was found buried less than a block from her home behind a shed  

Her blood was also found on the suspect’s sweatshirt and watch when he was arrested Saturday, charging documents state

The five-year-old’s blood was also found on a kitchen knife and the teal skirt she was last seen in, which was ‘hastily buried’ in dirt and bark near her Utah home

Whipple has been charged with aggravated murder, child kidnapping, desecration of a human body and obstruction of justice

Whipple’s grandfather, Bill Whipple,  said he was aware of his grandson’s troubled past, ‘knew he was a thief, but never labeled him as a murderer’

His defense attorney indicated that they would go for an insanity plea

Alexander Whipple led cops to the body of his five-year-old niece Elizabeth Shelley [photo], who was last seen at 2 am on Saturday in her Logan, Utah home

Alexander Whipple, 21, of Logan, Utah, on Wednesday was charged with aggravated murder, child kidnapping, desecration of a human body, and obstruction of justice in the killing of his five-year-old niece, Elizabeth ‘Lizzy’ Shelley.
The suspect led cops to the body of Shelley, who was last seen at 2am on Saturday  at home in Logan.
According to court records, Whipple was at victim’s home the night she disappeared. Her mother told police she invited Whipple over around 10:30 p.m. on Friday night to drink and play video games with her and her live-in boyfriend.
She said Lizzy and her sister were in bed by the time Whipple arrived, her mother said.
The mom’s boyfriend told police when the couple went to bed, Whipple was on the couch and it looked like “he was going to ‘pass-out'”.
The mom first noticed both Lizzy and Whipple were gone the next morning around 10 a.m.

Lizzy’s family released this statement through her aunt on Wednesday thanking all the searchers and supporters

When Lizzy’s body was found Logan Police Chief Gary Jensen said, she was left under a pile of debris in a heavily wooded area less than a block from her home.
her remains was found at around 2pm local time after an intense search.
Following the grim discovery, Lizzy’s great grandfather, Bill Whipple, revealed that the 21-year-old murder suspect had a difficult childhood but had never showed violent tendencies.‘I would never, ever in a million years have thought he was capable of harming such a cute little girl,’ Bill Whipple said of his grandson.
‘I knew he was a thief, but I never labeled him as a murderer.’
Alex Whipple’s mother walked out on the family when he was young, leaving his father to raise three children alone while he worked as a truck driver.
As a teenager, Alex spent time in foster homes and did not graduate from high school.
Whipple’s defense attorney, Shannon Demler, described his client as ‘very emotional’ and ‘not in a very good mental state.’
‘He’s very broken down,’ Demler told Fox 13 Now. ‘He’s very remorseful.’
Demler said Whipple did not provide a motive for what he described as the man’s ‘inexcusable’ act against his niece and speculated that mental illness could be to blame.
‘I don’t know if there’s a reason why other than possibly mental illness,’ the lawyer said. ‘You know, it’s not like a five-year-old girl would do something that would justify someone doing this to her, but I think the answer is going to be in the mental illness of my client.’

Police investigate a location on Center Street in Logan, Utah, as they search for the body of missing 5-year-old Elizabeth ‘Lizzy’ Shelley on Wednesday

‘I knew he was a thief, but I never labeled him as a murderer’ – Bill Whipple, Elizabeth Shelley’s great grandfather [photo], said of his grandson, Alexander 

Demler said he expects Whipple to undergo multiple psychiatric evaluations as his case winds through the court system.
Family spokesman Jill Parker read a statement from Lizzy’s mom Jessica, thanking the local community for their help in looking for her ‘caring and giving’ daughter.
It read in part: ‘There are no words to express the sadness and the heartbreak we feel today. This did not end the way we wanted it to.’
Whipple’s attorney said the breakthrough in the search for Lizzy came after he presented his client with the facts and evidence, News 2 reported.
‘My client made the decision to disclose the location of the body to the authorities so the family, hopefully, could have some closure on that part of the case,’ Demler said.
Logan Police Chief Gary Jensen said in an earlier press conference Wednesday that before the discovery of the girl’s body her blood was found on a watch and a hooded sweatshirt belonging to Whipple.
He did not confirm the nature of Lizzie’s death and said they are awaiting official positive identification but police strongly believe it is the body of the five-year-old.

