|
Post by Sher on Aug 23, 2005 18:30:04 GMT -5
After almost a week of silence, tightlipped York Regional Police officers may have made their first significant public move in the hunt for missing Alicia Ross.
Investigators have removed a vehicle from in front of her parent’s Bronte Road home at Bayview and Green Lane.
No one is willing to say why they’ve seized the car, if it’s related to the search for her, or even if it’s the automobile that belonged to the 25-year-old.
It was taken away on a police flatbed truck in the early afternoon.
Authorities have already confirmed they believe her disappearance is foul play, after six agonizing and ceaseless days of searching for her turned up no clues.
Ross was last seen late Tuesday, into early Wednesday, by her current boyfriend Sean Hine as he dropped her off at the family home.
She was first discovered missing when she failed to show up for work Wednesday morning.
Until Monday, investigators were reluctant to suggest the young woman may have been a victim of crime, because they didn’t have many clues to go on.
But now York Regional Police Insp. Tom Carrique admits it seems Ross didn’t leave the home “of her own free accord.”
Given her close relationship with family, it also wasn’t in her character to leave without telling anyone.
And she left without her purse, her keys or her wallet.
More than 1,000 volunteers have been combing a 31-kilometre radius around the Markham home where she was last seen. And while the large ground searches are over for now, those who know the young woman are refusing to abandon hope.
"I'm just hoping to God that she is found, and I'm doing everything that I can to bring her back," said Ross's friend, Adam Stern, who has posted flyers around the city in the hope someone will see something.
Lee-Anne Wong drove from Pickering to help.
"From one mother to another, I know if my child was missing, I'd be definitely begging for the public's help," she said.
Officers have conducted interviews and background checks on anyone who had contact with Ross in the days leading up to her disappearance, and they also examined credit card and bank transactions.
Though Hine is not a suspect at this point, he remains "a person of interest" because he was the last known person to have seen her.
While police intended to scale down the search, friends, family and some of the volunteers continued looking for even the smallest sign of the 25-year-old.
Ross was last seen wearing a yellow tank top and grey baggy pants. She has long brown hair with blonde streaks and an athletic build. Cops have now set up a special hotline for tips. If you have one, call 1-866-287-5025.
***************************************
THORNHILL - A Toyota Corolla towed from her driveway was the only evidence yesterday of a new phase in the police hunt for Alicia Ross, the 25-year-old woman missing since early last week from the home she shares with her parents.
The Corolla, which police refused to say belongs to Ms. Ross, has been dispatched to the Centre of Forensic Sciences for testing, while a friend of the Ross family said investigators had also begun digging through her basement bedroom.
The forensic examinations, along with the launch of a 24-hour, toll-free number -- 1-866-287-5025 -- dedicated to tips on Ms. Ross's disappearance, capped a week of intense searching by more than 1,000 volunteers and dozens of police officers who combed through the dense pockets of greenbelt surrounding Ms. Ross's home in this affluent suburb that borders Toronto to the north.
"The official police search of this immediate area has been completed and we are saddened to report that there has been no clues uncovered to help us with the investigation," said Inspector Craig Rogers yesterday.
Police said they have received an indeterminate number of tips from the public but that none has supplied tangible evidence for why the woman, who left her keys and wallet behind in her home, went missing more than a week ago.
"The police are frustrated -- family, friends, we're all frustrated," Inspector Tom Carrique said yesterday.
"We're all still just waiting to wake up," said a close friend of Ms. Ross.
The search wound down Monday afternoon after police said the possibility of foul play had moved to the fore in their investigation.
Police are to maintain a strong presence in the community, including the force's mobile command post, set up at a school nearby the Ross home, said Insp. Rogers.
Meanwhile, police confirmed Sean Michael Hine, Ms. Ross's 29-year-old boyfriend and a man identified by Insp. Carrique last week as a "person of interest" in the matter, was released from a night in jail after being arrested for impaired driving in Newmarket.
Mr. Hine's arrest came after an anonymous tip to police, said a spokeswoman for the force.
