Search for Canadian Coed Turning Desperate

March 22, 2008— -- The family of a Canadian college student fears she is the victim of foul play even though police say there is no indication she was targeted in a crime.

Nadia Kajouji, 18, was last seen March 9, a Sunday, by her roommates on the 24,000-student campus of Carleton University, whose grounds were scoured by university security and students, while Ottawa police combed the banks of local waterways, including the Rideau River, and searched for the young woman from the air.

In the two weeks since Kajouji disappeared, nearly 3 feet of snow have blanketed the Canadian capital, and late winter weather has not helped an increasingly desperate search for what now remains a missing person's case.

"So far, there's no information that would lead us to think there was any foul play," inspector Mike Sanford of the Ottawa Police Service told ABC News.

Authorities have seized items from her dorm, including her computer, looking for possible evidence in the case. Sanford would not confirm or deny a Canadian media report that an e-mail message sent late the night Kajouji disappeared indicated she planned to go ice skating.

"If that was on the computer, that would be one of the areas she could be going," Sanford said, adding that if she left the campus that night, "it's like trying to search for a needle in a haystack."

Sanford also could not say whether Kajouji's diary and cell phone were missing from her dorm room or whether she may have been taking sleeping medication, but Candita Mills, Kajouji's aunt and a family spokeswoman, confirmed those details to ABC News.

Her iPod had been paused midsong, and license and wallet, which carried more than $200 in cash, were left behind. Also tacked to a wall was a note written in Kajouji's handwriting that reads "Don't forget to love your life."

The night she disappeared, Kajouji was in some sort of dispute with a friend over her diary, which he had read without permission, Mills said. That friend has not been named a person of interest in the case.

Regardless, all the factors combined have left her family believing that she met with foul play rather than suicide or an accidental death -- despite the opinion of investigators.

"We've said it repeatedly, this is not her character," Mills told ABC News. "So much stuff doesn't mesh, doesn't fit."

Sanford, the Ottawa investigator, said authorities had no reason to believe that she may have been threatened or harmed by a boyfriend or ex-boyfriend.

Mills also criticized the police investigation for not taking the missing person's case seriously until Kajouji's family arrived in Ottawa to help with the search.

Mohamad Kajouji, the teen's father, has been on the ground for two weeks helping with the search 300 miles from the teen's hometown of Brampton, Ontario. The Kajouji family has posted a $50,000 reward for hers safe return.

More than 10,000 users have signed on to a Facebook page devoted to Kajouji's search. The site includes a video montage featuring photos of the student. Spliced between the images is this message: "As you are reading this, her father is walking the streets of Ottawa desperately trying to find some indication as to his daughter's whereabouts."

On one of the missing person's fliers posted around the Ottawa-area, Deborah Chevalier, Kajouji's mother, encouraged concerned friends and strangers to wear yellow ribbons in tribute to the search for Kajouji.

The university this week reaffirmed its support of the police investigation, offering to organize volunteers in search-party lines to crisscross the campus. "As a tight-knit community, we are deeply worried by Nadia's disappearance," a statement on the Carleton University Web site reads, "and anxious for her safe return to her family and school as soon as possible."

Nadia Kajouji is described as of Mediterranean descent. She is 5 feet 8 inches tall, has hazel eyes and shoulder length brown hair with blond streaks. Her eyebrow and tongue are pierced.

While the search may be growing more desperate, Mills said Kajouji's family continues to hold out hope.

"We know somebody knows something about her," Mills said. "You cannot just disappear like this."