'We have lost this lovely child'
(Special reports on Cecila Zhang by Toronto Star:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Render&c=Page&cid=1066730587756 )
LINDA DIEBEL
The signs were still hopeful yesterday at the home of Cecilia Zhang's parents.
There was a yellow ribbon tied around the tree on the front lawn, Chinese stone lions for good luck guarding the door and even plans for a little girl's 10th birthday party tomorrow, with cookies and balloons and friends invited.
But hope for their abducted child's safe return was shattered at 4:30 p.m. yesterday, when Toronto police detectives arrived at the North York home of Raymond Zhang and Sherry Xu with the awful confirmation they were dreading. They learned that the body discovered Saturday in a Mississauga ravine by the Credit River, on the other side of the city from their Whitehorn Cres. home, was indeed 9-year-old Cecilia.
On spring's first perfect afternoon, a day of sunshine and birdsong, they learned their vibrant child won't be coming home again. They had done everything they could to find her. They'd filled a Web site with her photos, offered to give up their home to whoever took her five months ago, and drove around the city for hours in their burgundy minivan, searching for their daughter, only to be told, in the end, that she'd lain murdered in rough winter woods.
"Now we have lost this lovely child,'' said family friend Jack Jia.
He stood on his porch across from the Zhang home, barely able to talk. He worked hard to help find Cecilia over the past five months, acting as a spokesperson and offering his own cellphone number for information.
"Our greatest fears have come true," Toronto police Detective Sergeant Gerry Cashman said outside the family home, where Cecilia was last seen Oct. 19.
Last night, Cecilia's parents issued a statement, through their lawyer, Jeffry House.
"We are devastated and in anguish to know that our angel daughter Cecilia has departed this life," it said.
"We have missed her every hour, every moment since she was cruelly taken from us. We hope that she did not suffer and hope that she knows how much of a treasure she was to us in her all-too-short life."
Police Chief Julian Fantino arrived at the Zhang home around 6:30 last night, coming straight from the airport after a private evening in New York. He emerged to tell reporters he had assured the couple that police would do everything possible to bring her killers to justice.
"This is just horrible," said Fantino, calling Cecilia "an innocent, precious child."
For months, police have said publicly that they believed Cecilia was alive, and Fantino seemed shaken last night after bringing a bouquet of flowers to her parents.
"They are very distraught," he said. "It's been a long, long, very traumatic period of time for them. They have always maintained the hope that ... one day we would get a break and we would be able to return Cecilia back safe and sound."
Mayor David Miller met with Xu and Zhang to express his sympathy.
"There are simply no words that can convey how deeply sorry I am for the loss of Cecilia," he said in a statement.
"I feel the pain of this tragedy, both as a parent and as a resident of Toronto. The hearts of everyone in this city are with Cecilia's family tonight."
The little girl's remains were found in a ravine behind the Roman Catholic Church of the Croatian Martyrs, near Eglinton Ave. W. and Mississauga Rd., just before 2 p.m. Saturday by a man walking his dog. He called Peel Region police, who are in charge of the forensic investigation at the scene.
Cashman, who heads the Toronto police Cecilia Zhang task force, met with reporters about an hour after delivering the news to the family.
"I am sad to have to come and tell you that the remains we did find out in the field are Cecilia Zhang's remains," he said. "This is now a homicide investigation."
Inside, other officers, including a sexual assault specialist, remained with Cecilia's parents.
Yesterday, Peel police officers walked a grid search of the area where her body was found in rolling land, with thorny underbrush and beech and maple trees. The site was marked by a small fluorescent orange tent, and the officers put down orange flags to mark evidence, some of which they transferred in brown bags to a police forensic van..
"Okay, watch your neighbour," the lead officer called to the others, as they slowly moved down into the valley, using the shafts of hockey sticks to poke for evidence in the brush.
At a news conference at the scene, Peel's acting homicide inspector Rick De Fascendis said, "We are not in a position to release any information whatsoever of any evidentiary nature.
"Cecilia's body was located approximately 50 to 75 feet off the edge of the (rear) of the parking lot of the church in a heavily treed area," he said, speaking about 200 metres north of where police have set up what's called a forensic anthropological site.
"It was purely by chance that her body was found," he said.
"Her body was identified through forensic means,'' said De Fascendis, refusing to elaborate on how police determined the remains belong to Cecilia.