Insp. Carrique said Mr. Hine's arrest, which resulted in a 90-day suspension of his driver's licence, had nothing to do with the investigation into the disappearance.
"There have been no arrests related to this investigation," he said.
He also refused to reiterate the designation of Mr. Hine, made last week, as a "person of interest."
"In the interest of the investigation, we're not identifying to the public persons of interest, witnesses or suspects," he commented.
Mr. Hine, Ms. Ross's boyfriend for six weeks, has told police he last saw the woman Tuesday, Aug. 16, when he left her in the backyard of her home on Bronte Road, in Thornhill's John and Leslie streets area.
He said it was almost midnight when he left.
Julius Fortis, Ms. Ross's stepfather, told the National Post earlier this week that he last heard from his daughter, who is said to be fond of travelling and animals, when she telephoned the family's home that same night at 11 p.m. He would not discuss the substance of the call.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Aug 24, 2005 16:17:46 GMT -5
MARKHAM, Ont. -- The neighbours of a missing 25-year-old woman have been checking over their shoulders and giving a careful once-over to strangers since Alicia Ross vanished without a trace a week ago. As the investigation into the woman's disappearance shifted focus Tuesday from a ground search to a probe of clues that might indicate foul play, the upper middle-class families who live nearby in this suburb north of Toronto said they were growing increasingly nervous.
"It's nerve-racking to think something like that could happen in this neighbourhood," said Lee Gooderman outside her family's tidy garage.
"We're just looking around - always looking. You start to think maybe there's a stalker or something."
Gooderman said she doesn't even recall a break-in during the 20 years she has lived the neighbourhood.
Police said Tuesday they've ruled out the possibility that Ross left her home and found herself in distress. They are now searching for clues that might point to criminal involvement.
"We continue on with our investigation that has always looked at the possibility of foul play, specifically of abduction," said York Region police Insp. Tom Carrique.
"We've eliminated the fact that she's walked away from the residence of her own free will and accord."
Police had initially been reluctant to suggest she was a victim of crime because of a lack of leads.
Police removed a vehicle from Ross's home for forensic examination Tuesday and also announced they have set up a 24-hour hotline that citizens can call to provide anonymous tips.
"Our main focus is locating Alicia, and it's very frustrating when we're not finding evidence," Carrique said.
Ross was last seen early last Wednesday around the backyard of her home by her 29-year-old boyfriend, Sean Hine.
She failed to show up for work the next day at a computer firm, and her car was still in the driveway of the home she shared with her parents.
"It's kind of scary to be walking around," said neighbourhood resident Nicolle Gyorkos, 20, who admitted she's been rushing from her car into her home when pulls into her driveway at night.
"She was at her house. You don't even feel safe in your own home."
Gyorkos said Ross's disappearance has dominated conversations between friends and neighbours over the past week.
Once-peaceful evening walks along the nearby ravine have been replaced by fearful glances into the underbrush.
Officers scaled back their massive search for Ross late Monday after nearly 1,000 volunteers combed through a 31-square-kilometre area surrounding her home - a search police said was one of the largest in the Toronto area in more than two decades.
Although Ross's boyfriend is considered "a person of interest" because he was the last person to see her before she vanished, police said he is not a suspect.
He was charged Sunday with impaired driving after police received a tip that led to his arrest, but has since been released from custody.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Aug 25, 2005 12:14:38 GMT -5
TORONTO/640TORONTO - The investigation into the disappearance of Alicia Ross is moving into a new stage. Police have established a tip-line specifically for this case, at 1-866-287-5025.
Of course, anyone with information can also call Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.
The last time the 25-year-old Markham woman was seen was last Tuesday night -- a week ago.
The intense ground search for Ross has now been scaled back.
Police are looking more and more at the idea of foul play.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Aug 25, 2005 12:16:05 GMT -5
MARKHAM, ONT. -- When first she laid eyes upon her daughter in hospital, the little girl was but three days old.
