Nine-year-old girl was kidnapped from wedding reception
FRANCE - Divers, police dogs and a helicopter have taken part in a massive search for a missing nine-year-old girl in the French Alps after she vanished during a family wedding at the weekend. “Obviously we are exploring all leads,” local prosecutor Dietlind Baudoin told a news conference more than 48 hours after the disappearance of the girl, named as Maelys de Araujo. The girl has not been seen since around 3am local time on Sunday when she was at the wedding with her parents and other family members in the town of Pontde-Beauvoisin in the French Alps near the town of Chambery. The party ended with guests searching for Maelys after the DJ announced that she had disappeared, local reports said. Regional police chief Yves Marzin said three sniffer dogs had all lost the scent from Maelys’s cuddly toy at “the same spot” in the car park outside the venue. “One of the possible theories is that little Maelys left in a car, one way or another,” Marzin said.
A source close to the investigation said “each passing hour” made kidnapping more likely than the possibility that Maelys was involved in an accident or ran away. Posters of the brown-haired girl with brown eyes have gone up throughout the town and surrounding area, and an investigation has been opened into a possible kidnapping.
(Theguardian.com)