Week-long search for girl continues

posted on 02/04/08

More than a week after 12-year-old Karissa Paige Boudreau went missing, police, family members and an entire community remain mystified by her disappearance.

As of Monday morning, Bridgewater Police continued to chase leads trying to determine the Grade 6 student’s whereabouts as they have since January 27. However, acting deputy chief Sgt. John Collyer said tips are slowing to a crawl.

“The tips kind of trickled down almost to stop over the weekend,” Sgt. Collyer said. “We are, however, going to be looking at bringing in a dive team
 and we’re also trying to get the helicopter up again today. With the winds that we had over the weekend and the thawing, there’s more of the river open. Again, we want to try and whittle that down, whether there’s a possibility of her being in the river or not.”

Karissa was last seen in the Bridgewater Mall parking lot near Sobeys around 5:30 p.m. on January 27. She’d argued with her mother and chose to wait in the family’s red Dodge Neon while Penny Boudreau went inside to buy a few items.

When Ms Boudreau returned 10 or 15 minutes later, Karissa was gone. Believing her daughter had walked off, Ms Boudreau drove around looking for her and went home. When there was still no sign of the 12 year old by 8:30 p.m., her mother called the police.

Since then, ground and air searches and a large-scale police investigation have turned up no sign of Karissa.

If anyone knows Karissa Boudreau’s whereabouts, they are asked to call the Bridgewater Police at 543-2464.