London ? A drama that has gripped Britain took a chilling turn Saturday, as police arrested two people, reportedly school employees, on suspicion of murdering a pair of 10-year-old girls who vanished from a rural village.

Detectives had said only the night before that they remained optimistic Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman still were alive, but their use of the word “murder” in the arrests shattered the hopes of those in the children’s close-knit hometown of Soham, near Cambridge.

Police later said they had found two bodies in a wooded area called Thetford Forest Park, 20 miles from Soham, but said it would take time to identify them.

A spokesman said the bodies were discovered about 1 p.m. by a man walking in the woods. He said the forensic examination of the area would be a “long process,” and it was unclear when further details of the age and sex of the bodies would be released.

News reports identified the suspects as Ian Huntley, a caretaker at the local secondary school, and his partner Maxine Carr, a former teaching assistant who worked with Holly and Jessica’s primary school class until July.

Cambridgeshire Police did not release the pair’s names, saying only that they had apprehended a 28-year-old man on suspicion of murder and abduction and a 25-year-old woman on suspicion of murder.

The ages matched those of two people questioned by police on Friday and identified by news organizations as Huntley and Carr.

Detectives would not say publicly whether they were the suspects, but searched their home and the home of Huntley’s father, Kevin.

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Hebb, announcing the arrests at a news conference, said officers had discovered “items of major interest to our inquiry” at the school.

“These items have been preserved at the scene and will be subject to a comprehensive forensic examination, a process which is likely to take some considerable period of time,” he said. “Meanwhile, the search of the entire site of the college continues.”

The girls disappeared Aug. 4 from the village of Soham, near Cambridge, and their case has transfixed Britain since.

Images of young actresses in red Manchester United soccer shirts like those the girls wore filled television screens after police staged a re-enactment of Holly and Jessica’s last known movements, and news of every development in the search has dominated front pages.

In the British legal system, suspects are not charged at the same time they are arrested, and the pair have not been formally accused. Police have 96 hours to charge or release them.

News reports said that until they were taken in for questioning, Huntley and Carr had been eager participants in the search for Holly and Jessica.