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Can everyone say a prayer for this girl.
Thanks
Police find girl's head in park
TORONTO (CP) - Police searching a west-end park have found the head of a butchered 5-year-old girl, a day after her father and stepmother were arrested and charged with her murder.
Homicide detectives and forensic analysts located the child's head this morning.
''We're hopeful we'll locate the torso by late this afternoon,'' Const. Devin Kealey said today.
The girl's arms and legs had been found in a different park last month, prompting a massive search for the rest of her body and her killers.
TORONTO STAR GRAPHIC
Police said they expect to find the torso in the same west-end park where the girl's remains were initially found stuffed into garbage bags.
Investigators planned on spending most of the day searching.
The find came as Muhammad Arsal Khan, 36, and his wife, Kaneez Fatima, 45, appeared in court on first-degree murder charges in the killing and dismembering of the girl, now identified as Farah Khan.
They were remanded in custody until Feb. 4, the day Farah would have turned six.
The couple appeared calm and showed no overt emotion. They chatted quietly to each other as they waited in the prisoner's box in a packed courtroom.
Police wouldn't say whether the suspects led detectives to the place where Farah's head was buried but said after the arrests yesterday that they were confident of finding the rest of her body, which had been surgically dismembered.
The grisly case had stumped police until a chance remark last week from an elementary school teacher to an officer investigating an unrelated incident.
The teacher had heard about DNA tests that showed the girl was likely of South Asian descent and suggested police look into a former student, whose parents said was going back to Pakistan.
Investigators matched fingerprints from the girl's school work with those found on her dismembered limbs.
Farah was last seen at the school Dec. 2, five days before her body parts were found.
A kindergarten picture of Farah shows her dark hair falling just below her chin, framing her small face. She's dressed in a delicate peach dress.
Police picked up Khan, a landed immigrant from Pakistan, and Fatima, a Canadian citizen, at a rented home yesterday morning near the park where Farah's arms and legs were found.
Police also searched a west-end apartment where the couple had lived until the end of last month.
Farah's limbs were initially discovered in a garbage bag among lakeshore rocks. A woman walking her dog made the gruesome find after spotting a couple trying to hide something.
Trained dogs led police to two other garbage bags with body parts, but the head and torso eluded a massive search of the park that involved moving huge boulders with heavy equipment.
Despite a composite sketch of the couple seen at the park and hundreds of tips from the public, police were stymied and Farah remained unidentified until a link was made through the fingerprints on her school work.
In court Thursday, Khan and Fatima did not appear to resemble the composite closely.
Can everyone say a prayer for this girl.
Thanks
Police find girl's head in park
TORONTO (CP) - Police searching a west-end park have found the head of a butchered 5-year-old girl, a day after her father and stepmother were arrested and charged with her murder.
Homicide detectives and forensic analysts located the child's head this morning.
''We're hopeful we'll locate the torso by late this afternoon,'' Const. Devin Kealey said today.
The girl's arms and legs had been found in a different park last month, prompting a massive search for the rest of her body and her killers.
TORONTO STAR GRAPHIC
Police said they expect to find the torso in the same west-end park where the girl's remains were initially found stuffed into garbage bags.
Investigators planned on spending most of the day searching.
The find came as Muhammad Arsal Khan, 36, and his wife, Kaneez Fatima, 45, appeared in court on first-degree murder charges in the killing and dismembering of the girl, now identified as Farah Khan.
They were remanded in custody until Feb. 4, the day Farah would have turned six.
The couple appeared calm and showed no overt emotion. They chatted quietly to each other as they waited in the prisoner's box in a packed courtroom.
Police wouldn't say whether the suspects led detectives to the place where Farah's head was buried but said after the arrests yesterday that they were confident of finding the rest of her body, which had been surgically dismembered.
The grisly case had stumped police until a chance remark last week from an elementary school teacher to an officer investigating an unrelated incident.
The teacher had heard about DNA tests that showed the girl was likely of South Asian descent and suggested police look into a former student, whose parents said was going back to Pakistan.
Investigators matched fingerprints from the girl's school work with those found on her dismembered limbs.
Farah was last seen at the school Dec. 2, five days before her body parts were found.
A kindergarten picture of Farah shows her dark hair falling just below her chin, framing her small face. She's dressed in a delicate peach dress.
Police picked up Khan, a landed immigrant from Pakistan, and Fatima, a Canadian citizen, at a rented home yesterday morning near the park where Farah's arms and legs were found.
Police also searched a west-end apartment where the couple had lived until the end of last month.
Farah's limbs were initially discovered in a garbage bag among lakeshore rocks. A woman walking her dog made the gruesome find after spotting a couple trying to hide something.
Trained dogs led police to two other garbage bags with body parts, but the head and torso eluded a massive search of the park that involved moving huge boulders with heavy equipment.
Despite a composite sketch of the couple seen at the park and hundreds of tips from the public, police were stymied and Farah remained unidentified until a link was made through the fingerprints on her school work.
In court Thursday, Khan and Fatima did not appear to resemble the composite closely.
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