Help us, missing girl’s parents ask

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This article was published 06/09/2016 (3413 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Christine Wood’s parents made a desperate plea for public help Tuesday to find their missing 21-year-old daughter.

“Call me, phone me. I beg you… please come home,” Melinda Wood tearfully said at a news conference, hoping her daughter was listening.

“I’m pleading with anyone in the city who may have seen her — please help us,” said George Wood, Christine’s father.

The former University of Winnipeg student was last seen the evening of Aug. 19 in St. James. Her parents said it is extremely unusual for her to be out of contact with them for so long.

“If you have any kind of information, any lead, we need her home,” her father said at the media event hosted by Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Inc. and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. The news conference aimed to jog people’s memories and to ask the public to keep their eyes peeled for the missing young woman.

“These are very lovely people who care about their family and raised their family with love,” said MKO Grand Chief Sheila North Wilson. She called on Winnipeggers to be on the lookout for Christine with the same vigilance they showed when Thelma Krull, a middle-aged grandmother, went missing more than a year ago.

“That’s how it should be for every family,” North Wilson said.

The family is from Oxford House First Nation. Christine was staying at a hotel near Sargent Avenue and Berry Street with her parents while accompanying a family member to a medical appointment in Winnipeg on the night she went missing. She told her parents she was going out for the evening and never returned. She hasn’t been in touch with family or friends since.

Wood is described as 5-6 tall with an average build and shoulder-length dark-brown hair.

Christy Dzikowicz of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection said there have been unconfirmed reports Christine has been seen in the city. “The police need more information to come in,” said Dzikowicz. “We’re feeling very hopeful.”

One of the concerns North Wilson has is Christine may have become “entangled” with those who would exploit her. “That’s my biggest fear,” she said. “We wish we knew what happened.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Winnipeg police missing-persons unit at 204-986-6250.

“I know she’s 21 and an adult, but she’s our child,” George Wood said at the news conference while choking back sobs. “We need your help to find her.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca