New York ? Police said they believe a body recovered at a Pennsylvania landfill Thursday is the mother of a 4-year-old girl found abandoned and barefoot on a city street after dark.

A woman’s corpse was found under 18 feet of trash in the landfill in Vintondale, Pa., said police spokesman Paul Browne.

The body was not positively identified, but investigators believe it is that of Monica Lozada-Rivadineira, Browne said.

Police, who suspect the woman’s companion of killing her and dumping her body in a trash pile, had been searching two landfills in Pennsylvania where New York City’s garbage is hauled.

Police had been searching for the Bolivian-born woman since Sept. 25, when her daughter, Valery Belen Saavedra Lozada, was found wandering in the middle of the night in Queens.

Lozada-Rivadineira’s companion, Cesar Ascarrunz, is being held without bail on charges of strangling her, dumping her body and abandoning her daughter on the street.