A 10-year-old girl of Maltese descent has been found horribly murdered in Toronto after vanishing from her neighbourhood, prompting police to mount a desperate search for her.
The search was cut short when the dismembered body of Holly Jones, whose grandmother was a Maltese migrant, was recovered from Lake Ontario on Tuesday.
Canada's National Post newspaper reported that police are now warning of a "predator" on the loose.
Hundreds of police officers, detectives and civilian volunteers had spent all night combing the blocks around where Holly was last seen.
But the search was called off less than 18 hours later, after police found the torso of a child washed up on Toronto's Centre Island. More body parts were later found on the waterfront about five kilometres from Holly's home.
Police have issued a warning for Toronto parents, saying there was a "very dangerous person" in their midst.
Holly had last been seen on Monday evening leaving the home of one of her friends, a block away from her parents' house, at about 6.30 p.m.
Holly's mother, Maria Jones, thought her daughter was still playing at their friends until about 8.30 p.m., when she called to ask her to come home. The family began searching for her and called police at about 9 p.m., the National Post said.
A distraught Ms. Jones then begged on television for her abductor to return Holly: "She has never hurt anyone in all her life. She's a happy girl: I beg you not to hurt her. Bring her home to us."
George Stonehouse, Holly's father, offered a $10,000 reward for his daughter's return.
But soon after police found the plastic-wrapped body parts.
Ms Jones is the daughter of Lucy Pace, who was born of a Maltese family in Egypt but was then brought up in Malta, in the Baviera area of Valletta. She married a Briton, Bob Jones, and moved to Canada about 45 years ago, explained Anthony Pace, her brother, who moved to Paris from Canada but still owns a house in Senglea. Their sister lives in Vittoriosa.
Lucy and Bob had two children, and their daughter Maria had a boy and three girls, the youngest of whom was Holly. Maria has often visited Malta, and the whole family was planning to come out in September, said Mr Pace.
As it happens, the spokesman for the Toronto Police has a Maltese name. Sergeant Jim Muscat was quoted by the National Post as saying that only a couple of hours had past between the last time Holly was seen and when her parents realised she was missing. "It was no more than a five- [or] six-minute walk from one house to the other."