Re: Pittsburgh PA Amber Alert Missing 2 year old girl

Search continues for missing Braddock toddler
23-month-old girl vanished from her home
Sunday, February 04, 2007

By Milan Simonich, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Police and rescue workers resumed the search today for a 23-month-old girl
who vanished yesterday from her home in the old industrial town of Braddock.










Seventy officers from the Allegheny County, Braddock and other suburban
departments searched all day and into the night yesterday for the child,
Nyia Page, but did not find her. FBI agents joined them last night in
Braddock to assist with their efforts to locate the girl and determine what
had happened to her.

Nyia may have wandered outside into the bitter cold, Allegheny County police
Lt. Bob Downey said. Other possibilities are that she was abducted or harmed
by someone who then removed her from the house. Police, though, found no
sign of forced entry or even any footprints in the snow.

Lt. Downey said investigators were looking into every avenue possible
because they didn't have leads pointing them in any particular direction.

"As the Braddock police chief said to me earlier, miracles do happen," Lt.
Downey said.

Nyia's parents told police the little girl could not be found when family
members awakened.

Lt. Downey said Nyia's 6-year-old brother told his parents about 7:30 a.m.
that Nyia was missing. She and the boy slept on an upper level of the house,
which contains two floors and an attic.

Family members said they looked for Nyia, then called Braddock police when
they realized she was nowhere to be found, Lt. Downey said.

Pennsylvania State Police issued an Amber Child Abduction Alert for her at
9:15 a.m. Soon after, an enormous police presence could be seen and felt in
Braddock.

Officers combed the family home on First Street. Tracking dogs tried to pick
up the child's scent. Rescue teams and members of ambulance companies
arrived, ready to treat the little girl if she indeed were found outside in
the bone-chilling weather.

By last night, the case had taken on an ominous overtone. Police sent all
search crews to a Monroeville landfill. A trash bin at an apartment building
behind the family's back yard had been picked up yesterday morning and
dumped there.

But police said the contents of the trash bin were covered in dirt and that
investigators wouldn't be able to comb through the site until tomorrow.

Uniformed officers, though, continued the search into the night in Nyia's
neighborhood, concentrating on a four-block area around her home. They plan
to search that area again today.

The family's red-brick home is on a street where abandoned buildings and
well-maintained homes stand side by side.

Braddock police Chief Frank DeBartolo said five people were in the house
with Nyia Friday night. They were the girl's parents, her brother, her
grandmother and the grandmother's boyfriend.

Family members and the grandmother's boyfriend were questioned throughout
the day. Police later said they also interviewed a 19-year-old male cousin
after learning that he too had been in the girl's house.

The child's mother told police she last saw Nyia about 12:30 a.m. The mother
said Nyia tried to crawl into bed with her and her husband. Instead, she
said, she took the child back to her own bed, then went to sleep. That was
the last time anybody saw Nyia, relatives told police.

Uniformed officers from numerous county and municipal police departments
began a door-to-door search for Nyia.

Rescue teams, which included paramedics and ambulance crews, initially
focused their efforts on streets, alleys and dilapidated buildings. Braddock
has just 2,700 residents, but it contains dozens of abandoned or unoccupied
apartments and houses.

Still, rescue crews wondered how far a small child could travel on her own,
especially on such a miserable day.

Nyia, who is black, is 24 inches tall and weighs about 30 pounds. She has
short black hair, brown eyes, and large scars on both earlobes. Relatives
said she was wearing a maroon sweater with blue and yellow stripes and
disposable diaper. She might have had a blue blanket with her.

If she went outside, she did so without causing any commotion. Chief
DeBartolo said relatives reported that the door was closed. No footprints
could be found in the snow or mud.

For a time yesterday morning, officers were stationed outside the home,
which is owned by Marianne Page, according to Allegheny County property
records. Ms. Page's relationship to Nyia was unclear, as police have not
provided the names of her parents or grandmother.

Paul Falavolito, a White Oak paramedic helping in the effort to locate Nyia,
said he had been involved in many searches for children in urban
neighborhoods. But, he said, never had the child been as young as Nyia.

Far more typical, Mr. Falavolito said, is the 7- or 8-year-old who wanders
away from the house or yard, leaving frantic parents to call for help.

Chief DeBartolo said Nyia's family had never been involved in any trouble or
disturbance that drew the attention of his officers. "We've never had a call
there until [yesterday]," he said.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx or
412-263-1956. Staff writer Cindi Lash contributed to this report.)


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