Missing Mariam Makhniashvili - 08/14/09 - Toronto, ON

[canadianmonkey]

Girl new to Canada goes missing
 
Police have launched a search for Mariam Makhniashvili, 17, who hasn't been seen since Monday. (Sept. 17, 2009)  Email story
   
Sep 17, 2009 01:58 PM
Thandiwe Vela
Staff Reporter

Police have set up a command post in north Forest Hill in the search for a missing teenager who is new to Canada.

Mariam Makhniashvili, 17, was last seen Monday about 8:30 a.m., after walking to school with her brother, telling him she would enter at a different door.

There has been no sign of the Forest Hill student since.

Makhniashvili's family held a news conference with police at the Shallmar Blvd. command post, near the Eglinton Ave. W. and Bathurst St. high school this afternoon, pleading for any information leading to her safe return.

She is described as white, 5-foot-3, 140 lbs., with light-brown shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing black pants, a light-blue shirt and a dark-blue jean jacket.

She was carrying a large black backpack with a green stripe.

Makhniashvili speaks very little English.

Anyone with information as to her whereabouts is asked to contact police at 416-808-5300.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/697189

**ADDING PHOTO

[canadianmonkey]

Police don't suspect foul play in missing teen case
Last Updated: Friday, September 18, 2009 | 8:43 AM ET Comments20Recommend22The Canadian Press
 Toronto police say they have no reason to suspect foul play in the three-day long disappearance of a girl who first arrived in Canada three months ago. Mariam Makhniashvili has been missing since Sept. 14. (Toronto Police)
Mariam Makhniashvili, 17, was last seen by her family when she left for school with her brother on Monday morning near Bathurst Street and Eglinton Avenue West. They entered by different doors.

The girl did not arrive home from Forest Hill Collegiate Institute, and the parents began looking for her and contacted police, who say they are concerned for her safety.

The parents appealed at a news conference Thursday for their daughter to contact them.

"I just ask to anybody, or to her, to return her or to let her go," said her father Vakhtang Makhniashvili.

"We all love you. We miss you. We want you back," her mother, Lela, said as she fought back tears.

The parents said there was no dispute that would have prompted the girl to run away.

"No. She was an absolute perfect student — perfect daughter," her father said. "She was absolutely happy."

Authorities, however, have no reason to believe foul play was involved, said Const. Wendy Drummond of the Toronto Police Service.

Det. Steve McIlwain said there's still cause for concern.

"She is new to Canada. The Toronto police have concerns for her safety as she is not familiar with Toronto or Canada," he said.

Moved from Republic of Georgia
The school principal said Mariam did not attend classes Monday.

The parents lived in Los Angeles for five years before moving to Toronto earlier this summer, while the girl and her brother lived with their grandparents in the Republic of Georgia.

The family was reunited when the children moved to Toronto in June. Mariam's father said she had not yet made friends, since school had just started. The family had moved to Canada for a better life, he said.

He said his daughter knows about calling 911, and police said she knows enough English to make herself understood. She did not have a cellphone.

Staff Insp. Larry Sinclair added his voice to the appeal. "Please call a family member, a friend, the police and let us know you're safe," he urged the girl.

Lela Makhniashvili said they would have detected any change in their daughter to indicate she was having problems.

"We haven't noticed anything," she said. "We would notice anything."

She said it has been hard not knowing where Mariam is: "It's very hard to express. But we're coping. We're hoping she'll be back with us."

Principal Peggy Aitchison said the school is ready to mobilize an army of "a thousand" parents to look for the girl: "We've had tremendous emotional support back from our parents. We have asked students to be aware and let us know if there's something out of the ordinary that happened during the first week of school."

The girl is described as five foot three with light-brown shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing black pants, a light blue shirt and a dark blue jean jacket. She was carrying a large black backpack with a green stripe.

© The Canadian Press, 2009

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/09/17/mariam-makhniashvili.html

[canadianmonkey]

Police to go to missing teen's school Monday
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Sep 20, 2009 01:33 PM
THE CANADIAN PRESS

Police will be at the high school on Monday of a Toronto teenager who disappeared on the way to school a week earlier.

