WOODSTOCK, Ont. - As police fell silent Thursday and refused for the first time to provide information on potential developments in the case of a missing child that's gripped this tight-knit southwestern Ontario city, family members expressed anxiety the night before the police chief was to update the community.
It will be the first time a senior Oxford Community Police official speaks out publicly on eight-year-old Victoria Stafford's mysterious disappearance.
"I think that if it was something of significance, we would have heard something about it or more about it than we have," said Rebecca Stafford, the girl's aunt.
"I'm hoping it's something that says we've got more information and we're outside of a house right now. That would be phenomenal. But in all likelihood..."
Rodney Stafford, Victoria's father, said the anticipation is making him feel "wheezy."
"Curiosity is really getting to me, too. I wanna know what it's all about," he said, adding he was hoping to meet privately with police Thursday night to get his own update of the case. "As to what it's about, I have no idea."
Victoria, who friends and family call Tori, hasn't been seen since April 8.
A police spokeswoman who has spoken daily and at length with the media about the case -- even in the absence of developments -- said Thursday there would be no further comment until Chief Ron Fraser speaks Friday at 10 a.m.
So far, police have been investigating the disappearance as a missing persons case and have not called it an abduction.
Yet the only tangible lead police have talked about is a surveillance video that shows Tori, walking seemingly willingly, with a woman with long brown hair and a puffy white coat.
While hundreds of tips have poured in and police conducted a thorough ground search, as well as continue to knock on doors, there's been no word of a tangible lead.
On Thursday night several hundred people, including many parents with their own small children, turned out at a popular Woodstock park to show the family support and attempt to use their own efforts to locate the bubbly blond girl.
Dozens of purple balloons -- Tori's favourite colour -- were filled with helium and had a scroll bearing her name and identification details inserted inside. People gathering at the park also wrote personal messages on the inflated balloons, including her mother, Tara McDonald, who scrawled a message that read, in part: "To my beautiful princess chubchubs, please come home and safely, mommy misses you..."
The bright balloons were then released into the air on the count of three.
"It makes me realize the community is still here, and that's good to know. I don't want anybody here in the community to give up the search for my daughter," Rodney Stafford said.
"It hurts that she's still out there. I honestly believe this community will stick with me until I get her home."
Despite the dawning of a second week with no sign of Tori, other parents remained hopeful that police know more than they're letting on about her whereabouts and would soon deliver some good news.
"We're hoping for the best, especially for the children," Monica McCoy said as she waited outside Oliver Stephens Public School for her daughter Brooke.
The girl and Victoria, known by family and friends as Tori, were classmates and "best friends" who had a play date planned after school on April 8. That's the day the bubbly, petite, blond child "never showed up."
Since her friend's disappearance, Brooke has been making gifts and drawing crayon pictures of her and Tori in their houses, said her mom.
"(Brooke has been) up and down. She misses her friend, very very much," McCoy said. "She said 'We're like sisters.' They call each other sissy."
Across the street from Tori's school, Jenny Warnock watched as her 10- and seven-year-old sons played on scooters in their front yard.
"I hope it's good news," she said of Friday's update, adding it's been discouraging waking up every morning without hearing police have a lead in the case.
"Just a clue. I don't know what I'm hoping for really, I just hope she's safe."
Despite the lack of information, she said she's happy with how police have handled the investigation.
"I think everything they've done is for our best interest," she said.
"If they know something and they're not telling us, that's OK with me. As long as I have some type of hope it will be good news in the end."
Assistance in the search has come not only from within the community, but as far afield as Los Angeles where the TV show "America's Most Wanted" says it's reaching out to Oxford Community Police.
The show watches for such cases and when it heard the story, it jumped all over it and called police to offer help, said spokesman Robert Brown.
"America's Most Wanted" is running Tori's case on its website and Brown says it's possible it could be profiled on the TV show itself.
"A missing-child case is always heartbreaking," he said.
"You want to help out law enforcement as best as possible and help out the family to try to bring the little one home."
