Police have made two arrests in connection with the death of nine-year-old Cecilia Zhang Thursday, four months after the remains of the little girl were found in a wooded area just outside the city.
Peel Police Chief Noel Catney confirmed in a radio report Thursday morning that the police force responsible for the case had detained two people.
The pair have no known ties to Cecilia's family, he said.
"There has been an arrest in the matter. Two people have been charged," Chief Catney told Toronto radio station CFRB.
But Chief Catney would not say what the charges were.
Toronto's CP24 news station said that the two people were arrested Wednesday in Scarborough, Ont., and that one is apparently a man in his 20s who may have been in the country on a student visa from Shanghai.
Cecilia's parents, Raymond Zhang and Sherry Xu, had rented out their home over the years to students. The little girl was reportedly snatched from the window of her parents' home in the middle of the night last fall in a case that shocked the city. Police had done interviews with some of the people who had lived in the house during their investigation.
Peel Police Toronto-based police force left a statement on their website that they "are issuing no further information in regards to this other than that there is a news conference scheduled for 1 p.m. [EDT]" in Brampton, Ont.
They said they will advise the public at that time of a "major development" in the case.
Chief Catney and members of the Cecilia Zhang Task Force will also be present at the meeting, the statement said.
A spokeswoman for Toronto police, Constable Drummond, told globeandmail.com that the Toronto police "have not been given any information aside from there's going to be a press conference at 1 p.m."
Constable Drummond said that Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino, who has been front and centre in the case and met many times with the girl's distraught parents, will attend the press conference.
"Apparently the chief is going to be there," she said.
The little girl disappeared last Oct. 20 from a second-storey bedroom of her family's Toronto home.
Her parents searched in vain for their only child for months, aimlessly driving along city streets looking for her in the weeks following her abduction.
The case drew international attention, with Toronto-area police travelling to Asia in an attempt to gather information on Cecilia's disappearance and conducting a massive door-to-door, flyer and poster campaign.
The case also appeared on the U.S. television show, America's Most Wanted.
The girl's remains were eventually discovered in March of this year in a heavily wooded area near a church parking lot about 50 kilometres west of the Zhang's home.
Globeandmail.com