Mariam Makhniashvili, 17, was last seen by her family when she left for Forest Hill Collegiate Institute with her brother last Monday.

School principal Peggy Aitchison told Toronto television station CP24 that police will be at the school to speak with students to try to jog their memory, to see if any of them have seen Makhniashvili since she went missing.

Aitchison says it's hoped students will pass along any information they might have, however big or small, in the disappearance of Makhniashvili, who had been in Toronto for less than three months.

The principal says she doesn't believe it was an abduction because Makhniashvili would have gone to the main entrance of the school where about 500 to 600 people would have been coming into the building.

Police are still classifying this as a level three search, which is the highest possible, and are continuing to scour backyards and sheds for the girl, whose only relatives in Canada are her parents and her brother.

Police say there is no evidence of foul play, but they are not ruling anything out.


   http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/698401

[canadianmonkey]

Police go to Forest Hill Collegiate in hunt for clues in Mariam Mahkniashvili’s disappearance
Posted: September 21, 2009, 10:51 AM by Rob Roberts
By Ryan Cripps, Global News

Police, school officials and the parents of missing teen Mariam Mahkniashvili spoke to hundreds of her fellow students at her Toronto high school this morning, one week after the 17-year-old disappeared.

The students at Forest Hill Collegiate Institute were asked to think back to last Monday morning, and if they remember seeing Mariam, to speak to investigators.

Mariam was last seen on Monday at 8:30 a.m., outside her school in the Bathurst Street and Eglinton Avenue West area.

School officials say Mariam did not attend her classes on Monday morning and her parents reported her missing after she didn't return from school that afternoon.

She is described as white, 5'3", 140 lbs., with light-brown shoulder-length hair, brown eyes. She was last seen wearing black pants, a light-blue shirt, dark-blue jean jacket carrying a large black backpack with a green stripe.

Mariam and her brother George, 16, immigrated to Toronto in June.

Their parents had been working in Los Angeles for five years, and had recently moved to Toronto.

The family spent the summer sight-seeing and preparing for the start of the school year.

Peggy Aitchison, prinicipal at Forest Hill C.I., said the school has sent home information and a photo of Mariam with all students.

"I think we're all holding our breath," said Aitchison last week.

Police continue to staff a 24-hour mobile command post on Shallmar Boulevard, north of Bathurst and Eglinton.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/09/21/police-go-to-forest-hill-collegiate-in-hunt-for-clues-in-mariam-mahkniashvili-s-disappearance.aspx

[canadianmonkey]

I've never heard of the police holding an assembly in the school to ask the students to think back to whether they had seen a person or not.

I thought this was a good idea and hopefully someone will come forward with information.

[Edward]

It does not make sense...

Her Brother goes in one door and she is supposed to go in another door and never makes it ?
At a public school with all the people around ?

Then again we witnessed a case where a woman walks a girl out of there school system without being detected by anyone. So who knows...

You would think that that some person would have witnessed something. That person should have already come forward.

[Ariana]

I think the girl ran away.  How many parents think they know their kids when they don't?  I honestly just do not believe that these parents that were separated from their kids for 5 years and spent a whole summer with her know how their daughter is going to behave, exactly what she is feeling, or everything she is and has been going through.  Granted this is my opinion but it is not one that going to change.  I see too many parents whose children I work with and they think they know their kids and they don't, and they haven't been separated for five years.  I heard one parent say just this last weekend that they knew their son was a ladies man but they didn't know he was a gigalo.  It is impossible to know your child inside and out unless they want you too.