She had the fattest face Sharon Ross, as she then was, had ever seen, one lovely pudge after another. "Do you know how to bottle-feed?" a nurse asked. Sharon sat down and took the baby in her arms and fed her, and then she took her home.
When she got there, she phoned her doctor. "I don't think she has a neck," she told him.
"She has a neck," said the doctor. "Don't call me again."
Thus, shortly after entering the very world from which nine days ago she vanished, did Alicia Ross become part of the first of her two families.
Her brother, adopted as she was, arrived three years later. When it came time for his bris - in the Jewish faith, the rite of circumcision - Alicia sat on the stairs to greet the guests.
"My brother's having a brisket today," she announced cheerfully.
Sharon Fortis, as she is now and has been for 14 years, still has the little sweater baby Alicia was wearing the day she came home.
"Pray for my daughter," she whispered in the living room of the pretty house she shares with her second husband, Julius, and a handful of the sprawling brood of six youngsters they collectively brought -- Sharon's two, Julius's four -- to the marriage and raised here. "Pray for the person who has her. There is a spark of goodness in everyone. Pray he finds the goodness to let her come home. That's all I want. I just want her back."
Mrs. Fortis is a bit of a thing -- she comes to my neck and I'm about 5 foot 4 -- but she is remarkably fierce. Yesterday, she was having a reasonably good day; Julius and Andrew, the couple's second-oldest, were not.
You see, in the details, if not in the main event, God is kind, and allows someone in the family to be strong each day.
This is how it goes, when one of your children has just . . . disappeared. There are minutes when your heart swells with optimism you pray is not ridiculous and hours when you cannot contain the terror.
For the middle two nights since Alicia disappeared, Mrs. Fortis was able to sleep a little, buoyed by hope. "By the fifth night," she told The Globe and Mail, "that was gone."
The mornings are the worst. She never wakes up thinking, not even for an instant, that it's over. "The second I wake up," she said, "I know it's here, that I'm still in this bad thing. I haven't opened up my eyes once and thought the other."
She believes Alicia is alive, as the parents of missing children must believe. "Everyone who phones," she said, "says, 'We know she's alive. We don't know how or why, we just do.' " Mrs. Fortis believes it because "the whole nature of the scenario of a girl like this," she said, "I don't think anyone would want to harm her. It's someone who would just want her."
Alicia went missing last Tuesday night. She and her mom took the dogs, Woody and Frasier (named after characters from the old Cheers TV series), for a long walk to a nearby park. Alicia was "flying," Mrs. Fortis said, burbling with excitement about new responsibilities she would begin to assume the next day at Hewlett-Packard, the computer company where, improbably for a geography major, she had landed after finishing at Concordia University in Montreal.
The firm had turned out to be a great fit for the outdoorsy young woman who loves canoeing, tripping, camping and the sun in her face: Alicia, always a shy girl, blossomed and began giving off-site presentations, and at the company Christmas party last year, was centred out by a senior executive, who read aloud an e-mail from a superior praising her and then pointed to her and cried, "Alicia Ross, you are Hewlett-Packard!"
"I was the girl of the night," she told her mom later.
The nice little girl who had what Mrs. Fortis described with a wry grin as "an interesting adolescence" and had become "an unbelievably great person" had also found her feet.
So she was bursting with excitement on the day she vanished.
The two women walked the family's white standard poodles (gentle pooches who nonetheless are such reliable watchdogs that the York Regional officer who took me to the front door yesterday just stood there waiting for them to announce us, not bothering to knock or ring the buzzer). The two women had a giggle later with Randi, the Fortis's 32-year-old daughter who is temporarily back at home until her new apartment is ready. That night, about 11 o'clock, Sharon went downstairs, where Alicia has one of the two bedrooms (Shawn, the 27-year-old, has the other), and asked if she could borrow back a bag of which they had joint custody.
Alicia has one of the same kind, but hers is a knockoff -- Mrs. Fortis's is the real deal.
Alicia handed it over and said, "Thanks for sharing, Mummy!" Mrs. Fortis said yesterday. "And that was the last time I saw her."
