CHICAGO (NewsNation) —  After 10 days of searching the marshy, rough terrain next to I-65 in Gary, Indiana for 23-year-old Ariana Taylor, her body was discovered Wednesday by a K-9 team. 

“One of the handlers observed an individual, who we believed to be deceased at that point, in the water, in a shallow drainage ditch,” said Jack Hamady of the Gary police. “We’ve been able to positively identify the female as Ariana Taylor.”

The location is near the spot where a pair of bloody jeans and gym shoes — believed to be Taylor’s — were found the day after her disappearance April 3.

Police say Taylor’s SUV ran off the northbound lanes of I-65 around 1:30 a.m. April 3.

A traffic camera right over the location still shows the tracks where the 2007 Chevy Trailblazer crashed down an embankment.

“It struck a chain link fence and some poles and had gone through the front windshield of the vehicle,” Hamady told “NewsNation Prime” on Wednesday. “We think the driver might have been nicked by the pole.”

Nicked, but not seriously injured based on evidence in the car and airbags that never deployed. The crash was discovered around 8 a.m. but there was no sign of Taylor.

It raised the question whether she wandered away from the crash on her own in 20 degree weather or if something else could have happened to her.

“What’s going through my mind is foul play. What’s going through my mind is receiving my daughter’s body for closure,” said her mother, Queena Taylor.

Police say they have interviewed the last people to see Taylor and so far, they haven’t found any evidence of foul play.

“We felt we had enough info through interviews and technology that she was still out there.  We did not  believe, at that point, that there was foul play or anyone had picked her up or anything like that,” Hamady said.

Wednesday’s discovery was news her family didn’t want to hear.

Taylor’s mother is now holding on to the last words with her daughter.

“When she walked out the door, she said, ‘OK mom, I’m gone.’ I said, ‘OK, be safe. I love you.’ And she said, ‘I love you, too,’ and the door clicked.”

Police wouldn’t reveal anything about a likely cause of death.