11/12/2012: Toronto, Canada mystery woman linked to Delaware disappearance: The latest lead on the mystery woman known as Linda is pointing to an American who disappeared from her Delaware home in September. Toronto police say photos of the American woman, Linda Hegg, bear a striking resemblance to the woman who calls herself Linda and walked into a Toronto shelter 10/5/2012.
et. Roger Caracciolo, referring to the resemblance, even though the photo of Hegg, from an old driver’s licence, is not recent. “But until we get DNA confirmation, there’s nothing we can confirm.”
Hegg, 55, lives in Newark, Del. Caracciolo, who leads the investigation, says police there have collected DNA and will be sending it to Toronto. The Centre of Forensic Sciences will test whether it matches Linda’s.
Newark police asked for the public’s help in finding Hegg on Tuesday. A case worker from a mental health organization, who regularly checked in on Hegg, notified police after not seeing her for more than a month, said Newark police Lt. Mark Farrall.
“She lives by herself, she has no family in the area, so there was quite a delay in reporting her actually being missing,” Farrall said in a phone interview Friday, adding police were notified of Hegg’s disappearance Nov. 3. “We’re not actually sure when it was that she went missing.
“Our detectives are working with Toronto police,” he added, “and we’re hoping this will have a positive outcome and we’ll be able to identify this person as being one and the same.”
Farrall would not say what kind of mental health problem Hegg suffers. The mystery Linda in Toronto has received psychiatric care while police search for her identity.
When she first walked into a downtown shelter, she was neatly dressed and had no belongings, except for a tote bag with scraps of paper, a map of Toronto bus routes, and $20 in Canadian bills. She had no ID, insisted her name was Linda, but couldn’t give any personal information. She named crossroads in Halifax, but police there turned up nothing that would help identify her.
Toronto police released two photos of Linda, the first when they began their investigation Oct. 3. They have been widely distributed through missing persons’ websites, Facebook and news reports, including the Star’s latest story about Linda on Wednesday.
That day, a Canadian woman emailed Newark police saying she saw a story in a Canadian newspaper and noted a resemblance with Hegg. Farrall said that information was passed on to Toronto police.
By then, Caracciolo said he had received a different tip about the resemblance from a man in the United States.
Toronto Det. Chris Burke, who is also working on the case, said DNA results could take anywhere from 30 to 60 days.
“There’s no way she’s from Toronto,” Burke said, referring to Linda. “We’ve extensively researched many avenues and they’ve all come back negative.”
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