The Disappearance of Sky Metalwala

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I always try to be objective when researching and writing up articles, but this is more difficult in some cases than others. Let’s just say there are cases where it doesn’t take a genius to make a good guess of who is responsible for what happened.

Sky’s NCMEC Missing Persons poster from 2018. The photo on the left is Sky aged 2. The photo on the right is what Sky would likely look like aged 7. (Source: Kirkland Reporter)

The case I’m about to discuss is a mysterious one, but not in the same way as the cases of Kyron Horman or Timmothy Pitzen. This case, in my opinion, is only a mystery because the one person who I’m sure holds all the answers will not talk.

This is the story of Sky Metalwala. It’s heartbreaking and incredibly frustrating, and by the time you’re finished reading I’m sure you’ll also have some strong opinions.

Sky Elijah Metalwala

Sky Metalwala was born September 6, 2009 to Julia Biryukova and Solomon Metalwala in Bellevue, Washington. His sister, Maile, was born in 2007. Sky had just turned two at the time of his disappearance and was living in an apartment in Redmond, Washington with his mother and his sister.

Multiple pictures of Sky can be found online; he looks like a normal, happy two year old. However, we know pictures rarely tell the whole story.

Maile aged 4 and Sky aged 2 (source: Trace Evidence Podcast)

Julia and Solomon

To tell Sky’s story, it’s important to give some background.

Julia Biryukova was born in Russia in 1982, but is a native of Ukraine. In 1994, she emigrated from Ukraine to the United States. It was three years later that 15-year-old Julia met 21-year-old Solomon Metalwala, who was originally from Pakistan, in a service station. Solomon was doing well for himself, running a successful convenience store in Bellevue. He invited Julia to a party and the two began dating soon after.

Julia graduated from Bellevue High School in 1999 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen the same year. Soon after her graduation, Julia and Solomon moved into a condo in Bellevue together.

Julia joined Solomon working at his convenience store, meaning the couple spent almost all of their time together. The store was bringing in good money. Life appeared to be going well.

In 2003, Julia and Solomon married in a small, very informal ceremony (apparently in Solomon’s mother’s kitchen). In 2005, Solomon converted to Christianity (I’m unsure of his religion previously, or whether he was religious at all). To this day, Solomon’s faith is a pivotal part of his life. I believe Julia attended church with him, but I can’t tell whether religion was as important to her.

In 2007, the couple began to struggle financially when a competitor of the convenience store opened nearby and Solomon lost many customers. Around the same time, Julia gave birth to their first child, Maile.

Julia Begins To Spiral

Julia stayed home with the new baby while Solomon continued working at the store. Shortly after Maile was born, however, Julia began exhibiting alarming behaviors, particularly compulsive cleaning. She cleaned for hours on end, pretty much neglecting her other responsibilities, most notably, caring for her baby daughter.

Solomon became deeply concerned, worrying about his wife’s mental state and the welfare of their child. Julia would clean constantly and fail to feed herself or the baby. He had to leave work to take Maile somewhere to eat; afraid of any germs or contamination, Julia barred Solomon from keeping any food in the house.

Julia with Sky (source: Trace Evidence Podcast)

Julia went to a doctor and was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, for which she was prescribed medication. The medication seemed to improve her condition and for a while, life began to look up. However, when Julia found out she was pregnant with a second child in 2009, she stopped taking her medication all together, against the orders of her doctor. Her OCD, accompanied with depression, came back even worse than before.

Sky was born on September 6, 2009. Julia had reverted back to vigorous cleaning, sometimes for 10 hours straight. Solomon had to leave work and take both Maile and Sky to eat somewhere. Julia would clean as late as 11pm some nights, and would not let Solomon sleep in their bed because she had made it so perfectly. He had to sleep on the floor.

In March 2010, on Julia’s 29th birthday, she was committed to a psychiatric hospital. It would be the first of three times she would be committed. This first time was brought on by Julia confessing to Solomon that she had had dreams of strangling their children.

However, despite Julia’s condition, the psychiatrist who evaluated her concluded that her condition would not hinder her ability to look after her children (yes, this seems irresponsible to me too).

