Updated 5:50 p.m. Saturday
A wide-ranging community search for a missing 16-year-old Fairbanks girl ended Friday when the girl's body was found near her family's home in the neighborhood of Goldstream.
Lilianna Bishop, known as Liera, died of suicide, her family said. Her disappearance Thursday prompted a large response, including helicopters and search dogs.
An initial search of the Murphy Dome and Spinach Creek area Thursday evening -- about a three-mile radius from Bishop's home -- was unsuccessful, said Megan Peters, Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman.
On Friday, multiple agencies -- including wildlife troopers, two helicopters, Alaska Railroad police, village public safety officers, an aviation regiment from Fort Wainwright, the Interior Alaska Wilderness Search and Rescue and search dogs -- canvassed the area looking for Bishop.
Bishop's mother, Lisa, also posted on a Goldstream community Facebook page asking for help. About 50 people turned out, including friends, neighbors and strangers, Lisa Bishop said in a phone interview Saturday.
She said the searchers walked in a line from the family's home on Frenchman Road down toward Murphy Dome. About 8:30 p.m. Friday, about a day after Liera Bishop first went missing, her body was discovered in the search area. She had committed suicide and left a note, Lisa Bishop said.
Lisa Bishop said her daughter had been struggling with mental health issues for some time and was enrolled at a residential treatment facility in Utah. She said Liera was back in Fairbanks for a week for a home visit, and on Thursday, while her parents were out walking the dogs, disappeared from home.
She said her daughter was funny and smart, and loved to play soccer and go snowmachining.
"The community coming together and looking for her ... really meant a lot to my husband and I," Lisa Bishop said.
An earlier version of this story, using incorrect information from the Alaska State Troopers, listed the girl's age at the time of her death as 15. Lilianna Bishop was 16.