From the discovery of the body of a missing girl to a messy divorce ensnaring one of baseball's most iconic franchises, the online trending legal news for the week ending April 22 had it all.

From the discovery of the body of a missing girl to a messy divorce ensnaring one of baseball's most iconic franchises, the online trending legal news for the week ending April 22 had it all.

Phylicia Barnes, a 16-year-old student from North Carolina, was visiting her half-sister in Maryland when she went missing last December, according to ABC News. A multi-jurisdiction search began in January, which came to an end on Thursday, April 21, after the girl's body was found in a river.

“We're now at stage one of a new phase of the investigation,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld said. “There's a mountain of investigative work that needs to be done.”

Police are still investigating the incident and are also searching for answers regarding the death of a man whose body was found three or four miles downstream from Barnes', according to the news source.

The internet has been abuzz about the discovery, with “Phylicia Barnes” being the second most searched topic on Thursday, according to data from Google.

Moving on to divorce law, the separation of Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt from his wife and former Dodgers executive, Jamie, has resulted in Major League Baseball taking control of the franchise, reports ESPN. Commissioner Bud Selig sent a letter to the club informing management that a trustee would be appointed to oversee the the day-to-day operations of the team along with all of its business aspects. Frank McCourt reportedly said that he plans to sue MLB over the move.

“I consider it a sad day for baseball and a sad day for the Dodgers,” general manager Ned Colletti said.

The topic is of interest to countless internet users, and the media have been following the story accordingly, with a Google News search for “Dodgers divorce” returning nearly 4,000 articles.

It's been more than a year since the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig caused a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. However, this anniversary isn't just a time to reflect on society's impact on the environment, however, as Wednesday, April 20, was the paper-filing deadline for plaintiffs who want to sue companies over the spill. A clerk at a New Orleans federal court told the Wall Street Journal that people and attorneys were filing the papers up until the deadline. There have been about 62,000 such filings, with about 2,300 coming in the last week, the clerk said.

A year gone, the story is still generating online buzz with Google Trends indicating that searches for “Gulf oil spill” spiked on Wednesday of this week.

That's the online trending legal news for the week ending April 22.

Doug is Brafton's legal editor. He studied journalism in college and has worked for a number of media establishments.