Police S1in hunt for girl, 17, discover body at scrapyard
POLICE searching for a vulnerable missing teenager yesterday found a body in a disused scrapyard.
Libbi Toledo, 17, had failed to return to her supported accommodation 11 days ago.
The teenager’s mother Judi had been expected to speak to the media at the town’s police station yesterday to appeal for information about her missing daughter.
But the press conference was called off at the last minute after police had sealed off the disused scrapyard in Kirkcaldy, Fife.
Officers then announced that there had been a ‘significant development’ in the hunt for Libbi.
Forensics experts could be seen searching the yard in Denburn Road, on the Smeaton industrial estate.
Last night, a Police Scotland spokesman said: ‘We can confirm that a body has sadly been found during the search for missing teenager Libbi Toledo in Kirkcaldy.
‘Officers discovered the body of a female within a disused scrapyard at the junction of Denburn Road and Smeaton Road around 2.20pm.
‘Formal identification is yet to take place. The death is currently being treated as unexplained pending further inquiries
‘Struggled with mental health issues’
and a report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal.’
The death is not believed to be suspicious.
Libbi was last seen in Veronica Crescent, Kirkcaldy, at about 1pm on Monday, September 11, and police were contacted at 1.45am the following morning when she did not return home.
She was said to have struggled with mental health issues, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism.
Libbi, who was also known as Elisabeth, lived at an ‘assisted living facility’ in Kirkcaldy but had also been staying with her mother in Brechin, Angus, three days a week.
She was last in touch at around 6pm on September 11 and said that she was at a friend’s house, which was thought to be in Kirkcaldy.
Hours before she was due to appear at the press conference, Libbi’s mother wrote on Facebook: ‘I’m running out of words... please call 101 [the police nonemergency number] or contact me if you know anything about where Libbi could be.’
The teenager’s father Joe Toledo, who lives in the US, also spoke out before the press conference.
In a post on social media, he wrote: ‘Libbi, please, I’m pleading with you, please call your mum. We really need you to come home. I love you. Dad’.
Libbi, described as 5ft 6ins, slim, with brown eyes and pierced ears, was known to regularly change her hair colour from her natural dark blonde.
There had been six reported sightings of the teenager but three were confirmed as false.
The teenager had possibly been seen outside a Morrisons supermarket in Kirkcaldy at around 2pm on September 11.
It is believed that at the time Libbi may have been in the company of a thin man described as a similar age who was around 5ft 8ins, and wearing a black hoodie with the hood up.
She was also reported to have been seen with a group of around seven men and three women in Alison Street, Kirkcaldy, between 12 and 1pm on Wednesday, September 13. The last reported sighting of Libbi was on the same street at around 7.45pm on Friday, September 15. She was with a man described as in his late twenties or early thirties with a blond mohawk.
Libbi had family in the Forfar, Brechin and Arbroath areas of Angus.
She reportedly visited Brechin between Thursday, September 7 and Sunday, September 10, then returned to Kirkcaldy.
During the search, Inspector Gordon Anderson said it was ‘out of character for Libbi not to return to her accommodation or speak to family for this length of time’.