- Stepfather Wendell Noyes was committed for schizophrenia in 2003
- Arrested for threatening ex-girlfriend
- Noyes says family is 'grieving' as they issue plea for her safe return
- Police plan on questioning every person in the town
- Officials still not treating her disappearance as suspicious
Statement Analysis in bold type.
Stepfather of missing Celina Cass has 'violent, mentally-ill past' as FBI turns its attention towards her computer
By FIONA ROBERTS and RACHEL QUIGLEY
Last updated at 3:19 PM on 30th July 2011
Inexplicable: Friends and family say Celina Cass is the last person they would expect to run away
As the search for missing 11-year-old Celina Cass enters its fifth day, police are now turning their attentions towards her computer as it has been revealed that her stepfather has a troubled past filled with allegations of criminal behaviour and mental illness.
Celina vanished without a trace from her bedroom on Monday, where she was last seen playing on her computer around 9pm. The next morning she was gone.
Police are desperately searching for her and plan to question everyone in the small town of Stewartstown, New Hampshire, which is just a mile away from the Canadian border.
Last night the stepfather of the shy fifth-grader, Wendell Noyes, said the family were 'grieving' - as a friend issued a statement on their behalf with a direct plea to Celina, saying 'we will not stop searching for you until you are back in our arms'.
It has emerged that Noyes, 47, was involuntarily committed in 2003 after being diagnosed with schizophrenia and arrested for threatening an ex-girlfriend.
According to court records obtained by ABC, the woman said Noyes broke into her home while she and her two children slept, picked up her mattress and slammed it down.
She also told authorities that he threatened to throw her down the stairs.
At the time, Judge Richard Hampe ruled Noyes was incompetent to stand trial, writing that the man's mental illness created 'a potentially serious likelihood of danger to himself and others'.
A forensic examiner said Noyes was a paranoid schizophrenic, who most likely developed the condition while he was in the Air Force.
Celina's family have said that she would never run away from home or leave with a stranger.
Speaking yesterday from the motel in Canaan, Vermont, where he and Celina's mother are staying, Noyes told the Boston Herald: 'Right now, we’re in the process of grieving.' Note "we" is plural, and "grieving" is over deceased. Does he have reason to believe she is deceased and not missing?
Devastated: New Hampshire State Police officers watch as a woman identified as Celina Cass's mother, under a blanket, is escorted from the family home in Stewartstown, New Hampshire
At a press conference last night, a friend broke down as she read out a statement on behalf of Celina's family.
She said: 'Our beautiful Celina is a happy child who brings much love and joy into the lives of those who know her. Her safe and speedy return is our sole priority and focus.
'We remain hopeful and vigilant and trust in the investigative abilities of the authorities involved. We pray that our little girl is returned home soon.
'We plead for answers and ask if you saw or know anything at all, however insignificant you may think your information is, that you come forward now without hesitation and share it with our investigators.
Troubled past: Celina Cass's stepfather, Wendell Noyes, was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2003
'And Celina, if you can hear this now, please know how much we love and we miss you. You are in our thoughts and in our prayers. We will not stop searching for you until you are back in our arms.'
Her disappearance has shaken the small town, with some fearing that she may have been taken out of the country.
State police from New Hampshire and Vermont, along with FBI child abduction specialists and U.S. border patrol, scoured the area Thursday, even sending agents as far as New York and Virginia.
Investigators say they have little to go on, with no signs of an abduction or a struggle but no sign she ran away either.
Jane Young, New Hampshire's assistant attorney general, said they were going to talk to every person in town.
'Every house, every individual in the neighbourhood is being spoken to,' she said.
She added: 'We just continue to look for her with all available assets. We don’t have any evidence at this juncture to indicate that this is a criminal investigation.”
Investigators are painstakingly going through 225 tips, some of which have come from as far away as North Carolina and Illinois.
More than 100 searchers are now involved in the manhunt for the 11-year-old girl, including the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The town of just 800 people is only a mile from Canada.
So far, this extraordinary effort has turned up nothing.
