The parents of a missing B.C. teen have made a tearful plea to help find their daughter.
According to police,16-year-old Josephine Shih had been visiting satanic cult websites before she disappeared.
“It’s clear that she’s been on those sites many, many times, corresponding with individuals in chat rooms that are involved in satanic cults,” said Cpl. Peter Thiessen of the Richmond RCMP.
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Her parents, Jenny and Steven Shih, said that their daughter’s interest in the occult goes back at least a few months, and that they noticed a change in her behaviour over the Christmas break.
“She connected with some strange website,” said Shih’s father, which gave her “the wrong idea. So after winter break everything changed in her mind. She couldn’t concentrate to go to school to study.”
A school photo of Shih broadcast on CTV Vancouver’s evening newscast showed her wearing a pentacle necklace — a symbol often associated with the occult.
Students at Shih’s high school told CTV Vancouver’s Rob Brown that the grade 11 girl never openly expressed an interest in Satanism.
But police suspect she could have attracted someone in a chat room who convinced her to leave home.
Investigators fear this scenario could end the same way as another recent missing person case. Last year, a missing Vancouver couple known to be into Goth culture was found dead by suicide near Horseshoe Bay.
“That’s an example, that’s a measuring stick that we’re using as a potential and we’re hoping it doesn’t go that far,” said Thiessen.
Anyone with information is asked to call Richmond RCMP, at (604) 278-1212.
With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Rob Brown