The next morning, both parents were already out of the house -- Mr. Fortis is a self-employed accountant, Mrs. Fortis is a contract law clerk with the environmental law branch of the Gowlings firm -- by the time, in the ordinary course, Alicia would have been getting ready for work.
Of what happened that morning, they know only what York Police have said publicly: Alicia was reported missing between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. by her boyfriend of six weeks, Sean Hine.
Tellingly, left behind were the travelling companions of many young women. "The purse, the phone, the cigarettes," Mrs. Fortis said. "She doesn't have her purse, her phone and her cigarettes."
Her friends are frantic: Mother and daughter share a web account, and the other night, Mrs. Fortis signed on as Alicia so she could look at pictures from a canoe trip Alicia and her 22-year-old brother Jamie had been on. Mrs. Fortis didn't realize that by doing it, she had activated Alicia's MSN messaging, but was suddenly deluged with cries from her daughter's friends -- "Are you there?! Are you there?!"
She is not there, not yet.
"You know," Mrs. Fortis said, "I used to say . . . I always said that certain people, they go through the fire. Alicia suffered the loss of her high-school sweetheart [Greg Rogers, who was killed in a car accident] and last summer, she suffered when her father died [he took his own life]. I say to myself, this should not have happened to this girl. She has suffered enough.
"But maybe God picks certain people who are special, or very special. I try to justify it this way. It's the only justification I can come up with. But I say, okay, it's enough. It's a week. I worry. It's a long time already."
Mr. Fortis said, a reference to his work as an accountant, "I deal with reality -- well with something concrete -- and I can get hold of things pretty quickly. This is something [of which] I don't have any control and it's very hard." He was very close to tears then, as so many times before, and excused himself.
"Every day, I get scared," Sharon Fortis said. "I wonder if she's being fed. I keep telling her, 'Sleep, sleep.' "
Alicia's bedroom remains sealed off, and her bathroom, too. The police forensics technicians are not yet completely finished. But the other day, Mrs. Fortis was allowed to pick just one thing from the room. An officer took her to the door, and she could only stand there, frozen, dumbfounded as to what to choose. What one thing? The officer handed her a small pillow. What she really wanted, she realized later, was a sweatshirt that smelled of her girl.
She falls asleep holding onto the little stuffed duck that is attached to Alicia's key chain, and in the awful mornings, the duck is sometimes still in her hand.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Aug 25, 2005 12:20:05 GMT -5
RICHMOND HILL - Sean Hine, whose neighbourhood police began canvassing yesterday as part of their probe into the disappearance of 25-year-old Alicia Ross, is being maligned by a news media that "twist" facts to skewer him, his younger brother said yesterday.
"He's not doing well," Chris Hine, 26, said of his older brother, identified by York Regional Police last week as a "person of interest" in the mysterious case of Alicia Ross, the young Thornhill woman missing since early on Wednesday.
Standing at the door of the townhouse he shares with his 29-year-old brother and another roommate, Chris Hine argued his brother's impaired driving arrest on Sunday and the night he spent in jail have nothing to do with the police investigation into the disappearance of Ms. Ross.
Police confirmed on Tuesday they arrested and charged Mr. Hine with impaired driving on Sunday afternoon in Newmarket.
A lot of people have a couple of drinks and get behind the wheel, said Chris Hine, who argued news stories following the arrest used the charge to further an agenda set against Sean Hine.
Asked about the events on Tuesday night leading up to Ms. Ross's disappearance, Mr. Hine replied, "I know a lot of things."
He refused to elaborate.
Police say Sean Hine was the last person to see Ms. Ross before she vanished sometime after 11 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 16, when her parents received a call from the young, athletic woman.
Mr. Hine has told police he last saw Ms. Ross, his girlfriend for about two months, in the backyard of her home about an hour after that call. He has told reporters he is ''pretty much the prime suspect'' in the case.
Police say a massive search after the disappearance, when more than a thousand volunteers and dozens of police participated, uncovered no evidence. Earlier this week, they said "foul play" would move into the fore of their investigation.
