March For Missing Teen
Posted April 3, 2010 3:36 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
More than six months after she disappeared, the family and friends of missing teen Mariam Makhniashvili gathered at Yonge Dundas Square Saturday to remind the public of her story.
“We won’t stop searching for her. We’re trying to make the public more aware about this case, because we need to remember this case is open and the search is on,” said Mariam’s father Vakhtang.
A small crowd gathered, carrying pictures of the missing 18-year old and handing out flyers.
“We believe strongly that Mariam is out there, trying to escape or waiting for a chance to return….We hope this march, the second march for Mariam will generate more leads and that more people will pay attention and remember that Mariam is still missing,” said her mother Lela Tabidze.
Mariam was last seen on September 14, outside her school Forest Hill Collegiate Institute. She and her younger brother George separated at the school’s back entrance when Mariam decided to use the front entrance.
Her backpack was then found October 8 in a parking lot in the Yonge and Eglinton area.
That was the last known trace of Mariam. There have been several reported sightings of her out west. On October 27, RCMP received a report she’d been spotted outside Calgary. Then on December 2, another reported sighting of her in Grand Prairie. The RCMP said there was no evidence Mariam had been in the province.
She had been attending Forest Hill Collegiate Institute for only four days before she disappeared. Mariam and her brother moved from Tblisi, Georgia in June to reunite with her parents who had moved to Toronto from Los Angeles a few months earlier.
