Camille Clarke

Po­lice prob­ing the kid­nap­ping of Chi­nese restau­rant own­er Xue Hua Shan said her rel­a­tives told them that the woman's moth­er, in Chi­na, re­ceived a text mes­sage say­ing her daugh­ter was re­leased. The text mes­sage, po­lice said, was sent in a Chi­nese di­alect to Shan's moth­er who lives in Chi­na. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said they had not con­tact­ed Shan's moth­er and did not know if the mes­sage was true or a hoax. But de­tec­tives said yes­ter­day that they were still look­ing for Shan and had no con­crete ev­i­dence she had been re­leased by her kid­nap­pers. The law­men said they have stepped up their search for Shan af­ter al­so re­ceiv­ing a mes­sage from some­one who called the Pi­ar­co Po­lice Sta­tion around 6.30 am yes­ter­day, claim­ing she had been dropped off near a bridge in St He­le­na.

Of­fi­cers of the Pi­ar­co Po­lice Sta­tion re­spond­ed and searched sev­er­al bridges and ravines in Cara­po and Ca­roni. The law­men al­so combed St He­le­na, Pi­ar­co, Mau­si­ca and Cara­po.Shan, 31, was re­port­ed ab­duct­ed out­side her Sev­enth Street, Barataria, home on April 14. A $4 mil­lion ran­som de­mand has been made for her safe re­lease. Shan is the own­er of Hap­py Gar­dens Restau­rant, St He­le­na Main Road. Ac­cord­ing to po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors, An­tho­ny Chin, own­er of the Chi­na Palace Restau­rant at Eller­slie Plaza, Mar­aval, had been ques­tioned in Shan's kid­nap­ping. Chin , 61, of Hills­bor­ough, Mar­aval, was killed last Sun­day morn­ing out­side his restau­rant.