Garda sources said last night that the search of the Inch Strand area which led to yesterday's discovery of Robert Holohan's body was prompted by gardaí liaising with mobile phone company O2.
The phone company had used triangulation techniques to establish that the 11-year-old's pre-paid mobile phone, which he had with him when he disappeared, was in the area.
The body was discovered dumped in undergrowth in a glen at Glanturkin some 400 yards from Inch Strand.
The location is around 12 miles from Robert Holohan's home at Ballyedmond, just outside Midleton, where he disappeared on January 4th.
His body was found at around 1.30 p.m. yesterday by six members of a 200-strong search group which had been combing the area around Inch and Whitegate when one of the group spotted a limb protruding from under vegetation.
One of the search party, Mr John O'Mahony, said they had been down on Inch Strand and were directed to work back when he came upon two of his fellow searchers who had come upon what was obviously a small body.
"I don't know was it an adult or a child, all I saw was a small limb," said Mr O'Mahony, a volunteer searcher from Cork city who has been searching since last Thursday.
The discovery of the boy's body some 400 yards inland of Inch Strand has led investigators to rule out any question of his body being washed ashore and to conclude it was dumped there in the hope that it would never be found.
One source said Robert was still wearing the same clothes that he had on when he disappeared, and he was found lying face down some 14 feet down the glen where his body was caught in vegetation.
"Whoever threw him in there had obviously intended throwing him all the way down - there's a drop of over 30 or 40 feet down to the bottom of that glen but the body caught in briars and other vegetation and didn't fall all the way," according to one Garda source.
Gardaí are hoping that a post-mortem due to be carried out this morning by the State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, will be able to establish an exact cause of death. They are also hoping that it will be able to pinpoint precisely when Robert died.
Yesterday was the first day that gardaí, soldiers and other volunteers had searched in the Inch area, some nine miles south of Midleton.
Detectives are to interview local people in the area today to see if they noticed any suspicious activity.
A team of Garda technical experts will also carry out a detailed forensic examination of the scene, which was cordoned off yesterday evening and was due to be preserved overnight by a team of uniformed officers.
It is also expected that gardaí will carry out a wider search of the greater Inch area today as part of their investigation.
Robert Holohan left his home at 2.15 p.m. on January 4th to call to a number of friends and was later seen leaving the home of a friend at 2.30 p.m. - the last confirmed sighting of the young schoolboy.
Neighbours found his silver BMX bike lying against a hedge some 500 yards away at Carrigoghna and brought it home for safekeeping.
But it was only when darkness fell and Robert failed to return home that his parents raised the alarm.