Urgent search for missing girl after sister found ‘starving and locked in closet by mum’

Ava Marie Gonzales (left) was last seen in December 2017 when she was two years old and in the custody of her mother, Virginia Gonzales (right) (Pictures: Austin Police Department)

A desperate search is underway for a missing nine-year-old girl after her mother was busted for allegedly locking her younger sister in a closet and starving her.

Ava Marie Gonzales was last seen by her family and friends in December 2017, when she was just two years old. She was never reported missing.

More than six years later, the Austin Police Department is asking for the public’s help to find Ava after discovering her seven-year-old sister ‘locked in a closet and starving’ on April 3, said Detective Russell Constable of the child abuse unit.

Police on April 24 arrested their mother, Virginia Gonzales, and charged her with injury to a child and serious bodily injury related to the seven-year-old. A 911 caller said the girl was ‘malnourished, soiled and barricaded in a bedroom closet’, according to her mum’s arrest affidavit.

Ava Marie Gonzales pictured when she was one-and-a-half years old in April 2017 (Picture: Austin Police Department)

Inside the apartment in Del Valle, Texas, police found six more children who all appeared ‘to be fine’, Constable said during a press conference on Tuesday.

But in the course of the investigation, police discovered that there was an eighth child who was not found in the home – and whom they identified as Ava. Ava was in her mum’s custody before she vanished.

Missing persons detectives are ‘seriously concerned about Ava’s welfare given the circumstances in which Ava’s seven-year-old sibling was found’, Constable said.

Ava has been described as Hispanic with straight brown hair and brown eyes. Her height and weight are unknown. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has developed an age progressed photo of Ava to aid in the search for her.

Virginia Gonzales has been charged with injury to a child and serious bodily injury (Picture: Austin Police Department)

‘This has been an emotionally difficult case for multiple agencies that were involved’ including the police department, interviewers, medical responders, counselors and community members, Constable said.

He added that detectives have not found any record of any of the children being enrolled in school, meaning they could have been kept at home.

Authorities have not identified Ava’s father, and did not immediately disclose her mother’s criminal history. She was pictured with a heart-shaped tattoo on her neck in her mugshot. Gonzales is being held at the Travis County Correctional Complex on a $75,000 bond, jail records show.

Anyone with information on Ava’s disappearance and whereabouts is urged to contact the police department or Crime Stoppers.

An age progressed photo of Ava Marie Gonzales aged nine today (Picture: Austin Police Department)

Del Valle is about nine miles southeast of Austin.

‘She could be anywhere at this point,’ Constable said.

The hunt for Ava comes days after a married mum-of-two who went missing from Reedsburg, Wisconsin, 60 years ago was found alive and well.

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