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Last update - 16:00 28/08/2008
Police: Grandfather of missing girl hiding info for plea bargain
By Jonathan Lis and Igal Hai, Haaretz Correspondents
Tags: Israel, Rose Pizem, Ronny Ron 

Police believe the grandfather of missing 4-year-old Rose Pizem is concealing the real whereabouts of her body, perhaps for a plea bargain. Ronny Ron is suspected of conspiring with her mother to murder and dispose of the body of the little girl.

On Wednesday Ron again reenacted his story of throwing a suitcase containing the child's body into the Yarkon River.

The police are considering the idea of drying up a section of the river in the hope of finding the child's body and are considering various ways of doing so.
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Police on Wednesday continued searching for Rose with dogs and volunteers, focusing on Netanya's southern parts and the Yarkon River in Tel Aviv. Veteran navy volunteers trawled the river's bed while a navy boat and crew combed its banks, but so far no trace of the body has been found.

Ron was brought to the section of the Yarkon where he had earlier told police he had tossed a suitcase holding the girl's body into the water. Police believe he may not be telling them where he really hid the body.

"It is very possible that he didn't throw the body into the Yarkon," said a police source. He said he did it where a lot of people are around even at night. Yet nobody seems to have witnessed his tossing a suitcase into the river."

The source added: "The fact that the suitcase hasn't been found up till now makes us think it is very likely not in the river."

The search will resume this morning, this time close to the Yarkon's mouth near the Reading power station. "Experts believe all kinds of things drain to the river mouth and are mired there," the police Central District spokesman Shlomi Saguy said.

The police will also expand the search in Netanya.

The Netanya Magistrate's Court on Wednesday extended the remand of Ron and Rose's mother, Marie-Charlotte Renault, who is suspected of conspiring with Ron to murder Rose and with helping him to conceal her body.

The police started investigating the case in early August, after receiving a fax message from the Netanya welfare department that Rose had disappeared, commander Yigal Ben Shalom of the Central Unit told reporters.

The city's welfare department had been approached by the National Council for the Child, which had received a letter from Rose's great-grandmother, saying she hadn't seen the child for several months and was worried about her.

"Following the council's approach the Netanya police started looking into the case and visited the family's house several times," Ben Shalom said. "However there was no answer [at the door] and the family was not found. On August 12 police visited the family once more. Both Ronny Ron and his partner, Renault,. Rose's were home. At first they refused to answer the door and afterward Ron refused to tell the police where Rose was. His conduct raised suspicions that the couple was trying to hide the child's whereabouts, and "that we might have a criminal act on our hands," said the police source.

The police representative told the court on Wednesday that Ron had given the police eight versions of his deeds, including throwing his granddaughter into the Yarkon River, giving her to Bedouin and selling her to Arabs in Na'alin.

Judge Yaron Levy wrote in his ruling that according to the suspect's last version, he had struck the girl in the face while he was driving his car, causing her death inadvertently. After realizing she was dead he put her in a suitcase and threw it into the Yarkon.

Levy noted that the child's body had not found in the various places Ron named, and there was still no evidence as to whether she were dead or alive.

"We are doing everything possible to find the body with divers and technological means. If necessary, we'll bring additional equipment," Police Commissioner Dudi Cohen said on Wednesday, after touring the search site along the Yarkon.

Related articles:
  • Police: We will do all we can to give Rose a proper burial
  • Before her disappearance, Rose Pizem suffered 4 years of horror
  • Ever-changing stories of missing girl's grandfather burdened police
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      1.   An alternative to drying up the YARKON 08:22  |  david 28/08/08
      2.   Little Rose 09:51  |  RK 28/08/08
      3.   4yr old murdered 10:53  |  Melody Donovan 28/08/08
      4.   Ongoing horror... 11:01  |  Esther 28/08/08
      5.   Do we need an echologycal crime to resolve a family one? 11:12  |  Alain 28/08/08
      6.   Grandpa was a Monster 12:15  |  Tami 28/08/08
      7.   No Plea Bargain for Grandpa 12:46  |  Dagma 28/08/08
      8.   Treat these monsters as terrorists 12:54  |  Stephanie 28/08/08
      9.   Violent society 14:16  |  David James Vickery 28/08/08
      10.   Normality needed 16:31  |  H.H.M. 28/08/08
      11.   to no 9 17:32  |  fish 28/08/08
      12.   what a nice dad 18:14  |  jorge luis 28/08/08
      13.   missing girl 19:27  |  mike 28/08/08
      14.   David J. Vickery 22:14  |  Linichka 28/08/08
      15.   Another case missed by the nice `social workers` 10:45  |  Ulf 30/08/08
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