Kansas City, Mo. ? The body of a little girl, still unidentified more than two years after its discovery in a wooded area of the city, was exhumed Tuesday in a further effort to find out who she was.

The remains were taken to the Jackson County Medical Examiner’s Office, where experts from Louisiana State University will begin work to try to create a realistic bust of what the girl would have looked like. The bust should be ready in a few weeks.

So far, police have released a computerized likeness, a bust and a sketch, all of which produced tips but not a solution.

The child’s naked and decapitated body was found on April 28, 2001, with the head discovered nearby a few days later. The girl who came to be known as Precious Doe was estimated to have been between 3 and 6 years old.

“Hopefully this is the next to last chapter, where we determine her identity,” said J.T. Brown, executive director of the community group Move Up. “Then the last chapter will be arresting a suspect.”

The case has attracted national attention, and police have tracked nearly 1,000 leads.

Police said the latest effort held promise because of the forensic expertise of the people involved. Mary Manhein, director of the Forensic Anthropology & Computer Enhancement Services Laboratory at Louisiana State, said her lab had a track record of identifying victims in one out of five cases.

The lab’s research resulted in a national database of tissue thickness for children’s faces, including tissue-depth measurements based on factors including gender, age and race.

Manhein said she planned to use the tissue thickness data, plus information from the child’s skull and X-rays, to build an accurate representation. A sculptor then will develop a likeness.

The teeth will be key in determining the girl’s age and some facial characteristics.

Manhein said development of teeth was more reliable to estimate a person’s age than bones. After examining the teeth Tuesday, she said she thought the girl was closer to 3 years old than 6.

Manhein volunteered her time to work on the case. The FBI paid the $1,200 cost of the exhumation, which will include reburial.

Sgt. Dave Bernard, the homicide detective who has led the investigation since the start, said he hated to disturb the remains, “but in the interest of getting the case solved, we had to.”