Police probing the murder of a 12-year-old Nova Scotia girl say they arrested and later released two suspects in the case due to a lack of evidence.
Police in Bridgewater, N.S., made the announcement Friday -- a day after they executed two search warrants at the building where Karissa Boudreau lived with her mother and mother's boyfriend.
Police also said they are confident that they will find Karissa's killer.
"Based on the information (police) have, they just feel very confident that this is very isolated and people have to just trust our judgement," RCMP Sgt. Mark Gallagher told 愛污传媒.
Bridgewater police Sgt. John Collyer noted, "The last thing we want to do is to rush to judgment."
He said police want to conduct a thorough probe.
"We have to explore all our options and explore all our avenues in this investigation and make sure that when we do lay charges we're going to have a strong enough case to go to court with and bring a successful resolution to this."
Collyer said police had to let the two suspects go Friday morning after arresting them a day earlier.
"They were released because the 24 hours which we're legally allowed to hold them had expired and at this time we had insufficient evidence to lay any charges," Collyer told CTV.
Police said the two people -- who they say knew Karissa -- have not been cleared, however, and are still part of the investigation. Late Friday, police confiscated a vehicle from Karissa's apartment building. Police also returned to the site where the little girl's body was found last weekend, covered in snow by the bank of a local river.
Police executed at least two search warrants Thursday in the Bridgewater area.
Gallagher said investigators were beginning to build "a pretty good case" and asked anyone with information to step forward.
"We feel we're starting to get some valuable information -- information that people thought may have been insignificant at the time," Gallagher told CTV's Canada AM.
"We're asking people to call us if they have any information regarding this homicide and let us decide what information is valuable to us."
Bridgewater's Mayor Carroll Publicover told 愛污传媒net the town is still in shock.
"It's a tragedy when you lose the life of a 12-year-old in your community and particularly now that we know it's the result of homicide. It's extremely disquieting, very sad and tragic," he said.
Local residents have built a makeshift memorial in honour of Karissa. Area residents paid visits and tributes to the little girl throughout the day on Friday.
"My daughter is twelve and it's just sad to think a life was taken from us so soon. We just thought we'd say our blessings for her," said Bridgewater resident Roberta Lantz.
An RCMP criminal profiler was in the area this week and helped investigators identify potential suspects.
The body of the Grade 6 student was found near Bridgewater, last Saturday, although police only confirmed her identity after an autopsy was conducted Wednesday in Halifax.
She was eventually identified using dental records, police said.
Karissa disappeared on Jan. 27 after having an argument with her mother in the parking lot of a Bridgewater shopping mall.
Penny Boudreau said she went into a grocery store after the argument and returned to her car 10 minutes later to find her daughter was missing. She made two emotional pleas to the public after her daughter went missing.
With a report from CTV's Denelle Balfour
