Topeka ? A man currently imprisoned in Missouri was charged Friday with first-degree murder in the death of 15-year-old Nacole Winter in Topeka.

Christopher Hall, 24, an inmate at the Eastern Reception Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Mo., also is charged with desecration of a corpse, Shawnee County District Attorney Robert Hecht said.

Hecht refused to answer any questions about what led authorities to Hall.

Winter, an eighth-grader, was reported missing last Nov. 30, when school officials said she left without permission from Hope Street Academy Charter Middle School. Her body was found Dec. 14 by Shawnee County sheriff’s officers in a field just north Lake Shawnee Golf Course.

Authorities have said she was “brutally murdered” and the coroner’s office identified her from dental records.

Hall currently is in prison on six charges of stealing out of Boone County, Mo., said Department of Corrections spokesman Brian Hauswirth.

He had been paroled to St. Louis in 2005, but violated parole by deliberately avoiding supervision. He returned to prison on Jan. 2, Hauswirth said.