He wouldn't reveal the condition of the remains or how they were specifically identified, although police would have likely used known dental records to make a positive investigation considering the decomposed state of the body. The little girl had lain in the woods through the fall and winter snowfalls.
Police would not comment on what was found with Cecilia's remains, including clothing.
"We have undergone an exhaustive search of this area and we will be continuing to search this area for evidence," said De Fascendis. "But clearly because it is a wooded area, there are some challenges."
But he predicted the scene "is going to yield forensic evidence."
During the investigation, Toronto police spent two days in the Brampton area, northwest of Toronto, canvassing customers of a Tim Hortons doughnut shop and a rural general store, where calls had been made from two pay phones to Cecilia's home before she was reported missing Oct. 20.
Her body was found almost directly south of that area, about a 20-minute drive away.
De Fascendis said police are working out the logistics as to how Toronto and Peel police will share the investigation. Cashman may server as case manager, but that has yet to be finalized.
Police protocol for sharing cases that involve various jurisdictions was set in the wake of the Paul Bernardo case in which he sexually assaulted at least 18 women in Scarborough, Peel and St. Catharines, and killed three teenage girls in St. Catharines and Burlington, between 1987 and 1992.
Toronto police Constable Mike Hayles said following those rules "is paramount now because of the mistakes that we have made in the past. ... They do want to make sure they handle it by the book. When they do find the person responsible, they want to make sure the person is punished."
He added that the "loss of forensic evidence over the winter would be tremendous. There is always the hope that there is something there that would point them in a direction where they have something they can start from.''
Even as Fantino met with Cecilia's parents, her body lay at the Centre for Forensic Sciences in Toronto in Toronto. An autopsy confirmed her identify just after 2 p.m. yesterday, 24 hours after her body was found. Peel police said it appeared her remains had lain there, exposed to the elements, for a long time.
However, police offered no other forensic information last night.
"We may never release anything," one police source told the Star. "We need everything for investigative purposes. We don't want to give her killers any information."
In fact, Fantino had a message last night for the Cecilia's killers.
"It will be extremely worthwhile for them to consider an early surrender on this case because we don't intend to give up until we in fact bring these people to justice," he said, before leaving the family's home.
The Peel-Toronto homicide investigation now continues around the clock, and forensic experts are to be back at the crime scene this morning to continue the search for evidence.
The sexual assault unit in Toronto has been contacted, although it is not certain whether the unit will participate in the homicide investigation.
It will be a tough day, at the beginning of an even tougher week, for Cecilia's classmates at Seneca Hill Public School.
A team of grief counsellors will be on hand to meet with students, a Toronto school board official said.
Cecilia's disappearance has been very tough on the students. Last fall, they made and hung 1,000 paper cranes in the school as a symbol of their hope to see her safely home.
Neighbour Jia said his son, 10, a former schoolmate of Cecilia's, began to cry when he heard the news. "We tried to comfort him," said Jia, breaking down himself. "My 5-year-old doesn't understand. I don't know how we can say this to our children. I don't know what to say, honest, I don't know..."
He said they planned to put up more yellow ribbons to mark her birthday. Now, the only yellow ribbon is police forensic tape sectioning off a large swath of land where her body was found.
By last night, flowers began piling up in front of the modest brick and wood home, as the news began to spread in the neighbourhood that the Grade 4 student had been found dead.
One neighbour and friend, who identified himself only as Mr. Yuan, whose son went to school with Cecilia, said they had never lost hope the dark-haired little girl would be found alive.
"I always carried Cecilia's photos with me every day, and now we have lost that hope," he said. "Cecilia is like my daughter."
Another neighbour, Karen Ling, said that with "Cecilia having been gone so long, we kind of expected that. We are feeling very sad. The whole community is feeling sad."
In photographs taken by her adoring parents Cecilia always seemed to be smiling. One of the most poignant pieces of news her parents released to their Web site recently was about her cats, Lucky and Happy. They had stopped purring and jumping on laps for affection. They, too, seemed to be grieving the loss of their best friend.
Throughout the afternoon yesterday, onlookers arrived in the parking lot of the church, many with children in tow, to watch the investigation.
People also began to arrive at the site with flowers, setting up a makeshift shrine in the parking lot of the church.
"I'm upset. I can't even eat," said Larry Hodgson, after placing a bouquet beside a tree on the edge of the police barrier.
Two teenage friends also brought flowers, as did a mother and her two children.
"I just can't believe this happened," cried Jalyssa Mills, 14. "It's not right."
the Toronto Star.