[canadianmonkey]

No boyfriend, no cash, no reason to run. So where is Mariam?
TheStar.com | GTA | Mystery of the missing girl
 
Mystery of the missing girl
 
TONY BOCK/TORONTO STAR
Mariam's mother Lela Tabidze, brother George and father Vakhtang Makhniashvili attend an assembly at Forest Hill Collegiate. (Sept. 21, 2009)  Email story
   
Police to visit school where girl vanished
This morning, Vakhtang Makhniashvili will make a special plea at his daughter's Toronto high school, urging students to think back to the 15 minutes before school started last Monday – when Mariam vanished without a trace.Police, family are asking students to come to them with crucial 'pieces of the puzzle'

Sep 22, 2009 04:30 AM
Isabel Teotonio
Staff Reporter

That Monday morning started out like most other school days.

Mariam Makhniashvili filled her black backpack with a math book, a book on Canadian history, four binders and a day planner. It was the start of the second week of school and the 17-year-old bookworm was excited about starting Grade 11 at Forest Hill Collegiate.

She had just moved to Toronto from the Republic of Georgia in June, spoke little English and had no friends. Still, she appeared happy in her new life and in a new city.

She waved goodbye to her parents and left the apartment, headed for school with her 16-year-old brother George. It was just a short walk down a tree-lined boulevard, tucked away in an upper-middle-class neighbourhood.

George entered the school through a door at the back, while Mariam preferred to enter closer to her classroom by the front main doors. It is a bustling entrance through which half the school's 980 students pass each morning. That day, it was teeming with students, teachers and parents dropping off kids at the end of a cul-de-sac that connects the school to Eglinton Ave. W.

That was around 8:45 a.m. a week ago yesterday. Mariam has not been seen or heard from since.

Toronto police deal with dozens of missing people each month, but this one has them baffled. Police have no single theory of what might have happened. Mariam seems to have vanished without a trace.

"This has all the earmarks of a mystery," said Det. Sgt. Dan Nealon, in charge of the investigation.

Yesterday, Toronto police and Mariam's parents took the unusual step of appealing directly to the students for help.

"This is like a jigsaw puzzle," Staff Insp. Larry Sinclair explained at a student assembly. "There are big pieces and there are small pieces. You cannot complete the puzzle without all the pieces. So no matter how insignificant you may think what you know is, we need that information."

Mariam's parents and brother spent much of the assembly with their hands clutched tightly and heads hung low, looking dejected and exhausted.

"Those 15 minutes before 9 o'clock, this is a crucial point," father Vakhtang Makhniashvili said softly. "We don't know if she went into the school building, or went to a bus stop, or went to a car."

Gathering information from the student body may prove difficult for officers. When Sinclair asked Grade 11 students how many remembered seeing Mariam during her first week, about 10 students put their hands in the air. When he asked how many had spoken with her, not one hand was raised.

Still, police urged students to use social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter to spread the word and pass on tips.

His voice trembling, Makhniashvili later told reporters he fears his daughter was abducted. It's the only explanation he can come up with.

He said Mariam did not have a boyfriend and described her as a math whiz who whiled away her time in the library and loved to watch movies.

He said she had a great relationship with her parents and would not have run away. Besides, he said, that morning she had no money on her and was without her passport.

Since arriving in Toronto, Mariam had been with her parents almost round-the-clock, he said.

There is no evidence to suggest foul play, that Mariam has fallen into misadventure or that she met someone online and walked off with that individual.

There is, quite simply, not enough evidence to lead officers in any particular direction.

"We're exploring every avenue possible," said Nealon, adding Toronto police have been in contact with police outside Canada to glean more information on the family's background.

Makhniashvili, a philosophy lecturer from Tbilisi State Medical University in Georgia, said neither he nor his wife, a former journalist, had ever been politically engaged. They don't think Mariam's disappearance was politically motivated.

Makhniashvili and his wife left Georgia five years ago to move to Los Angeles, where he did research. The children remained in Georgia with their grandparents. When the couple moved here in May, the children joined them.

Reflecting on the family's first months in Toronto, the father remarked: "This was the best time in our lives."

Although the transition was a big one for Mariam, she seemed to be adapting well, he said.

