Two years and 2,200 tips later, Bellevue toddler still missing
Nov 4, 2013, 6:19 PM | Updated: 6:37 pm
Bellevue police say they’ve exhausted all leads in the case of a Bellevue toddler reported missing two years ago.
Sky Metalwala has not been seen since his mother reported leaving him alone in an unlocked car after running out of gas on November 6, 2011.
Sky’s mom, Julia Biryukova, refused to be formally interviewed by detectives and was never named a suspect in the boy’s disappearance.
The Ukrainian-born woman told police she was driving with her two children to Overlake Medical Center on a Sunday morning when the car, her brother’s car ran out of gas and stalled in the 2600 block of 112th Avenue Northeast in Bellevue.
Biryukova told investigators, the only time she discussed the case with them, she left Sky asleep in his car seat, left the door unlocked and took her then four-year-old daughter, Maile, with her while they walked about a mile to a gas station. When she returned about an hour later, Sky was gone, she said.
Investigators searched a twenty-block area and went door-to-door asking people if they’d seen anything. Nothing.
Detectives were able to determine that her car ran normally and wasn’t out of gas.
Biryukova declined to take a polygraph test and invoked her 5th Amendment rights.
Her estranged husband, Solomon Metalwala, still believes Biryukova knew exactly what happened to their then two-year-old son.
Metalwala’s divorce was finalized in March 2012 and he was given custody of his daughter. Biryukova was disallowed visitation rights with her daughter.
In a news release Monday, Bellevue Police Major Pat Spak says his department and Redmond police have pursued more than 2,200 tips and leads in the case.
“All leads to date have been exhausted. Any new lead that comes to us is followed up immediately,” says Major Spak. “We want to find this child.”
They are “hopeful” they will one day be able to solve the case.
Related: Taxpayers support the mother of missing Bellevue toddler
By LINDA THOMAS