A Bitter Divorce

I’m unsure how long Julia spent in hospital, but she was out before June 2010. On June 4, 2010, Solomon filed for divorce.

The proceedings were extremely ugly. Both Solomon and Julia smeared each other’s character in hopes of being granted custody of the children. Julia accused Solomon of being controlling and having anger issues. She would tell the court that Solomon was emotionally and physically abusive towards her and the children. Solomon denied the accusations, asserting that Julia was lying in order to spite him. According to Solomon, Julia’s mental illness had taken over her life and she was unable to look after herself, let alone their children.

Child Protective Services (CPS) launched an investigation into the alleged abuse by Solomon, during which time he was not allowed to see the children. Julia was granted full custody in September 2010 and Solomon had no visitation rights. He would go for months on end without seeing Maile or Sky. The investigation by CPS eventually concluded that Julia’s accusations of abuse were unfounded (I think it did take up to a year).

Solomon continued to press for visitation rights. It would not be until November 2011, just days before Sky disappeared, that a court ordered mediation session took place. The session, which lasted between 11 and 13 hours, initially appeared to be a success. Solomon would have visitation rights and Julia would still have custody.

Several days later, however, Julia called to say she felt pressured into agreeing to the terms and wanted to call off the agreement.

Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, Julia had left Maile and Sky alone in the apartment during the mediation session. Yes, a 4-year-old and 2-year old left in the apartment for as long as 13 hours.

Sky and Solomon (source: Trace Evidence Podcast)

What Happened on November 6, 2011?

On the day in question, Sky woke up sick and Julia decided to take him to the hospital. I believe this was sometime around 8/8:30am. With Maile and Sky both in the car, a silver 1998 two-door Acura Integra (which belonged to her brother but she was borrowing), Julia drove in the direction of Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue. At some point on the drive, around the 2600 block of 112th Street N.E., she told authorities she ran out of gas.

Julia pulled over on the side of the road and got Maile out of the car. Claiming Sky was asleep in the backseat, she walked a mile to a gas station with Maile, leaving Sky in the car.

Julia did not have a gas can with her, nor did she buy one. On arriving at the gas station, she called a friend, as she did not have a cell phone or her purse with her (yes, I smell bullshit too). She asked the friend to pick her up and drive her back to her car.

It had been about an hour by the time they arrived back at the car. Sky was nowhere to be found.

The Investigation

On finding the car empty, Julia called the police at around 9:50am from her friend’s phone and reported Sky missing. A 20-block radius around the car was searched, but no sign of Sky was found. Police dogs were used in the search, but found the dogs did not pick up any scent of Sky outside of the car.

Pretty much as soon as they arrived, Julia’s story began to fall apart. First of all, there was nothing wrong with the car. It started as soon the key was put in the ignition. It was checked for any kind of mechanical problems and none were found. The gas tank had 2.2 gallons in it.

Around 11am, investigators went to Solomon’s home to inform him Sky was missing. It was soon discovered that no one other than Julia and Maile had seen Sky for two weeks (a neighbor being the last person to report a sighting). Residents of Julia’s apartment building in Redmond reported that they hardly ever saw Julia or the children. They reported that Julia would regularly go out and leave the children alone in the apartment. Solomon had not seen the children in months. The last time he knew someone other than Julia had seen Sky was at a doctor’s appointment eight months before in April 2011.

Then investigators discovered another warning sign. This was not the first time Sky had been left alone in a car in public. When he was just two months old, Julia and Solomon had gone shopping at Target and left him sleeping in the car on a 27°F (-3°C) day. Sky was alone for 55 minutes before the couple were paged to the parking lot. As a result of the incident, both parents were required to take parenting classes and complete community service hours.

Police vehicles parked outside of Julia, Maile and Sky’s apartment building in Redmond, WA the day after Sky went missing (source: CBS News)

While Julia agreed to let investigators search her car, her home and her computer, she refused to be questioned. She pleaded the Fifth Amendment and refused to take a polygraph test. To this day, she has not uttered a word to investigators about the circumstances of her son’s disappearance.

Solomon did take a polygraph test, the results of which were listed as inconclusive. He took another, but the results of this second test have never been disclosed to the public.

