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Police 'questioning murdered girl's father'
Ben Bailey5 Aug 2009
A man said to be the father of a teenage girl found stabbed to death in a car was being questioned by police today.
The body of Chanelle Sasha Jones, 17, was found in a Ford Fiesta when police stopped it with a stinger device in Aberaeron, Ceredigion, west Wales, after following the car for around 20 miles.
Detectives from Dyfed-Powys Police are holding a man in his 40s at Aberystwyth police station. The suspect - who was arrested at the scene and treated in hospital for injuries suffered when the car was stopped - is reported to be the teenager's father.
Officers brought the car to a halt in a lay-by on the A487 on Sunday night.
A post-mortem examination yesterday revealed Chanelle - known to her friends as Sasha and from Cardigan- had died of stab wounds. She had been reported missing on Sunday afternoon.
The Fiesta crashed into a parked camper van in the lay-by, leaving the van's occupants with minor injuries.
Police appealed for help in tracing Sasha's final movements and want to speak to anyone who may have seen her between 3.30am and 10.15pm on Sunday.
She may have been on The Strand near the town's Angel Hotel on Sunday morning, and was last seen wearing a grey checked hooded top, a white vest, a blue denim skirt, black leggings and pink ankle socks.
Police also appealed to anyone who saw the beige 2003-plate Fiesta across a wide area of west Wales on the Haverfordwest to St Clears road, or in the Lampeter, Poppit Sands and Gwbert-on-Sea areas on Sunday.
Superintendent Alun Harries urged anyone with information to come forward.
"We would like to reassure residents that incidents of this kind are rare in Ceredigion and that the Dyfed-Powys Police area remains one of the safest places to live in England and Wales," he said.
The case was referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission which yesterday carried out a scene assessment.
Friends left dozens of tributes to the teenager on Facebook. One, Ceri Ann, wrote: "I love you so much Sasha."
Vicki James said: "When I saw you the other day and said see you soon I never thought I'd be writing on here... Such a shame that such a beautiful soul was taken from us all."
In a statement released through the police, her mother Jayne said she would be missed by her sister, two brothers, her family and her boyfriend Brian.
She said: "She has been through so much in her short life and I was and we all are so proud of how she was turning her life around for the better and she now had so many ambitions."
