Police investigating the year-long disappearance of a 15-year-old American girl said they found her yesterday, pale but alive, locked in a hidden room in a home in Connecticut owned by an acquaintance of her parents.

AN eleven-year-old girl sold heroin on the street while dressed in her school uniform, or even her pyjamas, doing the bidding of her mother and a man who may be her stepfather, US police said.

A two-year-old girl is recovering from a three-week ordeal in which she managed to survive on ketchup, mustard and dried pasta when she was left home alone after her mother was sent to jail.