Yesterday, plainclothes officers pounded on doors and took notes as they interviewed people in the area surrounding Mr. Hine's townhouse, where Chris Hine said he and his brother have lived for a couple of months.
Neighbours said the officers asked if they knew Sean Hine and whether they had seen him put out garbage last Wednesday, the day city trucks service the area.
"They're pretty good kids," said one neighbour, who refused to give her name, of the young men occupying the townhouse.
The woman said she had seen Sean Hine before Ms. Ross's disappearance but did not know him.
Chris Hine said his brother had been at the home yesterday but that he had left to stay with family friends.
Their parents are frustrated by the media attention they have received in the wake of Ms. Ross's disappearance and are "not doing well."
Chris Hine said he had twice met Ms. Ross but did not know her.
Mark Mendelson, a former homicide detective with Toronto police, said he was not surprised the investigation into Ms. Ross's disappearance had moved to canvassing her boyfriend's neighbourhood.
"He's a likely person that people would be focusing attention on," Mr. Mendelson told Global News. "He was the last person to see her alive by her own admission. He was someone that was close to her and he's somebody that has to be cleared."
On Tuesday, police towed Ms. Ross's Toyota Corolla from the driveway of the home she shares with her parents and sent it to the Centre of Forensic Sciences for testing.
"Now that they are into her car," added Mr. Mendelson, "I am sure that they are into her voicemail at home and at work, her cellphone, her e-mail, in case someone else has been trying to contact her."
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Aug 25, 2005 12:21:35 GMT -5
The mother of a missing Toronto-area woman refuses to give up hope, more than a week after her daughter disappeared without a trace.
Sharon Fortis said Thursday that she's still convinced her 25-year-old daughter Alicia Ross will be home soon.
"I'm keeping the faith," Fortis said in an interview with CTV News Toronto. "And I am confident in my daughter, and I'm confident in York Region police.
"They're doing their part and I know she's doing her part. I know whatever she's doing, she's doing her part and she will come home."
Although volunteers are no longer helping police search the area around Ross' home for clues, police say their investigation in the community that sits on Toronto's northeast boundary is continuing.
They have also asked residents in the cottage communities of Muskoka and Haliburton to report any suspicious activities they may have witnessed in the past week.
A dedicated toll-free telephone tip line -- 1-866-287-5025 -- has been established for people to call with any information about Ross' disappearance. Members of the public can also call CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.
After eight days without word from her daughter, Fortis says she hopes the public will call with any information at all -- even if they're not even convinced it is relevant.
"Even if it's someone who remotely may resemble her, you never know," she pleaded, hoping city residents would join her in thinking and praying for her missing girl.
Ross was first reported missing on the morning of August 17, by her boyfriend Sean Hine.
It is believed she was wearing a yellow tank top and baggy grey pants when she went missing.
Police say Hine, who was charged with impaired driving this past weekend, is not a suspect in his girlfriend's disappearance. He is, however, considered a "person of interest."
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Aug 28, 2005 2:40:27 GMT -5
Markham, Ont. — Investigators had a simple message Saturday for anyone who may have been involved in the suspected abduction of an Ontario woman missing for more than a week: turn yourself in.
Alicia Ross, 25, was last seen just past midnight last Aug. 17 by her boyfriend, Sean Hine, 29, in the back yard of her home in this suburb north of Toronto.
At a news conference Saturday, Insp. Tom Carrique of York Region police warned that anyone who was responsible for Ms. Ross's disappearance may have committed a criminal offence.
Investigators said Thursday that a provincial police behavioural science unit came to the opinion that Ms. Ross was likely abducted by someone she knew.
"We have reason to believe somebody may have knowledge as to her whereabouts. And obviously, somebody has participated in her abduction," Insp. Carrique said.
"It's a very simple message. If you are involved in the abduction of Alicia Ross, we encourage you to come forward and put an end to this for the family."
On Saturday, Ms. Ross's brother, Andrew Fortis, thanked supporters on behalf of the family and made a personal plea to his sister.
