New aerial search held for missing Toronto teen
Last Updated: Friday, November 6, 2009 | 3:11 PM ET
CBC News
An Ontario Provincial Police helicopter scanned two parks in Toronto to look for new clues in the disappearance of Mariam Makhniashvili, a Toronto teen who went missing almost two months ago.
Mariam Makhniashvili was last seen Sept. 14. (Toronto Police Service) Toronto police used the OPP helicopter — and its high-resolution camera — to scour Earl Bales Park and Sherwood Park in Toronto Friday morning.
Earl Bales Park is located near Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue, while Sherwood Park is in the Mount Pleasant Road and Eglinton Avenue area.
The 17-year-old Grade 11 student disappeared after walking to Forest Hill Collegiate, near Bathurst Street and Eglinton Avenue West, on Sept. 14.
The search has now concluded, and police did not immediately say if they had uncovered anything significant, or what prompted the search.
Authorities had already criss-crossed Earl Bales Park in late September, using canine units and helicopters.
That search was fruitless.
Few other clues have been found, although on Oct. 8 police found Mariam's backpack in a parking lot behind 120 Eglinton Ave. E. — a building that sits on a busy Toronto street — just a few kilometres away from where the teen was last seen. The backpack was the first and only tangible item related to the case that police have uncovered.
Police have appealed to students at Forest Hill and nearby North Toronto Collegiate to come forward if they have any information on her disappearance. They have also released security footage of Mariam and her brother at Union Station on Sept. 13, at about 11:15 a.m.
That video was the most recent image of the teen.
Mariam and her brother lived in Tblisi, Georgia, before coming to Toronto in June to reunite with their parents.
Her 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.
Both parents don't believe she ran away but police are not ruling out anything, including foul play.
Mariam is 5-3, 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.
