Toronto police have issued an Amber Alert to help them locate a 10-year-old girl whose disappearance they are calling “suspicious.”
The girl, named Holly Jones, was last seen at 6:30 p.m. Monday evening in the area of Perth Avenue and Bloor Street West in downtown Toronto. She is described as Caucasian, 5 feet tall and 92 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.
Holly was wearing a green/blue bomber-style rain jacket, a purple sweater, brown pants and brown leather boots.
Police have set up a command post at a Dundas Street West Loblaws grocery store.
A sweep of the area where she was last seen produced “no trace of the missing girl,” a statement from the Toronto Police Service said Tuesday. “At this point in the investigation there is no reasonable explanation to account for her disappearance.”
Although careful not to say Holly was abducted, Sergeant Jim Muscat told Canadian Press her disappearance is suspicious, and as a result, police issued the alert.
"We're hopeful we're going to find Holly safe and sound," said Sgt. Muscat. "But due to the fact there is no concrete evidence of what's happened to her and based on the circumstances, everything at this point leads to the potential for suspicion or foul play."
Holly’s mother begged for her safe return at a news conference Tuesday morning announcing the alert.“I feel you inside of me and I’m trying to find you,” Maria Jones sobbed. “Whoever has her, I beg you with all my heart that you keep her and bring her home to her mother and father. You keep her safe, I beg you. She has never hurt anyone in her life.”
“Baby if you can hear me you now how much we love you. She hasn’t ever hurt anyone in her life. She’s a happy girl,” said her mother, holding up a picture of Holly wearing a baseball cap and holding an ice cream cone.
Because of the circumstances surrounding the girl’s disappearance, police have declared the investigation an Amber Alert.
The Ontario government announced in January that it would bring in the program — which allows police to quickly provide information about abductions to the news media and to post it on overhead highway signs. Once armed with descriptions of the child and captor, it is hoped that the public will inform police of possible sightings.
The program was named the Amber Alert after nine-year-old Amber Hagerman who was abducted and killed in Arlington, Tex., in 1996. It is credited with finding 27 children in the United States, including two teenage girls who were subjects of a high-profile hunt last year, and is in effect in Alberta and elsewhere in Canada.
But the Amber Alert is useful only in a limited number of instances, in particular those in which the child is deemed to be in immediate danger and in which there is solid information about the abductor.
Police ask anyone who may have information on the girl to call the number 11 Division at 416-808-1100 or Crimestoppers at 416-222-TIPS.
Early Tuesday afternoon, Toronto police said they were called to Toronto Island where human remains were found wrapped in a plastic bag.
Police emphasized they do not know at this time whether the discovery is related to the missing girl.
Meanwhile, radio reports said Tuesday that another girl, a 13-year-old from Toronto, is also missing. She was last seen getting into a cab.
With a report from Gloria Galloway