Utah police found multiple instances of DNA evidence linking Whipple, [left] to the disappearance of his missing niece five-year-old Elizabeth Shelley [right] after her blood was found on the skirt she wearing when last seen 

Investigators also found a piece of PVC pipe in the parking lot of Bear River Charter School with a partial palm print in a red substance and it matched Whipple’s hand

The teal blue skirt she was last seen wearing was also recovered after being ‘hastily buried’ under bark and dirt near the family home.
Prosecutors said they also recovered a broken LivingKit kitchen knife with the missing child’s blood on it, matching a blade that had gone missing from the family home.
Investigators also found a piece of PVC pipe 50 yards away in the parking lot of Bear River Charter School with a partial palm print in a red substance believed to be blood. – The bloody palm print matched Whipple’s hand, the charges state.
Whipple was charged with aggravated murder which is a capital offense. He was also charged with child kidnapping, a first-degree felony, desecration of a human body, a third-degree felony, and two counts of obstruction of justice.
A Zions Bank account was opened under the name Elizabeth Shelley Donation to collect funds as the family searches for Lizzy, the Cache County Attorney’s office said Wednesday.
Investigators had been searching for the girl since Saturday morning.
The massive search for Elizabeth concentrated in a one-half mile area around the family’s home in Logan, a mountain valley near the Idaho border about 80 miles north of Salt Lake City.  

Investigators had been searching for Lizzy since Saturday morning. The search party was led to her body Elizabeth ‘Lizzy’ Shelley, located just yards from her Utah home

Alexander Whipple was spotted on surveillance video at 6.46am that morning wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Shelley’s blood was found on her uncle’s hoodie and watch when he was arrested Saturday,

In an interview with Fox 13 Now on Wednesday, Whipple’s lawyer said the 21-year-old murder suspect came forward with information about the location of Lizzy’s body out of concern for the family.
‘He knows he’s done something that was terrible, unjustified and could never be fixed,’ Demler said. ‘We talked about it in depth and just felt it was appropriate that his family knew the location so they could put that part behind them… Not only that, there was a lot of people out searching for the body and things and I think it was just time to put that to sleep.’
Logan Police earlier had urged locals to check ‘your cameras and smart doorbell systems’ for images of his movements during their desperate search.
‘We would never dash the hope that we would find her alive,’ Jensen had said at a news conference. ‘But it’s certainly a concern for us at this point; Lizzy’s safety.’

Searchers [photo]  Tuesday scour the area for the missing child and her skirt was found ‘hastily buried’ under dirt on the grounds of a charter school near her home. The search party also found the child’s blood on a broken knife missing from the Utah family’s kitchen. 

Elizabeth was reported missing Saturday morning after her family woke up and the youngster was nowhere to be found.
The girl was last seen before family members went to bed about 2 am and Whipple was staying at the house that night, despite not living there.
A little after 9 am on Saturday, the family awoke and found that Elizabeth and Whipple were both missing.
Dark details have emerged of Whipple, a convicted felon, appearing disheveled as if he had ‘been in a binge’ the night of Elizabeth’s disappearance.
Around 1.30 pm on Saturday, Whipple stopped in a gas station in Hyrum alone where he purchased beer and cigarettes.
‘Disheveled, like he had been on a binge of some kind,’ Hyrum Shortstop employee Ryan Liljenquist told KSTU-TV. ‘He was wearing a gray hoodie. Underneath that hoodie, was a kind of a suit and tie, something really weird.’ 

Lizzy’s parents: Jessica Whipple [left] had invited her brother Alexander over to socialize boyfriend. She’s separated from Lizzy’s dad Wes Shelley [right]. Both made appeals for their daughter’s safe return before her body was discovered 

Police have also been provided with surveillance footage from near the family’s home that may show Whipple.
The video, taken at 6.46 am on Saturday at 700 West and 100 South – about two blocks from the home – shows a man in a gray hoodie walking alone, Fox 13 reported. His pants appear wet or muddy from the knees down.
According to a probable cause affidavit, when Whipple was arrested, he had a metal baseball bat shoved in his back pocket and hidden under his jacket along his back – though cops say the bat is not part of the evidence in the disappearance.
Whipple was booked into Cache County Jail on Sunday for investigation of probation violations, failure to identify himself to police and possession of a controlled substance.
Cops found Alexander Whipple on Saturday afternoon in a remote area about 10 miles from the family home, several hours after his niece was reported missing, with some of the girl’s clothing in his hands.
He was combative and refused to identify himself several times when police spotted him walking in a remote area, according to court documents.
Police allegedly found him with a metal baseball bat, an unopened can of beer and drug paraphernalia, and what was suspected  to be marijuana.

Alexander Whipple [photo] was arrested on Saturday, found in a remote area about 10 miles from the family home where Elizabeth disappeared

His long list of prior brushes with the law include a  2016, conviction for assaulting his roommate in an incident of domestic violence, according to court records.

The same year, Whipple was arrested after police said he stole his neighbor’s car and drove under the influence of alcohol. In that incident he led Utah High Patrol on a 40-mile chase that ended with authorities spiking the tires of the car, court documents show.
Whipple was sentenced to prison in March 2018 but his term was suspended, and he was instead ordered to serve 180 days in jail and five years of probation.
He was denied bail Tuesday during a court hearing in Logan in which he appeared via video in a dark blue jail uniform with his back slumped and his eyes cast downward, ABC News reported.
Whipple’s next hearing is June 3.