Investigators are asking anyone with information to call 416-808-5300 or text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637) or go online to 222tips.com.

   http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/698988

[canadianmonkey]

Missing girl an enigma to classmates
Not one of the 900 students who heard police appeals reports having talked to new arrival
 
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Last updated on Tuesday, Sep. 22, 2009 03:02AM EDT
 

The atmosphere at north Toronto's Forest Hill Collegiate Institute was subdued yesterday as students filed into the auditorium to the strains of soft organ music to hear two unusual, back-to-back police appeals for fresh tips in the week-long search for a missing student.

And it became more sombre still when Crime Stoppers schools officer Constable Scott Mills asked the crowd if any one of them had ever had a conversation with Mariam Makhniashvili. Not a single student raised a hand.

A recent arrival to both the school and Canada, one of just a handful of students from the Republic of Georgia, Mariam, 17, vanished eight days ago.

She had no cell phone, little money, no social network and just a rudimentary grasp of English. Mariam's parents think their daughter has likely been kidnapped.

"She's somewhere and somebody probably took her, this is just a logical conclusion," her father Vakhtang Makhniashvili said yesterday, following the police assemblies delivered to more than 900 students.

Detectives leading the hunt say there is no evidence to support that grim conclusion.

"Any theory, any opinion you can give me, we've been down that road," lead investigator Detective Sergeant Dan Nealon told reporters later. "But we have no evidence to support an abduction, no evidence to support foul play."

"This is like a jigsaw puzzle, you cannot complete the puzzle without all the pieces," Staff Inspector Larry Sinclair told his student audience, as e-mailed messages of support flickered on a screen behind him.

Mariam and her younger brother, George, arrived in Toronto in June after being raised for the previous five years by their grandmother in their homeland. Their parents lived in the Los Angeles area before moving to Toronto.

Mariam's parents both dismissed suggestions she might have absconded with a new boyfriend - conceivably someone she met one day earlier, when she attended the Dragon Boat races at the Toronto Islands with a group of YMCA volunteers.

The four-hour trip to the islands appears to have been the first time Mariam spent any time away from her parents since she and her brother rejoined them in Toronto on June 28 after their long separation. But there had been no altercations or stress at home, both parents said.

Mr. Makhniashvili described a daughter who excelled in math and the humanities.

"Our relationship was absolutely perfect. We would be watching movies every evening, probably five days a week ... we were sightseeing ... this was probably the best time in our lives. She never cried, she was never upset."

Mr. Makhniashvili said that before moving to North America, he was a philosophy lecturer at a university in Tbilisi, while his wife was a journalist, writing about the arts. They rejected speculation Mariam's disappearance could be linked to that earlier life.

But Mr. Makhniashvili was vague about the couple's five years in California.

He said they had been living in the San Fernando Valley while he did research in the field of philosophy, but he declined to say with which academic institution.

The family's current status in Canada is also unclear. When they reported Mariam missing last week, both Makhniashvilis listed themselves as unemployed teachers.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/missing-girl-an-enigma-to-classmates/article1296690/

[canadianmonkey]

I'm starting to get a bad feeling about where Mariam is.

THE SEARCH FOR MARIAM MAKHNIASHVILI
TheStar.com | GTA | Missing girl's dad cleared in sex case
 
Missing girl's dad cleared in sex case
 
TARA WALTON/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO
A poster displays photo of Mariam Makhniashvili outside Forest Hill Collegiate, where she disappeared Sept. 14, 2009.  Email story
   
Couple moved to Toronto after he was acquitted of lewd behaviour outside Los Angeles daycare

Sep 23, 2009 04:30 AM
Isabel Teotonio
Staff Reporter

The father of a 17-year-old girl, who last week went missing outside her Toronto school, was acquitted in April by a California court of lewd sexual conduct in front of a daycare centre.

Three charges against Vakhtang Makhniashvili, whose daughter Mariam disappeared outside Forest Hill Collegiate, date back to when he and his wife lived in Los Angeles.

According to court documents filed in the Superior Court of California, Makhniashvili was charged after police were called on the morning of Nov. 21, 2008, after reports of a man in his car rubbing his crotch in plain view of children.

