Architect's parents plead for clues to disappearance

(PA)

The parents of a young architect who disappeared from her flat a week ago made a heart-wrenching plea for her return yesterday.

While Joanna Yeates, 25, was last seen by colleagues as she headed home after a drink at a pub on Friday evening, items left at her flat suggest she made it home before vanishing. She was reported missing on Sunday when her boyfriend, Greg Reardon, returned from a visit to family in Sheffield to find the apartment they shared empty.

Facing the media to make a renewed appeal, her distraught parents said they believed she must have been abducted. "We've got to believe that she is alive. She had too much life in her," her father, David Yeates, 63, said. "If it turns out that she isn't, we still want her back, we still want to hold her at least one last time."

In sobs, her mother, Theresa, 58, pleaded: "I just want her back, wherever she is. Jo, my little Jo, come back and, if anybody has got her, give her back to us."

Police, who have been scouring CCTV footage, said Miss Yeates had left the Ram Pub in Bristol at about 8pm on Friday night before stopping at a Tesco Express store at 8.40pm. Detective Chief Inspector Gareth Bevan said Miss Yeates bought a Tesco Finest tomato, mozzarella and basil pesto pizza.

While her cream-coloured coat, mobile phone, keys and a receipt from Tesco were all found, officers said there was no evidence of the pizza at Miss Yeates' flat.

Mr Reardon, 27, said he had not thought it was particularly out of character when his girlfriend failed to answer any texts or calls. "I desperately want her back," he said.