Tragic end in Mariam case: Teen killed in apparent fall from highway overpass

Mariam Makhniashvili has been
missing since Sept. 14, 2009.

TORONTO - The disappearance of a Toronto teen that baffled police came to a grim resolution Friday with the revelation that Mariam Makhniashvili was killed in an apparent fall from a highway overpass.

Mariam was 17 when she was last seen 2 1/2 years ago outside her Toronto high school. Skeletal remains found Feb. 28 in a wooded area below Highway 401 in the city's north end were confirmed Friday to be Mariam's.

"The post-mortem indicated that the cause of death was consistent with a fall from a significant height, that the deceased was more than likely alive at the time of the fall," said Staff Insp. Greg McLane.

"The findings are not consistent with a homicide or a suspicious death."

When asked if Mariam committed suicide, McLane said the post-mortem results "could be consistent with that conclusion."

Video from Ministry of Transportation cameras, which are trained on highways throughout the area, will be examined as part of the investigation, police added.

Mariam went missing after arriving at Forest Hill Collegiate on Sept. 14, 2009. The only solid clue was the discovery of her backpack and some school books in a parking lot the following month.

The Makhniashvili family, originally from the Republic of Georgia, had only been in Toronto for three months when their daughter disappeared.

The parents lived in Los Angeles for five years before moving to Toronto, while Mariam and her brother lived with their grandparents in Georgia.

In the first year following her disappearance, police spent thousands of hours investigating, interviewing hundreds of people and poring over evidence.

Toronto's police chief authorized a review of the case — meaning 12 investigators looked at the case with fresh sets of eyes — but they didn't find anything the original investigators had overlooked.

The case also spurred a number of false sightings, in Toronto and as a far way as Alberta.

Her father, Vakhtang Makhniashvili, pleaded guilty last year to three counts of aggravated assault and was sentenced to six years in prison.

The charges followed two separate stabbing incidents, one involving a neighbour and the other a couple who had posted his bail.