After a three-day search, Eberle's body was discovered in a patch of high grass alongside a gravel road some from his bicycle. He had been stripped to his underwear, his feet and hands had been bound, and his mouth had been taped with surgical tape. Knife wounds across his body suggested he had been tortured before death. In addition, Joubert had stabbed him nine times. As a kidnapping, the crime came under the jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States, so the FBI was called in.