Y-2-Dray Alert:Find Alicia Ross!

This young lady here is Alicia Ross. She lives in a small town just outside of Toronto called Thornhill. The town actually sits centred on top of the T-dot, and like the Berlin of the Cold War is split between two political entities by Yonge Street: the township of Markham on the east side; the city of Vaughan on the west. Alicia lives in the part where I used to live, Markham, and went to the same high school I went to, Thornlea Secondary. Right about now she has gone AWOL for more than 6 days. There has been talk that she has been abducted.

As a former Thornhill resident, I feel that it is my duty to let everyone know about this, just because.

The impact on her friends and neighbours has been, if not devastating, then at least worrisome. One of her former schoolmates wrote about memories and the effects of her disappearance in the Toronto Sun today.

There is so much more to say about Alicia Ross. She loves the outdoors, white-water kayaking and Pink Floyd. She keeps herself in tip-top shape and she has a habit of sucking her thumb. The list describing Ross, written by her friends, fills up every inch of a piece of paper...

"Put it this way. We have a group of friends the world is jealous they don't have, and now we're minus one of the crew."

The Globe and Mail's Christine Blatchford views the situation through Alicia's mother's eyes in her column:

(Alicia's mother, Sharon) Fortis is a bit of a thing -- she comes to my neck and I'm about 5 foot 4 -- but she is remarkably fierce. Yesterday, she was having a reasonably good day; Julius and Andrew, the couple's second-oldest, were not.

You see, in the details, if not in the main event, God is kind, and allows someone in the family to be strong each day.

This is how it goes, when one of your children has just . . . disappeared. There are minutes when your heart swells with optimism you pray is not ridiculous and hours when you cannot contain the terror.

(...)

She believes Alicia is alive, as the parents of missing children must believe. "Everyone who phones," she said, "says, 'We know she's alive. We don't know how or why, we just do.' " Mrs. Fortis believes it because "the whole nature of the scenario of a girl like this," she said, "I don't think anyone would want to harm her. It's someone who would just want her."

You've read the effects on the ones Alicia loves and by whom she is loved. Put yourself in their shoes.

And this is where you come in.

If any of you people who check into this site have seen Alicia in any way, shape or form, no matter where you are, call the York Regional Police hotline at 1-866-287-5025, or CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS(8477).

For the sake of the god you worship, help out.

And if you're reading this, Alicia, please call home.