Investigators search a reservoir in Heguri, Nara Prefecture, for the belongings of a 7-year-old girl who was abducted and murdered last month.

Local police said the message was sent from the mobile phone of first-grader Kaede Ariyama to her 28-year-old mother Dec. 14.

Ariyama was apparently abducted near her home Nov. 17, and was found dead in a roadside ditch some 6 km away a little after midnight. But some of her belongings, including her global positioning system-equipped cellphone and her shoes, have not been found.

On the day Ariyama disappeared, her mother received from the same phone the message, "I've got your daughter," accompanied by a snapshot of the girl, apparently dead.

The Japan Times Weekly: Dec. 25, 2004
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