Police have hope for missing girl
CALGARY — Police say a girl matching the description of a missing five-year-old was spotted about nine hours before her mother was found dead and they have reason to hope the child is being cared for, wherever she is.
Insp. Don Coleman said witnesses saw a girl who looked like Taliyah Leigh Marsman on Monday around 11:30 a.m., with a stocky, black male. They were seen in the northwest Calgary neighbourhood where Taliyah lived with her mother, Sara Baillie, who was found dead that evening in their basement suite.
Police say the sighting was near where Baillie’s vehicle was found. The girl who witnesses saw was wearing red or pink boots with white polka dots and was carrying a reddish-coloured suitcase.
“If the girl seen in Panorama with the boots and the suitcase is, in fact, Taliyah, the suitcase is a promising indication that whoever she’s with has intentions of caring for her to some degree,” Insp. Don Coleman said Wednesday.
“We’re hopeful that whoever does have her just maybe didn’t realize the situation or is trying to figure out how to resolve it.
“Whoever that is needs to be aware that any time children are harmed, that changes the game and takes things to a whole new level for everybody — police, community. Even other people in jail don’t take kindly to that sort of thing.”
The Amber Alert for Taliyah was still in place Wednesday. Police have ruled Baillie’s death a homicide.
Police also said footage from a security camera shows Baillie and her daughter at a Dairy Queen at suppertime Sunday. Baillie appears to be speaking with a man and a boy. Police want to identify the people in the footage and have posted photos of the exchange on the City of Calgary’s website.
Taliyah’s father begged anyone who may know where his “baby” is to come forward.
“Please, it’s never too late to do the right thing,” Colin Marsman said in a statement through his friend, Gabriel Goree.