"We have not given up. We know you are there, we know you're OK, we know you will come home," he said.
"We have not given up despite what you may hear. We are at home, we want you to be strong and we want you to come home. We are just waiting for you. We love you very, very much."
Ground search and rescue units will continue conducting focused search efforts in Richmond Hill, just north of Markham, and other areas based on investigative leads, said Insp. Craig Rogers.
Thus far, however, no clues have been found.
"It saddens me to say that we do not have any further information or clues that are leading us any closer to determining Alicia's whereabouts," Insp. Rogers said.
To date, no suspects have been arrested in the woman's disappearance, police said.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Aug 29, 2005 3:42:31 GMT -5
MARKHAM, Ontario -- The brother of a missing Toronto-area woman has made an emotional public appeal.
Andrew Fortis says the family knows Alicia Ross is okay and will come home.
The 25-year-old Ross was last seen on August 17 by her boyfriend, Sean Hine, in the backyard of her Markham home.
Police now say they believe she was abducted by someone she knew.
During a news conference yesterday, investigators urged anyone involved in Ross's disappearance to come forward.
There are no suspects in the case and police say they are no longer engaged in ground search activities.
They're only checking areas based on investigative leads.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Aug 29, 2005 3:44:04 GMT -5
ROCKWOOD -- A partially decomposed body has been found near Guelph.
Provincial police said at the scene that they don't think the body is that of Alicia Ross, the 25-year-old Markham woman who mysteriously disappeared Aug. 17.
Det. Insp. David Truax says investigators don't believe the cases to be related after contacting police in York Region, near Toronto.
Provincial police say a pedestrian discovered the remains while walking in a wooded picnic area on Highway 7, west of the town of Rockwood, northeast of Guelph.
Investigators were examining the body, believed to be that of an adult woman.
The remains will be taken to Hamilton General Hospital, where an autopsy will be conducted to determine the identity and cause of death.
Truax would not reveal details about the condition of the body, but ruled out a link to the high-profile Ross case.
"We don't believe this to be related to (that) case at this time," Truax said.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Aug 30, 2005 9:17:33 GMT -5
Police have one simple message for anyone involved in Alicia Ross' abduction: turn yourself in.
"What we need them to think about is what they've gotten themselves involved in and the pain and suffering they are causing the Fortis and Ross family," York Regional Police Insp. Tom Carrique said of anyone connected to the Thornhill woman's abduction.
"We need them to search their conscience, to do the right thing and turn themselves in."
Ms Ross was last seen at her parents' Bronte Road home Aug. 17. After an extensive ground search in the immediate area and focused searches stemming from investigative leads in Richmond Hill and Haliburton in the first week following her disappearance, OPP behavioural science experts concluded Ms Ross was most likely abducted by someone she knows.
Insp. Carrique said he could not speculate how many people were involved in the abduction, but seemed positive more than one person must have information about what happened to the 25-year-old computer firm sales associate.
"There will be somebody out there that knows something about this," he said.
A woman's body was discovered by OPP officers in a picnic area near Guelph Sunday, but York Const. Laurie Perks confirmed the description of the remains is not a match to Ms Ross.
A number of tips have come in through an Alicia Ross hotline set up last week and CrimeStoppers, but none have led police closer to a conclusion.
"This has been a frustrating investigation right from the get go," Insp. Carrique said. "Hope is all we have to hold on to, but as each day passes, we become more and more concerned."
York Region residents are encouraged to search their rural properties, fence lines and bush lots for clues and call police.
Investigators have decided to scale back the number of media addresses regarding the case and will not hold a media conference until Friday, unless new information is found.
"We will continue to have a full investigation. We are not scaling back in any way shape or form, but we will discontinue engaging you with nothing new to report," Insp. Carrique told reporters Monday.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Sept 3, 2005 6:26:05 GMT -5
York Regional Police dismantled its command post in Thornhill yesterday, 17 days after Alicia Ross went missing.
"We are still very concerned for her well-being with each passing day," said Chief Armand La Barge, but added that the force remains hopeful of the 25-year-old's safe return.
