WOODSTOCK, Ont. - The brother of Victoria Stafford marked his 11th birthday Friday still wondering about the fate of his eight-year-old sister, who has been missing for more than two weeks.
The children's mother, Tara McDonald, said at a news conference outside her home that her son Daryn received a metal detector as a gift, and he also enjoyed the day off school because it was a PA day.
McDonald also admitted she is growing exasperated by all the media scrutiny over a trust account set up to help her children amid accusations that she is attempting to profit from the abduction of her daughter.
"I'm so tired of all the negativity," she said. "It is wearing me down. A person can have only so much strength, and I've been strong through all of this, but I'm wearing down."
"I don't want that money. I don't need that money. There's people walking around with cans with Victoria's name on it -- I haven't set that up."
People have approached the family and offered them money, she added.
"We've said there's been a trust account set up, take it there. We don't want it coming to us," McDonald said.
"I don't care about the donations. I enjoy going to the vigils and all the events that are set up by the community because it keeps me strong, not because I want money out of the deal."
Victoria, known as Tori to family and friends, went missing April 8 after school.
A surveillance video captured the girl walking with a woman with long brown hair and a puffy white coat the day she went missing. Police this week released a composite sketch portraying a woman with long dark hair tightly pulled back in a ponytail who is believed to be the woman in the video.
No one has been able to identify the woman pictured in the sketch, though McDonald has said her ex-husband Rodney Stafford believes it could be one of his former high school classmates.
Another vigil for the missing girl is to be held Saturday afternoon in London, Ont., and her case is to be featured that night on the TV show "America's Most Wanted."