Call for help: Family friends hold up missing posters for Celina for passing cars to view outside the family home
Hunt: A New Hampshire Fish and Game officer uses as GPS device as he searches for Celina along a road near her home in Stewartstown. An FBI abduction team has now joined the investigation
Kiernan Ramsey of the FBI's New Hampshire office told ABC: 'We're using advanced techniques from aviation to canines and the like. We are hopeful some positive outcome could result.'
Frantic search: Celina Cass vanished from her home in the small town of Stewartstown, New Hampshire
He added: 'Some have made a lot of debate as to whether this is a missing persons case or an abduction. I will tell you, from the FBI's perspective, labelling of this case does not matter, when it comes to the resources that we are bringing to bear.'
The front lawn of the home where Celina lives with her mother, stepfather and 13-year-old sister has been turned into a shrine, with candles, stuffed animals and notes to the missing fifth grader.
Community members outside the home are flagging down cars and handing out flyers with Celina's image.
'It's a big world and she's a small girl and she's only 11. She doesn't know how to handle herself,' said Stewartstown resident Shahannah Fuller.
Celina's mother and stepfather have not spoken to the television media, and have requested 'absolute privacy'.
On Wednesday an extensive land search was scaled back, and police trawled the Connecticut River using two boats.
They lowered the waterway so helicopters could scour it from the air, while officers desperately searching an area within a half-mile radius of her home.
Friends and neighbours have been holding candlelit vigils for Celina every night since she disappeared, as they desperately pray for her safe return. They gather around a framed photograph of the schoolgirl on a picnic table, surrounded by candles.
Friends say Celina was the last person they'd expect to run away.
Fighting back tears and holding a lit candle at the gathering, family friend Rebecca Goodrum said: 'She never went anywhere without her mom or sister.'
Comforting: Family and friends of Celina wait on the porch of the family home
She said: 'She was beautiful. She was the light of everything.'
Another, Kayla Baglio, said: 'She is very shy. If she doesn't know you, she'd look at her sister to see if it was OK to talk to you.
One of Celina's schoolfriends, 11-year-old Makayla Riendeau, said she was very athletic and a stickler about getting her school work done on time.
She said: 'She's a very good friend, and she never lets anybody down.
Shannon Towles, who owns a mini-mart on Route 3, said her disappearance had shaken the town, which has just 800 residents.
She said: 'It's creepy. Things like this don't happen here. I know that's kind of a tired phrase. I'm an overprotective mom as it is. Now it's going to be way worse.'
Popular: Celia Cass pictured left in her basketball uniform and right, with friends in a photo she posted on Facebook. Her friends have described her as athletic and hardworking, and say she would never run away
Hunt: Residents post flyers on trees in Stewartstown to help find Celina Cass, who disappeared from her home on Monday evening
Mrs Towles said Celina wasn't the type of girl to hitchhike or run away. She said: 'She's just a little girl and she's a nice little girl.'
Celina attends Stewartstown Community School, where she is one of just 85 pupils.
The district superintendent described her as popular and well-liked, and said six counsellors were on hand to help students cope with her disappearance.
Mrs Towles said her daughter, Echo, had asked her whether she thought Celina was still alive.
She said: 'How do I answer that question? And do I want to? I don't want to think about it, but I pray every second that she is.'
Friends and neighbours have spent the last four days posting flyers showing her smiling face on every available lamppost and tree trunk.
Shaken: Celina is one of just 85 pupils at the town's school. Counsellors are on hand to help students cope with her disappearance
On Thursday police searched the woods behind an apartment building about a mile north of the town. They carried bags and boxes, but it was unclear if they collected anything.
Later officers went into Celina's home, then stretched yellow crime scene tape around it before posting a uniformed officer outside.
Then plain clothes police officers wearing purple rubber gloves surrounded a red pick-up truck parked across the street from the house, taking photographs and looking inside.
Lieutenant Douglas Gralenski, a state Fish and Game Department official helping to search the river, said: 'Honestly, we don't know where else we can look. There's so much that's unknown.'
He said: 'It's not a deep river. You'd be hard-pressed to find six to eight feet in most of it in that area. When we had it drawn down, it was exceptionally low.'
The investigation has now been passed on to the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office.
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