Austin police are searching for a 9-year-old girl last seen seven years ago but never reported missing. Police learned of her disappearance when her mother was arrested in April in a case involving another child.
Ava Marie Gonzales was last seen with her mother, Virginia Gonzales, in December 2017 when Ava was 2, police Detective Russell Constable said Tuesday at a news conference.
Virginia Gonzales, 33, was charged with injury to a child after police were alerted April 3 that another of Gonzales’ daughters, a 7-year-old girl who weighed 29 pounds, had been locked in a closet at Gonzales’ apartment for several weeks, according to an arrest affidavit. Six other healthy children were found in Gonzales’ home in the 5500 block of Ross Road in Southeast Austin, the affidavit said. During the investigation, police discovered Ava Marie Gonzales was missing.
No new charges were added in the case of the missing girl.
Constable declined to say what Gonzales’ other children said about Ava Marie Gonzales. Virginia Gonzales had provided “conflicting information” to different family members about her, Constable said.
“We have information showing she was born to Virginia, but we don’t know where she is now,” said Constable. He said police have not positively identified Ava’s father.
Austin police released a photo of what Ava might look like now as a 9-year-old.
Anyone with information on the girl is asked to email ava@austintexas.gov or to provide information anonymously through Crime Stoppers by calling 512-572-8477.
The children’s grandmother was the one who alerted police about Gonzales’ 7-year-old daughter being locked in a closet, the affidavit said. She said she went to Gonzales’ apartment on April 3 and found the malnourished girl inside a closet that was blocked from the outside by 75 pounds of boxes, the affidavit said. It said Virginia Gonzales was not home at the time because she had been arrested for possession of marijuana. The grandmother told police the 7-year-old girl had been healthy when she had stayed with her last year, the affidavit said.
One of the older children later told police that Virginia Gonzales had told him to put the girl in the closet because the 7-year-old had trouble controlling her bladder, the document said. He said the girl had been in the closet for a month, ate two hotdogs a day and only received half a cup of water, according to the affidavit.
It said police found the pantry, refrigerator and freezer at the apartment were stocked with a variety of food, including hamburger meat, bread, fruit, cheese and yogurt.
The other children in the apartment were ages 14, 10, 8, 4, 3 and 2, the document said. None of the children had ever been to school, Constable said Tuesday. They were all healthy, the affidavit said.
The 7-year-old girl was taken to Dell Children’s Medical Center, where doctors found “evidence of moderate to severe cerebral atrophy from her prolonged malnutrition,” the affidavit said. Doctors said she would never recover from her brain injury caused by the starvation, the document said.
Virginia Gonzales was being held Tuesday in the Travis County Jail with bail set at $75,000. A Department of Family and Protective Services spokeswoman declined to comment about whether the agency had previously investigated Virginia Gonzales, saying the investigations are confidential. The agency is investigating the case and all seven children have been placed in foster care, the spokeswoman, Marissa Gonzales, said.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin police searching for girl last seen seven years ago and never reported missing
Reporting by Claire Osborn, Austin American-Statesman / Austin American-Statesman
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