Parents ask public for help to find former Miss Brazil

SAO PAULO, Brazil: The parents of a former Miss Brazil missing since September have made a plea for information on the whereabouts of their daughter, saying the family "can't take it anymore."

Taiza Thomsen, 24, who inherited the title of Miss Brazil in 2002 after the titleholder was stripped of the crown for being married, last talked to her parents nearly five months ago, saying she was in London. She represented Brazil at the 2003 Miss Universe pageant inPublicar Panama.

"If anybody knows where she could be, please contact us," her father, Antonio Thomsen, told Brazil's RBS TV Saturday night. "We can't take it anymore, it's too sad."

He said there was no reason she would have run away, and that she never told them she was planning to go to Europe.

"I don't have any idea about what might have happened," he said. "She has always been a caring daughter."

Thomsen's mother, Angela, said she has not left home in a long time hoping for the phone call with information about her daughter.

"I leave messages on her cell phone but nobody answers," Angela Thomsen said. "If anybody is with her, please contact us, we can't live like this."

The interview with the parents was being aired nationally Sunday night, at their request. They had not previously talked to the media since reporting their dark-haired, blue-eyed daughter's disappearance on Thursday.

On Saturday, police said they are not discarding the possibility that human trafficking played a role in the disappearance.

The family has said that in some of their conversations before she went missing she left them with the feeling that she was being threatened, authorities said.

Brazilian police have asked for assistance from the Interpol and British authorities to try to confirm whether she was in England.

"We are contacting everybody who might have any information that could help the investigation," police investigator Marcos David Salem said.

According to some of her friends, Thomsen had worked briefly in Belgium and there was a possibility she was still there, media reported.

One friend said Saturday that she talked to Thomsen over the phone about three months ago, RBS TV reported. The friend, who was not identified, said Thomsen was planning to marry a Polish man she met in England. The friend also said Thomsen was not talking to her parents because she fought with them, RBS reported.

As news of her disappearance spread, rumors about the cause began surfacing on the Internet. A page under her name on the online social-networking community Orkut included messages from friends congratulating her for having a child and for getting married. Police said the family denies the Web rumors.

Following her time as Miss Brazil, Thomsen moved to Sao Paulo in 2005 from her hometown of Joinville, 400 kilometers (250 miles) to the south in Santa Catarina state. She said when she would work as a model.

A journalism student, Thomsen inherited the title of Miss Brazil in 2002 when titleholder Joseane Oliveira acknowledged being married and was stripped from the title.

http://www.iht.com/