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MODESTO – Detectives have found the remains of a five-year-old girl in the backyard of her guardians’ home. 

Megan Lynn Mendez was reported missing by “a concerned person” in March this year, Stanislaus County Deputy Jeff Broumas said, but evidence shows she died in early 1999. 

On Friday Sheriff’s detectives dug up the remains of a child they believe to be Mendez after questioning Josephine and Margarito Origel. The couple was friendly with Mendez’s mother and had custody of the girl when she disappeared. 

Josephine Origel, 45, was charged with murder and Margarito Origel, 47, was charged with accessory to murder and child endangerment. 

Broumas said detectives questioned the couple Friday afternoon and they helped detectives find Mendez’s body when they returned in the evening. Detectives spent several hours digging five feet deep near a row of fruit trees in the couple’s backyard, where they found a bundle of cloth and a child’s decomposed remains. 

Broumas would not say what new information detectives had that led them to get a search warrant for the Origels’ home on Friday. 

The missing girl was last seen alive in late 1998 or early 1999, according to investigators. they said Mendez was suffering from injuries before she died — the exact date of her death is unclear. 

“There’s nothing ’regular’ about this case. Nothing is as it should be,” Broumas said. “We get a thousand missing persons reports a year, and this is nowhere near the norm.” 

When Mendez disappeared, she lived with the Origels at a different apartment. Police said Josephine Origel locked her body in a freezer until the couple moved to their current home. 

“It’s just a tragic way for a little girl’s life to end,” Broumas said. 

Mendez’s mother, Laura Gunter, died of a drug overdose on March 27, 1998, and her father was not a part of her life. Police said Mendez was addicted to narcotics at birth.