A week after the disappearance of schoolgirl Cecilia Zhang, police began interviewing employees and customers at a Brampton doughnut shop about a phone call made to the child’s family shortly before she was discovered missing from her bedroom.
The call was made from a phone booth near a Tim Hortons on Airport Road just west of Toronto on Oct. 20 before 8:27 a.m., when the nine-year-old Grade 4 student was reported missing to police, Sgt. Jim Muscat said Monday.
“We’re doing a canvass here,” Muscat said from Brampton.
“We have reason to believe a phone call was made from a payphone in Brampton prior to 8:27 a.m., and we’re following up potential leads on this.”
He didn’t say why it took police a full week to go public about the phone call. Rumours of the call circulated almost immediately after Cecilia’s disappearance, but Muscat said repeatedly last week that he wasn’t aware of any possible contact between the girl’s abductors and her family.
Today, Muscat refused to give any details about the call – including whether the parents spoke to anybody – except to say police were hoping to jog the memories of people “about anything they may have seen that might have to do with that phone call” to Cecilia’s parents, Raymond Zhang and Sherry Xu.
“So far we’ve spoken to hundreds and hundreds of customers,” he added. “Mostly, the people we’ve spoken to are very concerned with Cecilia’s well-being. But you never know, any little piece of information could point us to the right direction.”
Muscat also confirmed that police were probing a second call from Brampton that was made to the Zhangs’ home, but he wouldn’t give any further details.
Police have ruled out that the abduction was the random act of a predator, and have said that the possibility Cecilia was kidnapped for profit was one of the “themes” they were exploring.
In another development Monday, as police continued to investigate more than 700 tips that have been called into a special hotline since Cecilia’s abduction, a website established by Zhang and Xu was up and running.
The site, which is in English and Chinese, is dedicated to attracting anyone who knows anything about Cecilia’s whereabouts – including her abductor or abductors.
“There has been no progress since the disappearance of Cecilia,” says the Web site, encouraging anyone on the site to send information that may be helpful in tracking the girl through a text field.
The site guarantees that the information “will be absolutely non-traceable” and will be sent to Cecilia’s parents directly.
The site also includes a letter from Xu pleading for the abductor or abductors to “put Cecilia in a safe place and let her come home herself.”
The letter, a variation of an open letter released Sunday by Cecilia’s parents to three Chinese-language newspapers, also said: “I don’t seek retribution and I will not hold you to account.
“I am begging you to release my Cecilia.”
The latest pleas from Cecilia’s parents come after their first public appearance Friday at a news conference, where Xu sobbed as she told the girl how much she loved her while assuring the youngster that her parents “never hurt anybody.”
A police spokesperson said he didn’t know whether investigators had a part in writing the letters, or whether officers were focusing their search on members of the Chinese community.
A grid search of the area surrounding the home of Zhang and Xu in northeast Toronto was still underway Monday morning. Officers completed a door-to-door canvass of the suburban neighbourhood Friday.
Community members have opened a TD Canada Trust bank account under the name Help Return Cecilia in an effort to prompt tips that could bring the girl home. As of Sunday, they had raised $15,000.
The case has attracted international media attention. On Friday, the couple told their story to America’s Most Wanted, a U.S. television show that features high-profile ongoing criminal investigations. That broadcast was expected to air soon, although a date was not immediately available.