"As time goes on, obviously there's a natural inclination in society to move on to other things. We haven't, [Alicia's family] hasn't and we would ask members of the public not to as well."
Police moved the centre of the investigation to its offices in Richmond Hill because students will be returning to the site they had used, St. René Goupil Catholic School, on Tuesday.
Ms. Ross was reported missing on Aug. 17 by her boyfriend of a few months, Sean Hine. The 29-year-old was the last known person to see her the night of Aug. 16 when he dropped her off at the basement apartment of the family's home on Bronte Road. She was last seen wearing a yellow tank top and baggy grey pants. Her purse, keys and some money were still in the home.
When she failed to arrive at work the next day at Hewlett-Packard, Mr. Hine notified police of her disappearance.
With the public's attention now on the devastation in Louisiana and Mississippi, Chief La Barge said Ms. Ross's mother, Sharon Fortis, hopes that people will not forget about her daughter. "She implores everybody to please remember Alicia's face. They hold out hope that she will return to the family safely," he said after meeting with her yesterday morning.
Officers combed an area near Elgin Mills Road West and Bayview Avenue yesterday in their third focused search. The other two have been in Haliburton and near Yonge Street and Gamble Road.
"Every available officer has been deployed or redeployed toward this investigation," Chief La Barge said. "That will not change . . ."
He reiterated that individuals with any information should call the 24-hour hot line dedicated to the case at 1-866-287-5025.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Sept 16, 2005 0:03:34 GMT -5
MARKHAM, ONT. -- The mother of Alicia Ross, the 25-year-old woman who mysteriously disappeared four weeks ago, says she needs to know what happened to her daughter.
Sharon Fortis is stealing herself for the possibility her daughter may be dead but says she wants to know what has happened, saying her family needs closure.
Ross was reported missing by her boyfriend Sean Hine on August 17th, the day after he dropped her off at her family's home in Markham, north of Toronto.
She was last seen wearing a yellow tank top and baggy grey pants.
Her purse, keys and some money were still in the home.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Sept 21, 2005 12:32:11 GMT -5
More than a month after she disappeared, it appears police have made an arrest in the case of Alicia Ross.
Sources told CityNews the woman’s neighbour has confessed to killing her, and authorities have sealed off the home next door to the Ross’s with crime scene tape.
The inhabitants of that home are apparently a man in his 20s and his mother.
The investigation began in mid-August after the 25-year-old went missing from her family’s home in Markham.
York Regional Police Chief Armand La Barge was due to provide the latest details in a press conference at 2pm Wednesday.
Early reports suggest police have also sealed off areas in Port Perry and Kawartha Lakes, where Alicia's remains may have been found.
The young woman was last seen on the evening of August 16th by her boyfriend Sean Hine at the family home.
After saying goodbye to him she went inside the house. But something drew her back out again, and when she left she didn’t take her keys, purse or even shoes.
She hasn’t been seen since.
The next morning Ross failed to show up for work, and her car was still in the driveway.
Police conducted an extensive search, both of the area surrounding her Bayview and Green Lane home, and in Haliburton where it's believed Hine had a cottage, but nothing came of it.
They’d since set up a 24-hour hotline where people could call in with tips and information.
Though Hine was the last known person to have seen her alive, he was never named as a suspect.
And though details in the case have been few and far between, O.P.P. behavioural scientists felt she'd been abducted by someone she knew.
Her family, in agony since Alicia went missing, just wants answers into what may have happened to her. The young woman’s mother, Sharon Fortis, said recently not knowing is the worst thing.
"I need that phone call," she pleaded. "I need my daughter back. And I hesitate to say it but I will say it – in whatever circumstances."
On Wednesday afternoon, there are indications she may get those terrible answers.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Sept 21, 2005 15:52:00 GMT -5
Neighbour charged in death of Alicia Ross CTV.ca News Staff
Police believe they have located the remains of Alicia Ross following the surrender of a man who has been charged with her murder.
