AMBER ALERT’S NEW FACE
Simon Boisclair and Melissa McMahon hold daughter Victoria, who had been kidnapped as a newborn from hospital last year. The tot helped launch Facebook’s Amber Alert system on Monday.
The nightmare of Victoria Boisclair’s first day on Earth began one year ago, when a woman disguised as a nurse took her, in bare feet with no hat, from the hospital in Trois-Rivières and disappeared.
The baby’s mother, Mélissa McMahon, ran to try to catch the woman, who said she was going to weigh Victoria, but she was too late.
She and her husband struggled with the thought they might never see Victoria again.
But police found her 3 ½ hours later, thanks to photos shared on Facebook: The suspect’s car with a distinctive “Baby on Board” window sign, and a frighteningly fragile newborn in a striped sleeper and a little turquoise hairband with a stuffed tiger tucked in beside her.
On Monday, the day before Victoria’s first birthday, the toddler and her parents joined Facebook officials in announcing the company’s plan to share Amber Alerts among its 20 million Canadian customers.
“Last year we had success with Victoria and we are just hoping that every child missing in the past or in the future will have the same help as us,” McMahon said.
Amber Alerts alone give useful information, she said. “But then when Facebook is involved, there is an incredible speed” in the sharing of the information.
“In our case the information was shared hundreds of thousands of times in just one hour ... People were searching everywhere, the police as much as the citizens.”
Victoria was blissfully unaware Monday as adults around her spoke of danger. Dressed in a pink Facebook T-shirt, she smiled and clapped her hands and drew the attention of all the photographers away from the Facebook officials and minister for public safety.
“Amber Alerts are rare and they are highly effective,” said Jordan Banks, managing director of Facebook Canada.
He said each one would be sent to Facebook customers who live in a designated search area. And he said the alert would be “incredibly comprehensive” with photos and all relevant information about the child and the suspected abductor.
The plan is supported by police across Canada, he said.
Facebook launched Amber Alerts in the United States in January.
McMahon said she hopes for a happy ending in all cases of missing children. Victoria “is safe and sound. She doesn’t remember,” she said.
But for Céline Éthier there has been no happy ending for almost 19 years. In 1996 her daughter Mélissa, 15 at the time, left a friend’s place to walk back to the family’s New Liskeard home, and disappeared. She was only a kilometre from home. “I’m hoping for that tip that will help me find her,” Éthier said Monday. “I’m not necessarily looking for the tip that will put somebody in jail... If anybody has that tip that I need to find my daughter, please make it possible for me to get that tip.”
Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney said the plan is important because a whole community can find a missing child better than police alone.