The case of Cecilia Zhang, the nine-year-old abducted from her parents’ home more than a week ago, will be televised to more than 10 million international viewers this weekend on the U.S. true-crime show America’s Most Wanted.
“Currently we’ve scheduled three minutes after the first commercial break for the Cecilia Zhang case,” Avery Mann, spokesman for the Fox show, said in an interview from Washington, D.C.
The show was thought to have played a role in the investigation of Utah teen Elizabeth Smart’s disappearance after four viewers recognized the girl’s suspected abductor when it ran a segment on her case last March. She was returned to her family shortly after those sightings.
Toronto police Sgt. Jim Muscat said camera crews from the show were to be permitted to film the rear of Cecilia’s home this afternoon, where a pried-open window may have allowed the abductor or abductors to enter.
“We’re making it available to America’s Most Wanted,” Muscat said from the home of Cecilia’s parents, Raymond Zhang and Sherry Xu.
Earlier in the day, police canvassed patrons of a rural general store and a doughnut shop northwest of the city, where two calls were made to Cecilia’s home from pay phones on the morning of her disappearance on Oct. 20.
Police set up a command post this morning outside Maple Lodge Farms near Brampton, where an exterior pay phone was used to call Cecilia’s parents just before she was reported missing.
Earlier today, police returned for the second day to a doughnut store in Brampton where another call was made to Xu and Zhang that morning. Police won’t say whether the calls were answered or what was said.
Police canvassed patrons of the Tim Hortons in the industrial area near Pearson International Airport and at the store, hoping to find someone who remembered seeing the pay phones being used.
Muscat said police had “received some encouraging information.”
A $50,000 reward offered yesterday by police for the safe return of the gifted Grade 4 pupil should help advance the seemingly stymied investigation, Muscat said.
“The wording is very curt, very specific,” Muscat said.
“It’s the safe return of Cecilia Zhang, that’s all it says. It has nothing to do with information to do with arrests or conviction of anyone.”
Muscat said investigating the pay-phone calls is only one part of the police probe.
But in an early-morning interview with Canada AM, police Chief Julian Fantino said the calls are “critical” to the investigation.
Fantino said police still believe Cecilia is still alive, and yesterday, he urged her abductor or abductors to do the “honourable” thing and return her to her traumatized parents.
“It’s the humane thing to do. My best advice to you is: Call it quits,” said Fantino, who only spoke with Cecilia’s parents personally yesterday because he was in the United States for a conference last week.
The reward is played up in flyers – written in English and Chinese – that have been posted across the Toronto area. Aside from showing a picture of a smiling Cecilia, the flyers feature the words “reward” and “abducted” in large, red letters.
Police have said it’s unlikely Cecilia’s abduction was a random act by a predator, and are probing the possibility she was kidnapped for profit. A broken screen window on the second floor of the family’s two-storey home suggested a forcible abduction.
