KUALA LUMPUR, July 17 -- The mother of a 10-year-old Sabah girl found dead after days of desperate searching says she never stopped praying for her daughter's safe return. Instead, those prayers ended in unimaginable heartbreak.

"I never stopped praying. Every day, I mentioned my daughter Nurjilya's name and asked Allah to show me where she was. In the end, Allah answered my prayers... my daughter's body was found," Normaida Husin, 32, told New Straits Times (NST).

Nurjilya Abdullah disappeared on July 13. Her body was found late on Wednesday on a hillside covered in dense vegetation near a house under construction in Kampung Numbak, Sepanggar.

Police said the body was in an advanced state of decomposition and could only be identified ...