(Special reports on Cecila Zhang by Toronto Star:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Render&c=Page&cid=1066730587756 )
LINDA DIEBEL
The signs were still hopeful yesterday at the home of Cecilia Zhang's parents.
There was a yellow ribbon tied around the tree on the front lawn, Chinese stone lions for good luck guarding the door and even plans for a little girl's 10th birthday party tomorrow, with cookies and balloons and friends invited.
But hope for their abducted child's safe return was shattered at 4:30 p.m. yesterday, when Toronto police detectives arrived at the North York home of Raymond Zhang and Sherry Xu with the awful confirmation they were dreading. They learned that the body discovered Saturday in a Mississauga ravine by the Credit River, on the other side of the city from their Whitehorn Cres. home, was indeed 9-year-old Cecilia.
On spring's first perfect afternoon, a day of sunshine and birdsong, they learned their vibrant child won't be coming home again. They had done everything they could to find her. They'd filled a Web site with her photos, offered to give up their home to whoever took her five months ago, and drove around the city for hours in their burgundy minivan, searching for their daughter, only to be told, in the end, that she'd lain murdered in rough winter woods.
"Now we have lost this lovely child,'' said family friend Jack Jia.
He stood on his porch across from the Zhang home, barely able to talk. He worked hard to help find Cecilia over the past five months, acting as a spokesperson and offering his own cellphone number for information.
"Our greatest fears have come true," Toronto police Detective Sergeant Gerry Cashman said outside the family home, where Cecilia was last seen Oct. 19.
Last night, Cecilia's parents issued a statement, through their lawyer, Jeffry House.
"We are devastated and in anguish to know that our angel daughter Cecilia has departed this life," it said.
"We have missed her every hour, every moment since she was cruelly taken from us. We hope that she did not suffer and hope that she knows how much of a treasure she was to us in her all-too-short life."
Police Chief Julian Fantino arrived at the Zhang home around 6:30 last night, coming straight from the airport after a private evening in New York. He emerged to tell reporters he had assured the couple that police would do everything possible to bring her killers to justice.
"This is just horrible," said Fantino, calling Cecilia "an innocent, precious child."
For months, police have said publicly that they believed Cecilia was alive, and Fantino seemed shaken last night after bringing a bouquet of flowers to her parents.
"They are very distraught," he said. "It's been a long, long, very traumatic period of time for them. They have always maintained the hope that ... one day we would get a break and we would be able to return Cecilia back safe and sound."
Mayor David Miller met with Xu and Zhang to express his sympathy.
"There are simply no words that can convey how deeply sorry I am for the loss of Cecilia," he said in a statement.
"I feel the pain of this tragedy, both as a parent and as a resident of Toronto. The hearts of everyone in this city are with Cecilia's family tonight."
The little girl's remains were found in a ravine behind the Roman Catholic Church of the Croatian Martyrs, near Eglinton Ave. W. and Mississauga Rd., just before 2 p.m. Saturday by a man walking his dog. He called Peel Region police, who are in charge of the forensic investigation at the scene.
Cashman, who heads the Toronto police Cecilia Zhang task force, met with reporters about an hour after delivering the news to the family.
"I am sad to have to come and tell you that the remains we did find out in the field are Cecilia Zhang's remains," he said. "This is now a homicide investigation."
Inside, other officers, including a sexual assault specialist, remained with Cecilia's parents.
Yesterday, Peel police officers walked a grid search of the area where her body was found in rolling land, with thorny underbrush and beech and maple trees. The site was marked by a small fluorescent orange tent, and the officers put down orange flags to mark evidence, some of which they transferred in brown bags to a police forensic van..
"Okay, watch your neighbour," the lead officer called to the others, as they slowly moved down into the valley, using the shafts of hockey sticks to poke for evidence in the brush.
At a news conference at the scene, Peel's acting homicide inspector Rick De Fascendis said, "We are not in a position to release any information whatsoever of any evidentiary nature.
"Cecilia's body was located approximately 50 to 75 feet off the edge of the (rear) of the parking lot of the church in a heavily treed area," he said, speaking about 200 metres north of where police have set up what's called a forensic anthropological site.
"It was purely by chance that her body was found," he said.
"Her body was identified through forensic means,'' said De Fascendis, refusing to elaborate on how police determined the remains belong to Cecilia.
