Celina Cass's father pleads for his daughter's safe return as search intensifies

Investigators redoubled their search for a missing 11-year-old New Hampshire girl Monday as her dad joined the chorus of people pleading for her safe retu.

Adam Laro, who had been silent until now, was in the hospital when Celina Cass vanished a week ago.

"Daddy is okay, I'm getting much better," Laro said Sunday without explanation. "Whenever you want to come home, Celina, daddy will be here waiting for you."

While Celina's disappearance is still being treated as a missing persons case, reports have surfaced that Cass' stepfather was arrested for threatening an ex-girlfriend eight years ago and later committed for schizophrenia.

Celina lives with the stepdad, Wendell Noyes, and her mother, in West Stewartstown - a sleepy burg of 800 people near the Vermont and Canadian borders.

The FBI and other police agencies have gotten more than 400 leads, but "at this point we still have not discovered Celina," New Hampshire Senior Assistant Attoey General Jane Young said Sunday.

"We are working tirelessly to bring her home," she added.

Celina was last seen in her room at her computer around 9 p.m. on July 25, police said.

When her parents went to wake her the next moing, Celina was gone. There were no signs of a struggle.

The girl's friends have set up a "Missing Celina Cass" page on Facebook that includes a photo and description of the shy, gap-toothed girl with long brown hair and brown eyes.