Makhniashvili was arrested a block away and charged with two counts of lewd behaviour and one count of wilfully annoying a child. On April 30, he was acquitted of the first two counts, while the last count was dismissed.

Weeks later Makhniashvili and wife Lela Tabidze moved to Toronto. The couple, who had left the Republic of Georgia five years earlier for Los Angeles, moved here in May.

Their children, Mariam and George, who had remained in Georgia where they were raised by their grandmother, came to Toronto in June to be reunited with their parents.

When reached at home for comment yesterday evening, Makhniashvili refused to speak about the charges. "I don't want to hear about this. Goodbye," he said, before hanging up.

Last night, Toronto police could not be reached for comment about whether they knew of the charges. But earlier this week, investigators said they had been in contact with police agencies outside Canada to glean more information on the family.

Consul Alexander Latsabidze, reached at the Georgian embassy in Washington, which is responsible for North America, said authorities in Georgia are cooperating with Toronto police in their investigation.

In an earlier interview, Makhniashvili, a philosophy lecturer from Tbilisi State Medical University in Georgia, told the Star he and his wife moved to Los Angeles so he could do research. He added that he moved to Toronto to pursue a better life.

Yesterday, Toronto police said they were still poring over tips from the public. It has been more than a week since Mariam went missing outside her school, near Eglinton Ave. W. and Bathurst St. On the morning of Sept. 14, she and her 16-year-old brother had walked to school and parted ways when they reached the building.

George entered through the back and Mariam went toward the front main entrance. She never made it to class.

Police say there is no evidence to suggest foul play, misadventure or that Mariam had met someone online and walked off willingly.

Police are expected to hold a media conference today to release new photos and video footage of Mariam taken the day before her disappearance, hoping it will jog memories and result in new leads.

On Sept. 13, Mariam and George volunteered for the YMCA at a Dragon Boat Challenge at Marilyn Bell Park on Lake Shore Blvd. She was part of a newcomer youth leadership development group that met at Union Station.

After the afternoon event, the group returned to the subway station, where Mariam was met by her father.

On Monday, Makhniashvili told reporters he feared his daughter had been abducted, saying she was a happy and well-adjusted girl who would never run away. He said that with the exception of the Dragon Boat event, Mariam had been by his side since arriving in late June.

Investigators are asking anyone with information to call 416-808-5300 or text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637) or go online to 222tips.com.

Mariam is described as 5-foot-3 and 140 pounds, with light brown shoulder-length hair and brown eyes.

She was last seen wearing black pants, a light blue shirt, dark blue jean jacket and carrying a large black backpack with a green stripe.

   http://www.thestar.com/article/699491

[canadianmonkey]

Mother struggles to keep spotlight on search for missing girl
Posted: September 23, 2009, 12:31 AM by Ron Nurwisah
toronto, Mariam Makhniashvili
By Catherine McDonald

The mother of missing 17-year-old Mariam Makhniashvili urged her daughter -- no matter where she is -- to call police, while details surrounding a recent encounter with the law by the girl’s father came to light.

Speaking from her Toronto home yesterday, Lela Makhniashvili sent a message to her daughter, asking the girl to reach out to anyone who could help her.

“If she could just get to us, or to any police department or call 911 ... I know there are many people in Toronto who will show her support,” Mrs. Makhniashvili said.

Mariam, a Forest Hill Collegiate student, disappeared last Monday around 8:40 a.m. after dropping her younger brother, 16-year-old George, at a west-side entrance of the school. She told him she would go around to a south entrance, closer to her classroom, but was not seen again.

While Toronto Police continue their search, information about recent criminal charges against the girl’s father, Vakhtang Makhniashvili, surfaced yesterday.
Court documents reveal that Mr. Makhniashvili faced charges related to an incident in which he allegedly masturbated in a parked car outside a toddler day-care facility in downtown Los Angeles last November. He was acquitted of all charges in April 2009.

When reached at his Toronto home last night, Mr. Makhniashvili denied the incident had ever taken place.
“It’s not true,” he said.

