Cédrika Provencher was a nine-year-old girl with a big smile, a freckled face, and beautiful auburn hair. She was a normal child with a simple life until she vanished from near her home in Quebec, Canada on July 31, 2007.

For more than eight years, the young girl's face was plastered on posters across the province. It was one of the largest searches the area had ever seen. But her family today still doesn't have all the answers to what exactly happened to her.

For years, rumors circulated about what could have happened to her, and some people even claimed there were sightings of the young girl. Several massive searches did not turn up any clues, and her family continued to put out pleas to the public asking for help in bringing their dear girl home. But for years, no new information came in to give the family any peace of mind or closure of what exactly happened.

Then, on Dec. 11, 2015, Cédrika's remains were discovered by hunters along Highway 40 in Saint-Maurice, east of where she was last seen. The search that had lasted more than seven years was over, but there were still so many unanswered questions.

Several witnesses claimed to see the girl the night she disappeared, and that she said she was looking for a dog, even though the family did not have any pets. Police thought perhaps a man lured her in by asking for help finding a missing dog, but that has not led to any suspects they identified publicly.

Henri Provencher, Cédrika's paternal grandfather, was the face in front of the media for many years as the family asked for answers. He told The Canadian Press that when a child dies in an accident, there is closure, which is not the case in abductions.

"You don't know where your child is, it's hell every day," Provencher said. "You wonder where she is, what she's doing, what they doing to her, are they taking care of her? Is she being abused?"

When her body was discovered, Provencher turned his efforts to tracking down the person responsible for her disappearance and death.

"It will change something, because in life you are responsible for your actions," Provencher said. "The person who did this is accountable for their actions."

For 10 days leading up to Christmas 2015, police officers combed the woods, seeking to gather clues before the first snowfall so that evidence could be preserved.

While several more searches have taken place, there have been no arrests and little about the investigation has emerged publicly.

Provincial police spokesman Capt. Guy Lapointe said the probe is ongoing, and that officials will continue to investigate the case until it gets solved.

Henri Provencher has said he wished things had unfolded differently when Cédrika first vanished. He said it took police too much time to act, and there were communication problems between different police departments when it came to sharing pertinent information.

"There was a lot of wasted time," Provencher said. "If I've abducted a child, give me two hours and I'm across the border into the United States."

He acknowledges that police methods have changed greatly in 10 years. Cédrika's case lead to the creation of a commission in 2012 to look at how police treat reports of missing children.

An Amber Alert was never triggered in Cédrika's case because she didn't meet all the criteria necessary at the time, which was being under 18, declared missing, and believed by police to be in danger.

It took many hours for her disappearance to even make the news, but now alerts quickly go out through Facebook, Twitter, and emergency texts.