UPDATE: Cokie Roberts' Missing Dog Confirmed Dead

Update, 4:45 p.m.: Cokie Roberts has released a statement following the death of her newly adopted dog, Katie.

"We are so terribly sad about the news,” said Roberts in the statement. “We want to thank all who searched so diligently for Katie, and we are deeply distressed for the family who fostered Katie for three loving months."

“We cannot say enough good things about Lab Rescue of the LRCP and its dedicated volunteers. We urge all the kind people who have been in touch with us about Lab Rescue to make a donation to them in honor of Katie, just as we will."

Donations in Katie's memory can be made online to Lab Rescue or via mail at Lab Rescue of the LRCP Inc., P.O. Box 1814, Annandale, VA 22003.

Original post, 1:43 p.m.: The black Lab that Saturday has died.

The 48-pound, five-year-old female dog known as Katie was struck and killed by a car near according to Lab Rescue, which aided in the search.

"Lab Rescue of the LRCP is sad to report that Katie, the Lab adopted on Saturday by Cokie Roberts, was hit by a car and killed in the vicinity of Thomas W. Pyle Middle School in Bethesda," Stephen Push, a spokesman for Lab Rescue, wrote in an e-mail to Patch. "Her body was found at 9 a.m. [Thursday] and was identified by Lab Rescue volunteers."

The missing dog prompted a search across Bethesda, and hundreds of readers shared Patch's story about the missing pup on Twitter and Facebook.

Roberts adopted the Lab—known as Katie—from the rescue group Saturday. The same day, around 6:15 p.m., the dog went missing.

Using tracking dogs, volunteers searching for Katie confirmed that she had last been seen Wednesday morning near Pyle.