(WSBT) A little girl disappears, then turns up dead. Now neighbors and police are looking for answers about who's behind her death.

Police believe someone abducted 11-year-old Jodi Parrack as she rode her bike home from a friend's house, then killed her.

Her body was found around 10:30 Thursday night in a cemetery near her home in Constantine.

Police are now calling it a homicide and urging other parents to stay alert.

No one ever expected to find Jodi Parrack's body in a cemetery.

"I still can't believe it, I still feel like I'm dreaming or something," said Jodi's friend Katie Shepherd. "I have no clue what's going on."

But when the 11-year-old left Ann Dupree's house Thursday afternoon on her bike, she never made it home.

“It was kind of odd for Jodi because she would be home on time. She would be home before dark," explained Dupree.

So search groups spanned the small town of Constantine.

Police say it was Parrack's mother who found her body hours later in the cemetery — her bike just feet away.

There was no outward sign of what may have happened.

The cemetery is just down the street from her home, but on the opposite side of where she would have been coming from. Police say she should have never been there. Friends say she would never go there on her own.

"There are people in the world and this state who prey upon children. We're in the opinion that's what happened here last night," said St. Joseph County, Michigan Prosecutor Doug Fisher at a news conference Friday.

That leaves students at her school dealing with the loss.

"As well as can be expected. They're in varying degrees, but as well as you might expect," said Constantine High School Principal Mike Mulligan, on behalf of Riverside Elementary, where Jodi was a fifth grader.

Friends are remembering what they've lost.

"She was funny, she was popular," Shepherd said.

Parents are now urged by police to keep a closer eye on their own children.

“It's just crazy because this is a small town and you’re thinking what the heck! I don't want to let her go anywhere. I don't even want her walking to school no more because it's scary," said Dupree, of her own daughter.

Police are looking for a light-colored van. They wouldn't go into any more detail except to say there had been some reports recently of suspicious vehicles following children. They don't know if it's connected.