Richard Kraft, the deputy city attorney for Los Angeles, told Global News that Mr. Makhniashvili was allegedly clothed while he sat in his car.
Court documents say child-care operators and children entering the building witnessed Mr. Makhniashvili allegedly masturbating in his car at 7:30 a.m. on Nov. 21, 2008.

Mr. Makhniashvili was charged with contravening section 273G of the U.S. penal code, which states, “any person who in the presence of a child indulges in any degrading, lewd, immoral or vicious habits or practices ... is guilty of a misdemeanor.” He was also charged with unlawfully soliciting “a person and persons to engage in and did engage in lewd and dissolute conduct in a public place.”

Mr. Makhniashvili testified at trial that he was interviewing for a job in the health-care field that morning on the street where the day care was located. He told the jury he was living out of his car while his wife, Lela Makhniashvili, worked for a family in the San Fernando Valley.

Mariam and her brother immigrated to Canada in June from the Republic of Georgia. Her parents had moved to Toronto from Los Angeles where Mr. Makhniashvili said he was conducting research in his field, the history of philosophy.

Earlier this week, police addressed about 1,000 junior and senior students at a school assembly, asking them to come forward with any information, no matter how ordinary it may seem, to help locate Mariam.

She and her brother immigrated to Canada in June.

Toronto police have shared their information with law-enforcement units across Ontario and Canada, and in the United States.

“At this point, it’s unclear what happened to her,” said Constable Tony Vella of Toronto Police. “There’s no evidence to support foul play, death by misadventure or that she simply walked away. What we have here is abnormal behaviour.”

Police say they will release a video today taken of Mariam by Union Station security cameras on Sept. 13, the day before she disappeared.
Yesterday Chief Bill Blair said police were doing “everything we can to locate that young woman.”

“A lot of people are working on this case, we are concerned for that young woman’s safety,” he said. “It remains a very difficult case.”

National Post, with files from Kenyon Wallace and Matthew Coutts


http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/09/22/father-in-missing-girl-case-faced-lewd-behaviour-charges.aspx

[Nut44x4]

www2.canada.com

[canadianmonkey]

www2.canada.com

Thanks Nut.  I still haven't figured out how to post pictures.

[Sister]

of almost 1,000 students, not one had talked with her.
That's very messed up.
 

[canadianmonkey]

of almost 1,000 students, not one had talked with her.
That's very messed up.
 

I know and they say we Canadians are so freindly...obviously not in this case.

[canadianmonkey]

New images of missing girl released
By SUN STAFF

Last Updated: 23rd September 2009, 12:40pm

StoryPhotosVideoEmail Story Print Size A A A Report Typo Share with:
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Click here to watch the video
New photos and video footage of Mariam Makhniashvili will be released today by Toronto Police.
Play Video New photos and video footage of Mariam Makhniashvili have been released today by Toronto Police.

The photos show the 17-year-old girl the day before she went missing on Sept. 14, police said.

The security camera footage and still images feature Mariam and her brother and were taken at the north entrance to Union Station, at 11:15 a.m., the day before she disappeared.

Mariam and her brother were on their way to Marilyn Bell Park to assist as volunteers with a YMCA program associated with Dragon Boat races, police said.


Mariam vanished without a trace on her way to her new high school, just three months after the moved from her native Republic of Georgia where she had been living with her grandmother.

The teen was last seen by her brother around 8:40 a.m. after she split up with him to enter another doorway near the front of Forest Hill Collegiate Institute.

Since then, Toronto Police have been scouring the area around Mariam's school and her family's highrise on nearby Shallmar Blvd. for clues to her disappearance and current location.

But, in the absence of surveillance cameras at the school, investigators have only her younger sibling"s word to go on and little else.
Police have so far found no evidence of abduction, or any other sort of foul play, and by all accounts don't believe Mariam was depressed or had reason to run away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The video is at this link

http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2009/09/23/11071726.html

[linds1980]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/09/24/makhniashvili-tsiala-missing-teen-toronto652.html?ref=rss

Missing teen told grandmother school was going well

Mariam Makhniashvili, the teen who went missing in Toronto more than a week ago, told her grandmother she was doing well in school two days before she disappeared.

