Mother focus of missing boy case

BELLEVUE – Police searching for a 2-year-old Western Washington boy focused their efforts Monday around the home of his mother, who reportedly told investigators she last saw him in her stalled car on a city street as she walked away for an hour to get gas.

It wouldn’t be the first time Sky Metalwala had been left alone in a car. When he was just 3 months old, court records revealed, his parents left him in their sport utility vehicle in a Target parking lot for 55 minutes on a 27-degree day. They only came out of the store to get him after police arrived and asked for the vehicle’s owner to be paged.

The toddler’s disappearance Sunday in Bellevue came at the height of a custody fight between his parents, Julia Biryukova and Solomon Metalwala. They separated in March 2010 amid back-and-forth protective orders and allegations of abuse and psychiatric problems.

Last December, a social worker determined that there was a “preponderance of evidence” that Metalwala had struck his daughter hard enough to cause bruising, court records show. The social worker also said Sky had troubling bruises, but because the boy could not talk, it wasn’t clear where he got them. The attorney for Metalwala, Leslie Clay Terry III, said Monday that case worker had only interviewed the mother and that Child Protective Services later conducted an investigation that cleared Metalwala.

“He was exonerated completely,” Terry said.

Last week, at a mandatory mediation session, a tentative agreement was hammered out that would allow Metalwala to have some visitation with Sky and his older sister, his lawyer said.

Biryukova reported that her car ran out of gas in Bellevue on Sunday morning, police said. She said she left Sky in the unlocked vehicle and walked with her daughter, who is 4, about a mile to a gas station. When she returned to the car, Sky wasn’t there, she said.

Investigators searched a 20-block area and even went door to door but found no sign of him. There was no gas can at the car, police said.

The Bellevue Police Department said both parents were cooperating, and Biryukova had consented to have her vehicle and home in nearby Redmond searched. The older child has been placed in protective custody.

“We’re looking at it from all angles, at this point,” said Bellevue police Maj. Mike Johnson. “Missing person, abduction, foul play has not been ruled out.”

Biryukova did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Her younger brother, Stanley Biryukov, said Julia was crying frantically when she called him Sunday afternoon and explained what had happened.

“I’m hoping they’ll find the child,” he said.

Metalwala spoke with reporters at the office of his lawyer, Terry. They said his estranged wife’s story was bizarre: Why didn’t she call for help, knock on a nearby door, or take the child with her?

“I don’t understand why she would leave a little baby in the car,” Metalwala said. “The whole story is puzzling.”

In December 2009, Redmond police cited both parents for reckless endangerment at the Target parking lot. A shopper who heard the baby crying in the SUV called police, and a responding officer reported that the car felt cold.

Paged inside the store, the couple said they had left the baby in the car for 15 to 20 minutes because they didn’t want to wake him up. Surveillance video of the parking lot later proved it had actually been 55 minutes.

The case was dismissed early this year after the pair completed a year of probation, 40 hours of community service and a 10-week parenting class.

The couple had been together for 14 years. He was 21 and she was a high school sophomore when they began dating, according to one of her court declarations. In another declaration, her mother, Nadia Biryukova, wrote that they married in 2003 in her kitchen just before he was to be deported to Pakistan.