Quebec Police Give Family of Missing Girl Hope With Reports of Sightings

By JONATHAN MONTPETIT

TROIS-RIVIERES, Que. (CP) – A nine-year-old girl who has been missing for three weeks could still be alive after telling witnesses she was helping a man look for a lost dog.

Quebec provincial police said Wednesday they have information that there were several sightings last week of Cedrika Provencher. The girl vanished July 31 when she didn’t come home from a bike ride in this quiet community, midway between Montreal and Quebec City.

“What we have now is information to the effect that she was seen in different locations, principally in eastern Quebec,” said police spokesman Richard Gagne.

“We are in the process of looking into this information to attempt to locate the young girl.

“The information is credible and that’s the reason we believe she is still alive.”

Posters of the smiling, freckle-faced girl in her Scout’s uniform are everywhere in Trois-Rivieres. Hundreds of volunteers have been searching for her and they have brought posters of Cedrika to all corners of the province, including Montreal and the northern Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region.

Police also said Wednesday that another girl has told police that she was approached by a man needing help to find a dog.

Three other girls came forward with the same story after Cedrika vanished.

“It will help the total package of information so we can try to create a police sketch or provide a more precise physical description (of the suspect),” Gagne said. “But it’s too soon for that for the moment.”

Police have refined their search in recent days and now say they are looking for one man, casting aside theories that a couple may have been involved.

Members of the Provencher family’s support network welcomed the new information on Wednesday and called on the public to be vigilant.

“There’s absolutely no reason to think the worst just yet,” Pina Arcamone of the Missing Children’s Network said in an interview. “We need to encourage the public to be on the look out.”

Arcamone plans to meet with Cedrika’s family on Friday in Trois-Rivieres.

The Missing Children’s Network is offering emotional and technical support in the girl’s disappearance and has been providing descriptions of the girl outside Quebec and in Europe.

But Arcamone cautioned that fresh details in the case of a missing person can be a double edged sword.

“If this is the case, the family has reason to be feeling cautiously optimistic,” she said. “But if it doesn’t pan out it’s like losing her all over again.”

Cedrika’s father, Martin Provencher, is still participating in the volunteer searches for his daughter, Arcamone added.

An $80,000 reward has been offered to find the girl.

Psychologists will also be available to help schoolchildren when they return to class next week at Cedrika’s school.