Tsiala Makhniashvili told CBC News in an interview that she has no idea what could have happened to her granddaughter.

Speaking from the Georgian capital of Tblisi, Tsiala described Mariam as an obedient, modest girl who was a bookworm.

"I feel terrible," she said, adding she last spoke to the girl by telephone on Sept. 12. During that conversation, Mariam detailed her activities with her parents in the city and described what she had seen, Tsiala said.

The 17-year-old was last seen by her family on Sept. 14, when she left for Forest Hill Collegiate Institute with her brother from their home near Bathurst Street and Eglinton Avenue W.

"She was a homebody. She never went anywhere — just books, school, that's it," Tsiala said, speaking in Russian.

Mariam and her younger brother George lived with Tsiala and her grandfather in Tblisi before coming to Toronto in June to reunite with their parents.

The parents, Vakhtang Makhniashvili and Lela Tabidze, arrived in Canada from Los Angeles a few months earlier. The two had lived in the U.S. for five years.

During that time, Mariam called her parents from Georgia every Saturday, said Tsiala.

"She was happy — of course, they hadn't seen each other," said Tsiala, speaking of Mariam's relationship with the family.

"But we were a close family, a cultured family. Everybody loved one another," she said, adding her son had a doctorate and was invited to study in the United States.

New phase in search
Mariam's parents described her as a quiet girl who hadn't made friends at her school, which she had only attended for a week.

Her disappearance still has police puzzled.

They will begin a new phase in the search Friday, when they comb a ravine in the city's north to uncover clues to her whereabouts.

Mariam frequented Earl Bales Park, located about five kilometres from her home, with her brother over the summer. Police will use a helicopter fitted with infrared cameras to scan the ravine, and may call in canine units to help with the search.

They are expected to provide updates on the search on Friday morning at a news conference in the ravine near Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue West.

Police have already made numerous appeals to members of the public to come forward if they have any information.

On Wednesday, police released 15 seconds of security camera video of the girl and her brother at Toronto's Union Station the night before she went missing.

Mariam is five feet three inches tall, with light brown, shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing black pants, a light blue shirt and a dark blue jean jacket. She was carrying a large black backpack with a green stripe.

[Edward]

This one is so strange...

Russian family.. Highly educated. Her brother has a doctrine, they were living in Los Angeles and Canada also..

The girl, a homebody and when she goes missing she has on a large back pack on..
No cameras at this school of higher education. No street cams or others in the area with security cams?


Hard to kidnap a person wearing a large back pack without making a scene..mo.

[canadianmonkey]

Edward it has the police baffled as well...

Mariam Makhniashvili case baffles police
Sep 25, 2009 04:30 AM
Isabel Teotonio
Staff Reporter

After 30 years on the job Det. Sgt. Dan Nealon has seen a lot. He has investigated major crimes, tracked down dozens of missing people and worked on about 50 murder cases.

But the case of Mariam Makhniashvili, who appears to have vanished outside her Toronto school last week, has him stumped.

That's because he has never come across a case like this. No witness. No evidence. No leads. Nothing.

All police know with certainty is that a 17-year-old girl is missing.

"Typically speaking, there is always something to kick-start your investigation that gives you a direction," says Nealon, who is overseeing a core team of 10 investigators. "In this case, we have no direction."

During an interview with the Star yesterday, he tried to avoid the word mystery, when speaking of Mariam's disappearance outside Forest Hill Collegiate. Instead, he described it as "highly unusual." Either way, he says he is genuinely baffled. And, he is not alone.

"I don't claim to own that opinion," he said, during a rare break outside 53 Division, where his team is holed up working the phones, sifting through potential leads and watching hours of video footage from places where there have been possible sightings.

"I've collaborated with my colleagues throughout the service and they're all of the same opinion: It's highly unusual," said Nealon.

