Police bring Rose's mother to Tel Baruch beach in search of body

Girl's grandfather Ronnie Ron continues to provide contradictory accounts of her whereabouts.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
marie pizem 224.88 (photo credit: Channel 2)
marie pizem 224.88
(photo credit: Channel 2)
Police brought Marie-Charlotte Pizem to Tel Baruch beach in north Tel Aviv on Wednesday where officers intensified searches for the body of her four-year-old daughter, Rose. Using cellphone records, police tracked Pizem's movements and those of Ronnie Ron, Rose's grandfather, to the beach during the day of Rose's alleged murder. The leads provided by the phone records appear to be playing an increasingly dominant role in the investigation, as Ron, the chief suspect for Rose's killing, continues to provide contradictory accounts of Rose's whereabouts. A police spokesman told The Jerusalem Post that Pizem was "not helping in the searches" for Rose, but was present on the scene "as part of the investigation." Police are set to decrease the intensity of searches in north Tel Aviv's Yarkon River, where Ron had earlier claimed to have thrown Rose's body in a suitcase, before denying the confession. Earlier, Dept.-Cmdr. Uri Weiskup, a police representative sent to attend the Knesset's Internal Affairs Committee, said police had "no evidence" that Ron's testimony, in which he claimed to have fatally struck Rose in a fit of rage before dumping her body in the Yarkon, was true. Weiskup came under fire from other senior police officers who said he should not have divulged information from the police investigation to the public domain. On Tuesday, during a custody hearing held for Ronnie Ron, police revealed testimony by a babysitter Ron and Marie Pizem had hired to look after the couple's two younger children. The babysitter said the couple had returned home at a late hour, and had acted strangely before changing clothes. A letter written by Marie to Ron was also revealed in court on Tuesday, in which she wrote, "I am [in] shock over what happened to Rose. I'm a bad mother." At an earlier custody hearing, a police representative said suspicions existed that Rose's mother had played an active role in her daughter's death.