By David Lohr
February 5, 2007
BRADDOCK, Penn. (Crime Library) — The Pennsylvania State Police issued an Amber Alert for 23-month-old Nyia Miangel Page after she disappeared from her home on the outskirts of Pittsburgh early Saturday morning.
Dozens of police officers from numerous county, municipal, and federal departments, along with citizen volunteers, braved 20-degree temperatures to search a four-block perimeter. Bloodhounds were brought in to assist them, and paramedics were put on standby in the event Nyia was found and in need of medical attention.
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| Nyia Miangel Page |
As the search outside intensified, authorities questioned three adult males who lived in the house with Nyia. The men have been identified as Nyia's father, her cousin, and her grandmother's boyfriend. Each man was given a polygraph test, but investigators have not yet commented on the results of those tests.
By nightfall, investigators had no clues to Nyia's disappearance. They had questioned neighbors, searched abandoned houses, and overturned dumpsters. Nyia appeared to have vanished without a trace. There were no indications she had walked off on her own, but there was also no evidence that someone had broken into the home and abducted her. Investigators were baffled and decided to resume the search at first light.
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| Map of area |
On Sunday morning, investigators fanned out over the neighborhood again, expanding the search to cover a broader area. Several teams were sent to the local landfill, and the decision was made to question all of the area's sex offenders.
At about 4:00 p.m., searchers discovered a body matching the description of Nyia in an abandoned playground off Fleet Street, just over four city blocks from where Nyia had disappeared. Investigators were tight-lipped about the discovery and would not comment on the victim's identification.
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