BRIGHAM CITY — The search continues for the alleged purchasers of images of a nude child police say were sold by her mother.

Starla McCabe was arrested in late November and charged with 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, for selling the photos of her 5-year-old daughter. But the investigation has not yet determined who received the pictures.

A prosecutor said several suspects had been identified as possible buyers, while the Box Elder Sheriff’s Office said a lead suspect has been cleared in the case.

Authorities still wait on the results of an examination of McCabe’s electronic devices — that examination is underway at the Intermountain West Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory in Salt Lake City. The FBI-run lab serves Utah, Idaho and Montana.

McCabe, 45, of Brigham City, remains in the Box Elder County Jail, unable to raise her $100,000 bail. However, this month she hired a private attorney, Kim Walpole of Ogden, to replace her public defender. A second-degree felony carries a 1- to 15-year prison term.

She pleaded innocent to the charges last week in 1st District Court after waiving her preliminary hearing. She is scheduled for a status conference March 4 before Judge Tom Willmore.

The photos show the 5-year-old girl’s face and she is naked from the waist down, according to charging documents. Another photo has the girl posed seductively, naked on a couch. The child told police her mother had taken the photographs “and printed the pictures and sold them to people for $100,” according to a probable cause affidavit.

When confronted by a detective, McCabe allegedly admitted taking the pictures of the girl’s genitalia “to show her what it looks like,” reads the affidavit. McCabe then refused to answer any further questions, invoking her Miranda rights.

While noting such examinations can take six months with the forensics lab’s caseload, Chief Deputy Sheriff Dale Ward said once the forensic analytics are done “that should answer the questions one way or the other.”

The computer work is extensive, including a search of any websites where the pictures may have been posted, he said. As to alleged buyers “we had one name in particular that was thrown around, but that lead fell through,” Ward said, declining to comment further on what is an ongoing investigation.

Essentially anything on a computer hard drive remains even after a user performs basic deletions, he said. “It takes quite an involved wipe to remove anything permanently from a hard drive,” Ward said. “And most of the people we deal with don’t have that level of sophistication.”

In December, McCabe’s live-in boyfriend and father of the 5-year-old, Brian Raehal was charged with second-degree felony obstruction of justice and a misdemeanor count of failure to report child abuse. Raehal, 55, remains jailed on $10,000 bail, accused of lying about his knowledge of the case and failing to report it.

He pleaded innocent to charges this month and is scheduled for a one-day trial March 5 before Judge Willmore.