Remains could be missing Zahra

[canetoad]

Source: The Age (Melbourne)

Remains could be missing Zahra
Simon Mann, United States
November 13, 2010

FORENSIC tests will determine whether remains reportedly found by police alongside a creek in North Carolina are those of 10-year-old Australian Zahra Baker, missing for more than a month.

Police in Hickory, north of Charlotte, would say only that they had collected evidence from the search of a creek that ''could provide valuable information'' in the case.

But local news reports quoted officials involved in the investigation describing the discovery as ''possible human remains''.
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Photographs taken by the Hickory Record revealed a freshly dug hole on the banks of Gunpowder Creek, about five kilometres north of the town centre, where investigators had sealed off the area and spent Wednesday collecting evidence. The hole measured about three metres wide and 75 centimetres deep.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/remains-could-be-missing-zahra-20101112-17r8p.html

[uppityperson]

1. awwwww

[canetoad]

5. I know....

I really felt for this little girl and harboured a hope that she may have been snatched and returned to her mother's family or something similar. At the same time I knew she was probably dead.

[Jamastiene]

2. Local news is reporting that police are calling off the search too.

I keep hearing conflicting reports. Some are saying a grave was found with part of a body. Some are saying they only found bits of bones.

[Kookaburra]

4. One of the local stations said there would be a press

conference this afternoon at 4:00. We'll see, I guess. That poor little girl. Such a short, sad life.

[MineralMan]

3. For those who don't know the story, this link leads to

a good backgrounder from CBS:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20019330-504083.html

[Tunkamerica]

6. This is a fairly local story to me and the reports have been all over the news for weeks and weeks

and I never heard that she was Australian. Weird.

[Jamastiene]

7. Her father and biological mother are Australian too.

Her father met the stepmother online. If I am not mistaken, the stepmother first moved to Autralia for a while, then the father, stepmother, and Zahra moved to NC two years ago.

[Mudoria]

8. Local update said the bones are consistent with the DNA of Zahra

More testing is being done at the NC SBI labs. A sad day..

[Jamastiene]

9. Yes, it is a sad day.

I still cannot believe they say no arrest will be made yet, maybe not even for weeks to come. WCNC just reported that last part on the 5 O'clock news.

[regnaD kciN]

10. If true, a horrific case of child abuse...

Hopefully, justice will be done, although all the "justice" in the world won't bring that little girl back. :cry:

[MissB]

11. She was such an adorable girl and had been through so much

Damn the bastard(s) who did this to her.

[Jamastiene]

12. From most of the news I have heard, witnesses have said the

stepmother was very abusive.

The news I have seen on the stepmother is harrowing. Her own children (her biological children who are older) did not want her out on bond because they are afraid of her.

She also allegedly wrote letters to the admins of a serial killer web site (although whether or not is was really her has not been confirmed) that said they did not kill Zahra, but that the father did away with her body.

Much of the local news has said that she is the one who led police out into the woods where most of the evidence was found.

How much of that is media speculation, I'm not sure. I do know there was a transcript of the stepmother's daughter that quoted her as saying she would have to leave the state if her mother was released on bond.

It's all so sad and depressing. I had hoped beyond hope that she would turn up alive and well.

[CoffeeCat]

14. That's sad and it makes me wonder...

why these older adult of this abusive woman, didn't come forward to help young Zahra? If they were
so terrified of her, you wonder how they could have allowed their abusive mother to "parent" a child?

It's just a tragedy that no one told their story to social services. Given how terrified they were though,
it's entirely possible that they were traumatized and incapable.

Very, very tragic, all the way around.

[avaistheone1]

13. Update: Police think they've found body of missing NC girl

HICKORY, N.C. – Grim police trying to solve the disappearance of a 10-year-old North Carolina girl confirmed Friday what they've long suspected: The freckle-faced child with a prosthetic leg and bone cancer is dead.
But the mystery of how Zahra Baker perished deepened as authorities gave a terse briefing, revealing that one of her bones was found five miles away from other remains they believe belonged to the girl.
"I've been dreading this moment from early on in the investigation," said Hickory Police Chief Tom Adkins, who explained that investigators matched the bone with the child's DNA. "We have recovered enough physical evidence to think we have found Zahra."
Police said earlier this month they found the bone in some brush alongside Zahra's prosthetic leg in an area in Caldwell County, where she lived with her father and stepmother until mid-September.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101113/ap_on_re_us/us_missing_girl_north_carolina



How could anyone do this to a sweet, innocent little girl? She was even more vulnerable than most little girls with her bone cancer and prosthetic leg. What a sad day for humanity.

RIP Zahra

O8)

[CoffeeCat]

15. Picture of Zahra

Look at that beautiful angel. She had a prosthetic leg, cancer and
she was hearing impaired.

[Le Taz Hot]

16. What we do to our children.

Too often they're regarded as nothing more than crotch droppings by their egg donors/sperm donors. We have a case here right now that is so, disturbing doesn't come close to covering it . . . all I'll say is it involves a 2-month old girl that was just taken off life support because of her extensive injuries. The 20-year-old father is in jail.

[Delphinus]

17. I hear you.

Things like this are so horrific and incomprehensible.