Bellevue police moving forward with 4-year-old case of missing toddler

Sky Metalwala went missing in 2011 when he was 2 years old. Now, the Bellevue Police Department is diving back in to the case with the hopes of solving it.

Sky went missing on Nov. 6, 2011. His mother, Julia Biryukova, told police that the car she was driving ran out of gas. She had Sky and his sister, Maile, with her. She left Sky sleeping in his car seat as she walked with Maile to a gas station one mile away. That was the last time anyone saw the toddler.

“This is the last adult that had control of this 2-year-old baby,” KIRO Radio’s Ron Upshaw said. “She is the one ultimately responsible for this baby being gone.”

A search was soon underway. Police discovered that the mother’s car not only still had gas, but it didn’t have any engine problems, either.

“The car that you were driving, was your brothers car,” Co-host Don O’Neill said. “You said it ran out of gas, and the police went and got it and they drove it around and they couldn’t get it to run out of gas.”

“Who grabs a four year old and walks for an hour to a store to use a phone…and leave a 2-year-old in a car?” he said.

That was before Bellevue got a new police chief, Steve Mylett, who told KING 5 he was fascinated by the missing child case before he even came on the force this year. That fascination has motivated the department to look back into it. Eventually, Mylett brought Sky’s father, Solomon Metalwala, in to the police station to go over the case. Mylett said that there is now new information that could move the case forward.

Solomon told KING 5 he doesn’t know exactly what he said to detectives that has them looking into the case again, but he believes his ex-wife, Sky’s mother, knows more than she has previously said.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that she knows what happened,” Solomon told KING 5. “I know she knows what happened to Sky.”

Biryukova has not been charged in relation to the case, and police have not called her a suspect. Bellevue police, however, do want to speak with her.

Don agrees with Sky’s father, and thinks Biryukova may have more information to contribute.

“In my opinion, I agree with him,” Don said. “I think she knows what happened.”

Don notes that the children had been left alone for long periods of time before, but both parents. Police were once called when the couple left the kids in the car for an out outside a box store, he said.

“To the father’s credit, Solomon, has said he shouldn’t have done that,” Don said. “At the time Sky went missing, she was in control of the children and he was having a hard time seeing those kids. One day there was an 11-hour mediation, and guess where Sky was with, along with his 4-year-old sister? They were left at home alone for 11 hours. Child endangerment. She admitted that in mediation.”

The Bellevue Police Department is asking for Biryukova to come forward and meet with investigators. Chief Mylett is calling Biryukova the “missing link” in the case.

Biryukova’s attorney told KING 5 that he is advising his client not to speak with police.

“I wonder how her attorney sleeps at night,” Don said. “This was a little baby the disappeared. And her attorney tells her to not talk to the police. And then the attorney lies and said ‘we’ve talked to the police several times.’ That is not true. You’ve lied to the police a number of times.”

“In a case like this, a lot of times, at some point when somebody believes the heat is off, they always talk,” Don said. “They talk to a lover, they talk to a mother, they talk to a friend, they send an email or a text message.”