Skeletal remains found in North Toronto last week are indeed those of Mariam Makhniashvili, a teen who disappeared more than two years ago. Autopsy results show the 17-year-old girl died after falling from a significant height, Toronto police said at a news conference Friday afternoon.

The remains were found last Tuesday underneath the Highway 401 overpass by Yonge Street in a wooded area of the Don Valley Golf Course. Two men out for a walk saw the remains and immediately contacted police.

Investigators had a strong hunch the remains were indeed Mariam's when they located an item at the scene they knew the teen was wearing the day she went missing, sources told CP24.

Staff Insp. Greg McLane, of the Toronto police homicide squad, said at the news conference that autopsy results suggest Mariam was alive at the time she fell from the overpass.

"The findings are not consistent with a homicide or a suspicious death," McLane said, stopping short of calling her death a suicide. "I'm not suggesting that she took her own life but the post-mortem results could be consistent with that conclusion."

Investigators will now try and locate footage from Ministry of Transportation Ontario cameras from more than two years ago in an effort to piece together exactly what happened to Mariam.

McLane couldn't say if Mariam fell from the overpass on the day she went missing but pointed out that there was no sighting of the girl or paper trail after that day.

The girl's parents Lela Tabidze and Vakhtang Makhniashvili were both notified of the findings Friday morning.

Tabidze has asked the media to respect the family's privacy. Makhniashvili is currently serving a prison sentence for committing an aggravated assault against a neighbour and couple the man befriended.

"Lela is doing as expected," McLane said. "Investigators went and spoke to her this morning, explained the circumstances. She responded as one would expect."

Mariam last seen outside school

Mariam was 17 years old when she went missing on Sept. 14, 2009. She and her brother walked to school at Forest Hill Collegiate near Bathurst Street and Eglinton Avenue. Her brother walked in the back entrance but Mariam told him she was going to take the front entrance of the school. She was never seen again.

Peggy Aitcheson, principal of Forest Hill Collegiate, told CP24 that social workers and guidance counsellors would be made available today to students to help them deal with the tragedy.

"Our hearts go out to the mother, father and brother," she said.

Mariam and her brother had only been in the country for two months when she went missing. They lived in the Republic of Georgia while their parents travelled to North America five years prior to try and settle a new life for their family.

There was no indication that the girl suffered from depression, though her family often described the girl as a shy introvert who loved to read.

The girl had few friends in Toronto. Police interviewed every student at the school repeatedly but none of them could remember seeing Mariam that day and her teachers reported that she never made it to a single class.

Three weeks after she went missing, Mariam's schoolbag was found at the back of a building on Eglinton Avenue, a few blocks east of her school. Her books and lunch were in tact and the bag yielded few clues to investigators.

Police did an extensive search of Earl Bales Park after she went missing, as the family frequented that area frequently. The Don Valley Golf Course does connect to Earl Bales Park but the police search did not extend that far.

Though 60  investigators went door-to-door to 5,000 homes in the neighbourhood in search of witnesses, and conducted extensive land and air searches for the girl, police continued to be stumped for new leads in the case, even after the girl's disappearance was featured on the popular U.S. television show "America's Most Wanted."

The case garnered more than 500 tips from the public but none of them led investigators anywhere.

"Most missing people, when they do go, there is some sort of trail that leads police somewhere but in this case, there wasn't anything," Det. Dan Nealon, the lead investigator in the case, said at the news conference.

The case took its toll on Mariam's family. Her father seemed to suffer from extreme mental distress. He attacked a neighbour who he accused of being involved in his daughter's disappearance. The neighbour was never a suspect in the case, according to police. Makhniashvili also violently attacked a couple who acted as his sureties in court after he was charged with stabbing his neighbour.

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