Police Step Up Search For Teen Missing For Five Days
Posted September 19, 2009 12:05 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Police have stepped up their search for a missing teen to the third and highest level, a sign that more resources have been called in and an acknowledgement that foul play is possible.
Mariam Makhniashvili, by her family’s account a happy 17-year-old with no reason to run away, was last seen on Monday before class at Forest Hill Collegiate, the school she attended with her younger brother.
Now, more than 100 officers have been assigned to the case and on Friday, they combed a west-end dump site with the help of cadaver dogs and urged people in a three-kilometre radius of Makhniashvili’s apartment building to search their properties for signs of her.
Makhniashvili has been in the city for only three months, leaving the republic of Georgia in June to join her parents, who had been working in the U.S. for five years. She doesn’t speak much English and has no support system outside of her immediate family.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is completely out of character for her. Secondly, she’s been in Toronto for less than 90 days. She has no friends and her only relatives in North America are her parents and her brother,” Staff Inspector Larry Sinclair said at a Friday press conference.
Makhniashvili is described as white, 5’3”, 140 pounds with light-brown, shoulder-length hair and brown eyes.
She was last seen wearing black pants, a light-blue shirt, dark blue jean jacket and a large black knapsack with a green stripe.
Toronto Crime Stoppers has posted online appeals to the public. To view them, click on the links below:
If you can help, call police at 416-808-5300, Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), online at www.222tips.com, or text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637).