He wouldn't reveal the condition of the remains or how they were specifically identified, although police would have likely used known dental records to make a positive investigation considering the decomposed state of the body. The little girl had lain in the woods through the fall and winter snowfalls.
Police would not comment on what was found with Cecilia's remains, including clothing.
"We have undergone an exhaustive search of this area and we will be continuing to search this area for evidence," said De Fascendis. "But clearly because it is a wooded area, there are some challenges."
But he predicted the scene "is going to yield forensic evidence."
During the investigation, Toronto police spent two days in the Brampton area, northwest of Toronto, canvassing customers of a Tim Hortons doughnut shop and a rural general store, where calls had been made from two pay phones to Cecilia's home before she was reported missing Oct. 20.
Her body was found almost directly south of that area, about a 20-minute drive away.
De Fascendis said police are working out the logistics as to how Toronto and Peel police will share the investigation. Cashman may server as case manager, but that has yet to be finalized.
Police protocol for sharing cases that involve various jurisdictions was set in the wake of the Paul Bernardo case in which he sexually assaulted at least 18 women in Scarborough, Peel and St. Catharines, and killed three teenage girls in St. Catharines and Burlington, between 1987 and 1992.
Toronto police Constable Mike Hayles said following those rules "is paramount now because of the mistakes that we have made in the past. ... They do want to make sure they handle it by the book. When they do find the person responsible, they want to make sure the person is punished."
He added that the "loss of forensic evidence over the winter would be tremendous. There is always the hope that there is something there that would point them in a direction where they have something they can start from.''
Even as Fantino met with Cecilia's parents, her body lay at the Centre for Forensic Sciences in Toronto in Toronto. An autopsy confirmed her identify just after 2 p.m. yesterday, 24 hours after her body was found. Peel police said it appeared her remains had lain there, exposed to the elements, for a long time.
However, police offered no other forensic information last night.
"We may never release anything," one police source told the Star. "We need everything for investigative purposes. We don't want to give her killers any information."
In fact, Fantino had a message last night for the Cecilia's killers.
"It will be extremely worthwhile for them to consider an early surrender on this case because we don't intend to give up until we in fact bring these people to justice," he said, before leaving the family's home.
The Peel-Toronto homicide investigation now continues around the clock, and forensic experts are to be back at the crime scene this morning to continue the search for evidence.
The sexual assault unit in Toronto has been contacted, although it is not certain whether the unit will participate in the homicide investigation.
It will be a tough day, at the beginning of an even tougher week, for Cecilia's classmates at Seneca Hill Public School.
A team of grief counsellors will be on hand to meet with students, a Toronto school board official said.
Cecilia's disappearance has been very tough on the students. Last fall, they made and hung 1,000 paper cranes in the school as a symbol of their hope to see her safely home.
Neighbour Jia said his son, 10, a former schoolmate of Cecilia's, began to cry when he heard the news. "We tried to comfort him," said Jia, breaking down himself. "My 5-year-old doesn't understand. I don't know how we can say this to our children. I don't know what to say, honest, I don't know..."
He said they planned to put up more yellow ribbons to mark her birthday. Now, the only yellow ribbon is police forensic tape sectioning off a large swath of land where her body was found.
By last night, flowers began piling up in front of the modest brick and wood home, as the news began to spread in the neighbourhood that the Grade 4 student had been found dead.
One neighbour and friend, who identified himself only as Mr. Yuan, whose son went to school with Cecilia, said they had never lost hope the dark-haired little girl would be found alive.
"I always carried Cecilia's photos with me every day, and now we have lost that hope," he said. "Cecilia is like my daughter."
Another neighbour, Karen Ling, said that with "Cecilia having been gone so long, we kind of expected that. We are feeling very sad. The whole community is feeling sad."
In photographs taken by her adoring parents Cecilia always seemed to be smiling. One of the most poignant pieces of news her parents released to their Web site recently was about her cats, Lucky and Happy. They had stopped purring and jumping on laps for affection. They, too, seemed to be grieving the loss of their best friend.
Throughout the afternoon yesterday, onlookers arrived in the parking lot of the church, many with children in tow, to watch the investigation.
People also began to arrive at the site with flowers, setting up a makeshift shrine in the parking lot of the church.
"I'm upset. I can't even eat," said Larry Hodgson, after placing a bouquet beside a tree on the edge of the police barrier.
Two teenage friends also brought flowers, as did a mother and her two children.
"I just can't believe this happened," cried Jalyssa Mills, 14. "It's not right."
the Toronto Star.
