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The search for Victoria (Tori) Stafford moved yesterday into Kitchener, where police found a car's discarded back seat similar to one linked to the Woodstock girl's abduction.
"We're trying to determine when it was put on the curb," said Waterloo police Const. Michael Kong-Labrie. "There's no indication (it's the missing car seat); we're just taking precautions."
The OPP have asked the public to help find a discarded grey, cloth back seat that may have been pulled from a Honda Civic they say is linked to the Stafford abduction. They've seized the car, but its back seat is missing, police say.
Searchers yesterday also took to the water near Guelph, where investigators have been looking since last Wednesday for the eight-year-old Woodstock girl's body. They searched Guelph Lake and Belwood Lake.
Those efforts, though, were without the help of one of the accused who had been helping until then.
After several days spent guiding police in their search for the girl's body near Guelph, Terri-Lynne McClintic of Woodstock, the 18-year-old charged in the abduction, has been transferred to London's Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre, her lawyer says.
"She was emotional, then hopeful and then frustrated" about the search, said defence lawyer Jeanine LeRoy. "The change of season made it more difficult for her."
As the search grinds on, the emotional healing of those who knew Tori continued slowly yesterday.
Psychologists were back at her Woodstock school, Oliver Stephens, and expect to remain until year's end.
Dr. Sally Christensen, a Thames Valley school board psychologist, says coping strategies put in place during the last few weeks appear to be helping shaken pupils.
"Some of the kids who have had the most difficulty, we're starting to see them smiling again."
Tori's Grade 3 teacher, who is expecting a baby soon and left last week on maternity leave, is struggling, like many colleagues, with the tragedy.
It's no surprise school staff are devastated, Christensen says.
"They very much see (pupils) as their kids in a way. They feel a close attachment to them."
Michael Thomas Rafferty, 28, is charged with abduction and first-degree murder. McClintic, 18, is charged with abduction and being an accessory to murder after the fact.