Crime & Safety

Update: Police Say Foul Play Suspected in Toddler's Disappearance

The missing boy's mother has declined to take a polygraph test, KING 5 reports.

Foul play is suspected in the weekend disappearance of a 2-year-old boy, Bellevue Police told TV reporters on Tuesday

Sky Metalwala's mother, Julia Biryukova,  morning, telling police she had left the boy unattended in her unlocked car after she ran out of gas on 112th Avenue Northeast in Bellevue and walked to a gas station with her 4-year-old daughter. 

Police said they found no gas can near Biryukova's vehicle and that her car started right up. No sign of forced entry was found on the vehicle.

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"Given the limited amount of information we have, the fact that there's really no solid leads to follow up on in regard to where he might be—absolutely, we suspect foul play," Bellevue Police Maj. Mike Johnson told reporters. (Click here to see raw video of Johnson's interview with reporters from KIRO TV.)

Neither parent has been named a suspect, and police have said both are cooperating with the investigation, though Johnson told reporters that Biryukova has refused to take a polygraph test.

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"You’d think that someone that is as close to a family as a mother is would be willing to do anything and everything to solve this case," he told reporters.

Metalwala's father, Solomon Metalwala,  Monday evening but the results were inconclusive. His attorney said he would return to the Bellevue Police Station on Tuesday to take another round of tests.

Biryukova, meanwhile, has declined to take a lie-detector test, KING 5 reported.

Law enforcement officials spent much of Monday searching the area surrounding Biryukova's downtown Redmond apartment. Residents of the , where Biryukova lives, said FBI investigators went door to door asking neighbors about the family.

Details also surfaced Monday regarding Biryukova and Solomon Metalwala's troubled relationship. The couple began divorce proceedings in 2010 and each had accused the other of posing a threat to their two children.

In a 2010 protection order requested by Biryukova, the mother said her husband had been physically abusive toward her and had threatened to kill her if she sought custody of their children.

"The most recent (incidents) have been his threats to kill me if I say anything against him or if in any way I proceed with action of seeking custody of our two small children," Biryukova wrote in the protection order request, which has been obtained by Patch. "I live in constant fear of my life and my children's life."

For his part, Solomon Metalwala said Biryukova was battling a mental illness, was suicidal, and had dreams of harming her children.

"She began to have dreams about killing our children, even telling me of her dreams about strangling our youngest child," Metlawala said in a court document related to the couple's divorce that was filed in King County Superior Court and obtained by Patch.

Both parents were also cited in 2009 for leaving Sky, then just an infant, unattended in a vehicle.

For more on yesterday's search,  to read an earlier Patch story.

Check back with Patch later today for more on this developing story.


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