ANNA — Volunteers looking for kidnap victim Christina Morris had searched three times in the wooded area where she was eventually found. Police searched there several times, too.

So when a work crew spotted her skeletal remains in plain sight on Wednesday, the heartbroken searchers couldn't help but ask themselves: "How did we miss her?"

Christina Morris

"We were right there," said Robert O'Neil, one of the coordinators for the dedicated group of searchers known as Team Christina. "There's gotta be more to it than we just missed her ... we were very thorough in our searches."

Police closed off the area to the public for three days while collecting evidence. They were expected to finish late Friday. Details about what they've found are not being released.

Morris was last seen on surveillance video entering a Plano parking garage with acquaintance Enrique Arochi in the early morning hours of Aug. 30, 2014. Arochi was convicted in 2016 of her aggravated kidnapping and sentenced to life in prison. His case is on appeal.

Questions linger

The field where Morris' remains were found was one of a handful of areas checked multiple times because it fit the search criteria. It was a secluded area accessible by car. It was near the cell tower in Anna where Arochi's phone connected the day after Morris went missing. And it had a dirt road with ditches and moisture from a nearby creek, conditions needed for a type of grass recovered from the undercarriage of Arochi's Camaro.

Despite the discovery, many questions remain: Did the crew clearing brush inadvertently expose the remains? Were the recent heavy rains a factor in revealing the new evidence? Did her killer bury her somehow or leave her exposed? Maybe it was a combination of several things.

Regardless of how it happened, the discovery of Morris doesn't take away the extraordinary efforts of the volunteers who devoted so many of their Saturdays to searching for her. They couldn't say how many hours they've logged. Or how much acreage they've covered in Collin County. Some in Denton County, too.

"It was so frustrating and so hard to keep going," searcher Stacey Blair said.

But they didn't give up. They couldn't.

"To those who have stood by us and searched with us through the bitter cold, the torrential rain, and the sweltering heat, we are forever grateful to and for you," Morris' sister, Sarah Estes, said in a statement from the family that she read at Thursday's news conference to officially announce the identification based on the remains. "Your selflessness and perseverance is unmatched, and it means more to us than we'll ever be able to put into words."

'We're kind of numb'

Although the group searched three times in the area along Taylor Boulevard in Anna where the remains were found, they did it differently each time, O'Neil said. One time they went farther in. One time they spread wider out.

"That was one [location] that all of us as a group could not get off of our minds because it just would have been the perfect spot," he said. "Come to find out, it obviously was."

1 / 6Robert O'Neil (left) and Mark Morris, the father of Christina Morris, talked about their plan as they searched for Christina Morris in rural Collin County on Aug. 26, 2017. (Anja Schlein / Special Contributor) 2 / 6Mark Morris (right), the father of Christina Morris, prepared to enter a wooded area as they searched for Christina Morris in rural Collin County last August. From left are Greg Modrall, Kellie Castle, Clint Jenkins, Sheri Morris, Angel Jenkins and Mark Morris. (Anja Schlein / Special Contributor) 3 / 6Mark Morris used a stick to move brush during a weekly search for the remains of his daughter, Christina Morris, in an area of northern Collin County on Dec. 10, 2016. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer) 4 / 6The volunteer search team rode in the back of a pickup during a weekly search for the remains of Christina Morris in an area of northern Collin County in December 2016. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer) 5 / 6Stacey Blair posed with her Find Christina shirt during a weekly search for the remains of Christina Morris in northern Collin County in December 2016. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer) 6 / 6Members of Team Christina looked through tall grass as they searched for Christina Morris in rural Collin County last August.(Anja Schlein / Special Contributor)

The end of the search comes with mixed emotions for those who were a part.

"We're kind of numb," Allison Penn told the crowd gathered at Thursday's candlelight vigil. "We wanted this day to come, but we also didn't want this day to come."

Because finding Morris' remains would mean that she truly was gone.

Her family's grief is raw and new again.

"We never wanted 'closure,' even if there is such a thing," Estes said in the family statement. "We only wanted Christina."

'We are Team Christina'

O'Neil said the family still needs a lot of prayers and support.

"The family is not feeling closure," he said. "Nobody likes that word because there's not any immediate closure. They're hurting a lot more now than they've hurt in a long time."

As for Team Christina, the close-knit group is looking to transition from a search team to a support team. Maybe they'll take on another volunteer project. Or grab breakfast together on Saturdays. Or do something in the name of the 23-year-old missing woman who's finally been found, a woman many of them never met.

They started out as strangers. But they've come together as a family. And they're stronger for it.

"We are Team Christina," member Beverly Lillie said, "and we will always be Team Christina."