Friends react to 13-year-old's suspicious death

TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) - Sheriff Deputies found 13-year-old Maribel Gonzales' body in the desert near Avra Valley Road in June 6.

Now that authorities have released her identity, friends are grieving and still in shock that their friend is gone forever.

"Not to her, she was a good girl," Maribel's friend Alexis Westrope said. "She didn't deserve it."

Alexis says her friend Maribel was always a lot of fun to hang out with and very outgoing. She says she is sad her friend's life has been cut so short and that Maribel doesn't deserve what happened to her.

Right now, Sheriff's detectives aren't releasing much information on exactly what happened. Authorities are waiting for forensic test results to come back before they specify on the cause of her death. But we do know that her body was found decomposing when authorities found it.

We're told her family last say her the night of June 3. They reported her missing the next day.

Alexis says she and her friends knew something was wrong when they say Maribel's tattoo on the news.

"First they were saying she ran away," Alexis said. "So everyone was trying to get her to go home. So many thoughts went through my head. It hurts me to know that one of my friends was out there and nobody knows why."

The Pima County Sheriff's Department is still trying to piece together the suspicious death. If you know anything, detectives ask you to call them right away, or you can use 88-CRIME to tip them off anonymously.