Today, police will search Earl Bales Park on Bathurst St., about six kilometres north of her school and home. They will be using an OPP helicopter, equipped with infrared camera, to scour the area. Mounted police have already searched the area, but investigators want to do a more thorough sweep.

"It's important to underline the fact that we're not being driven there by means of the investigation," said Nealon. "It's to ensure that she didn't go there because she was familiar with it, and didn't go there and get met with foul play, misadventure or was suicidal."

Mariam's family frequented the park often throughout the summer. It is one of the few areas she became familiar with since moving here in June with her 16-year-old brother George from the Republic of Georgia.

The teens moved to Toronto to be reunited with their parents, Vakhtang Makhniashvili and Lela Tabidze, who had left Georgia five years earlier for the United States. The couple had moved to Canada in May and were not ensconced within the city's Georgian community. Mariam, who spoke little English, had no friends and knew few people here.

She disappeared outside her school, near Eglinton Ave. W. and Bathurst, on the morning of Sept. 14. George has told police that he and Mariam walked to school and parted ways when they reached the building. He says he entered through the back and she made her way toward the front. She never made it to class.

Yesterday, Nealon said police have not corroborated his story but did say that George was in school that day. Not one student can remember seeing either of them before class that morning.

Police have turned to expert sources to better understand the Georgian culture. And for the first time, police are using Crime Stoppers International.

Investigators are also reaching out to Mariam's friends in Tbilisi, where her grandmother raised her.

Investigators are asking anyone with information to call 416-808-5300 or text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637) or go online to 222tips.com.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/700805
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There is a picture and video as well at this link.   

[canadianmonkey]

Mariam search centres on park
By BRETT CLARKSON, SUN MEDIA

Last Updated: 25th September 2009, 4:29am
An OPP helicopter will hover above a North York park today to assist police in the search for missing teen Mariam Makhniashvili.

Toronto Police enlisted the chopper to scour the 58-hectare Earl Bales Park near Bathurst St. and Sheppard Ave. because the girl and her family visited the park regularly, said Det.-Sgt. Dan Nealon, the lead investigator in the hunt for the 17-year-old.

Nealon said the helicopter search does not mean police have information the park contains any evidence of the girl, who has been missing since Sept. 14.

"I don't really want any speculation over this," Nealon said yesterday. "This is strictly in aid of the Level 3 search, to search by air. It's not a pointed area (the park). It's not anything generated by investigative work. This is overall, to be cautious in our search."

Makhniashvili and her family visited the park two to three times a week and it's one of the few areas in Toronto the teen is familiar with, Nealon said.

"This area is known very well to the family and to our missing girl," he said. "In the event that she could've stumbled upon this park on her own and has befallen anything from foul play to misadventure -- this is the reason why we're there."

NO FOOTAGE

Makhniashvili, also known as Marika, and her brother, George, 16, were walking to their school, Forest Hill Collegiate Institute, when she split up from him to enter a front door closer to her classes. That was 8:30 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 14 -- and it's the last time she was seen.

There are no surveillance cameras outside or inside the school, nor at the neighbouring Forest Hill branch of the Toronto Public Library.

There is also no surveillance footage from the apartment building at 20 Shallmar, where the Makhniashvilis live.

Mariam and her brother arrived in Canada in June from their native Republic of Georgia after a five-year absence from their parents, who lived in Los Angeles while their father, Vakhtang Makhniashvili, worked a research job.

In April, Vakhtang was acquitted of two lewd conduct charges by a Los Angeles jury. Soon after, in May, he and wife Lela Tabidze moved to Toronto.

Nealon, who heads up a special task force of about a dozen detectives dedicated to the Mariam search, said Vakhtang, 49, has been up front about the acquittal. "He's been totally 100% co-operative through it all. He's never denied any of these issues."

Nealon said investigators are examining all known sex offenders in the Toronto area.

BRETT.CLARKSON@SUNMEDIA.CA

http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2009/09/25/11108086-sun.html