York Regional Police told reporters Wednesday that on Tuesday evening, a man turned himself into police along with his lawyer. Shortly after, police were able to recover human remains.
"We believe the remains are those of Alicia Ross," Insp. Tom Carrique of York Regional Police told reporters.
Further tests will be required to positively identify the remains.
Daniel Sylvester, 31, Ross' next-door neighbour, has been charged with second degree murder and will appear in court today. Carrique refused to take any questions from reporters, saying the matter is now before the courts.
CTV's Jim Junkin reports that police tape now surrounds the Sylvester home.
Junkin reported earlier that the remains were found in two separate areas northeast of Toronto: in the Kawartha Lakes area, as well as in Manilla, north of Port Perry.
Ross, 25, vanished from her suburban Toronto home just past midnight Aug. 17 without a trace. She was last seen by her boyfriend, Sean Hine, in the backyard of the Markham home she shared with her parents.
Hine reported Ross missing the following morning after she failed to show up for work. Her car was still in her driveway and her purse and car keys were in the house.
Police never considered Hine a suspect in the case.
More than 1,000 volunteers helped investigators comb nearby wooded areas, ravines, creeks and streets in the weeks following Ross' disappearance, but the searches turned up no clues.
Police said recently they had ruled out the possibility that Ross simply stepped away from her house or had some kind of accident, and said she more likely met with "foul play." They said they believed Ross was abducted by somebody she knew.
Following the disappearance, police set up a 24-hour hotline to allow people to call in with any information. Police said they had received numerous tips and followed up on some of them by searching an area in the Haliburton area, northeast of the city.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Sept 22, 2005 10:23:15 GMT -5
There were major developments Wednesday in the disappearance of a suburban Toronto woman. A man who lived next door to Alicia Ross appeared in court to face a murder charge less than a day after he turned himself in to police.
Alicia Ross in an undated police handout photo (CP PHOTO/HO/York Region Police) Information supplied to police led to the discovery of human remains which police believe to belong to Ross. Forensic tests will be conducted to confirm their identity.
Ontario's chief coroner said remains were found near the town of Manilla, about 50 kilometres northeast of Markham, and also near the town of Coboconk, 40 kilometres farther north.
25-year-old Alicia Ross had been missing from her home in Markham since Aug. 17. She was last seen by her boyfriend, Sean Hine, early that morning in her backyard.
RELATED STORY: Aug. 25: OPP unit says Toronto area woman was likely abducted
Ross's case stirred a great deal of local interest and passion. Nearly 1,000 volunteers came out to comb through a 31-square-kilometre area surrounding Ross's home.
About a week after her disappearance, York Regional Police said in the absence of any evidence near her home, they were focusing their investigation on foul play, specifically abduction.
In late August, the Ontario Provincial Police behavioural science unit said they believed Ross was taken by someone she knew and felt comfortable with.
Ross's neighbour, Daniel Sylvester, 31, has been charged with second-degree murder.
Sylvester, who had nothing to say in court Wednesday, is "feeling great remorse," said his lawyer, David Hobson. Hobson said police had "no evidence to support a conviction" at the time of his client's surrender.
Hobson said: "His conscience got the better of him. He's feeling that the family next door needed closure. He feels that another person might have been unjustly prosecuted."
Police cars barricaded the street near the Ross home Wednesday, and yellow police tape surrounded the house next door as investigators went in and out.
Ross's disappearance was a shock to the quiet upper middle-class neighbourhood where she lived. One neighbour had said she didn't even recall a break-in during the 20 years she had lived in the area.
Teague's father asks daughter's killer to surrender
The developments in the Ross disappearance came only days after the body of another slain Ontario woman was found on the weekend.
The body of Jennifer Teague, 18, of Ottawa, was found near a hiking trail on Sunday, 10 days after she went missing while walking home from her late-night shift at a fast-food restaurant.
On Wednesday, Jennifer's father Ed Teague called on his daughter's killer to surrender to police. "You can end this now by stepping forward and giving us your side of what happened."
Teague said: "You have taken a life, it was my daughter's life."
|
|