From when he found out that his son was missing, Solomon began actively searching, organising meet-ups with friends and relatives to put flyers up in the area and ask people if they had any information. From the beginning, Solomon was convinced his estranged wife was responsible for the boy’s disappearance.

A week later, on Sunday the 13th, authorities set up a roadblock for five hours, questioning people driving by on whether they had seen anything or had information regarding the day Sky disappeared.

All Signs Point To Guilt

Julia was doing little to convince authorities or the public that she was innocent, not talking to police or participating in searches for Sky. About two weeks after Sky disappeared, Julia began email correspondence with a reporter from ABC News. She maintained that she did not know what had happened to Sky that day and would not elaborate on any further details. In the email, she lashed out at Solomon, calling him a “sadistic Muslim Pakistani” (despite the fact he was a strong Christian by this point).

Shortly after her brother’s disappearance, Maile was removed from Julia’s care and placed into a foster home. Julia was not allowed to have contact with her. Maile remained in foster care until mid December 2011, after Solomon had been granted full custody earlier than month. Maile was clearly scarred from the months spent with little interaction with anyone other than her mentally ill mother. Julia regularly would say out loud in front of Maile that she wanted to kill herself. Being just four years old, Maile would repeat things that her mother said, including that she wanted too wanted to kill herself.

In March 2012, Solomon and Julia’s divorce was finalised.

Meanwhile, Julia began to engage in shady online activity, creating a profile on seekingarrangements.com, in search of a “sugar daddy” how would support her with $3,000 to $5,000 a month in return for a romantic relationship. I couldn’t find any evidence that anything ever came of her search, however.

Theories of What Really Happened

It is widely speculated that Julia lied about everything that happened the morning that Sky disappeared. No one had seen the boy in 2 weeks, so it’s perfectly likely that he was never even in the car that morning. Personally, I think this was likely the case. Investigators did question Maile, who said that Sky had been in the car. But being just four years old at the time, she could easily have been coached by Julia into saying whatever her mother wanted.

Julia, pictured with her lawyer, dodges questions from the media about her son’s disappearance (source: King-TV Seattle)

Solomon’s lawyer, Leslie Clay Berry, does not believe Sky was ever in the car on the morning of November 6. She is convinced that Julia was responsible for Sky’s death, but it might not have been intentional. Given Julia’s history of negligence, it could have been that Sky died as a result of malnourishment and she got rid of his body.

It’s rather fitting that Julia is obsessively clean, and would have been very skilled at getting rid of any evidence that may have resulted from foul play.

Another theory which was pushed by Solomon initially after Sky disappeared was that perhaps Sky was taken to Ukraine with Julia’s estranged father, who came to visit in the spring of 2011. However, Solomon has admitted that this seems far-fetched and very unlikely.

Where the Case Stands Today

To this day, very little solid evidence has arisen in Sky’s case. As of November 2019, 14,000 hours and $2 million have gone into the investigation, and over 2,500 tips from the public have been looked into, all coming up cold.

The lack of progress is largely due to Julia not cooperating with investigators. Pretty much every authority I came across in my research of this case believes Julia holds the key to finding out what happened to Sky.

A question that consistently comes up in this case is, why was Julia never charged with child endangerment? Especially after she admitted that she left her son alone in the car on the side of the road?

Investigators have outlined their reasoning for this as a “strategic decision” - in order to charge Julia with child endangerment they would have to prove that she had left Sky alone in the vehicle (I guess her confession is not enough for them to go on). I suppose this proof would have to be something like witnesses coming forward saying they had seen the car parked that morning on the side of the road with Sky alone inside.

Furthermore, if they did charge her with child endangerment by convincing a judge he had been in the car, but then his body was later found and there was evidence that she had been involved in his murder, it would be extremely difficult to charge her with murder after already charging her with child endangerment.

Solomon, Maile and Julia Now

In 2014, Julia got remarried to a man named Allen J. Morgan, who pretty much sounds like a nightmare. Morgan had a lengthy criminal history, including several CPS referrals in Florida for cruelty towards a child he had with another woman. His rap sheet also included charges of violence against police officers, domestic violence, assault, chemical dependency, battery and assault.

In July 2015, Julia gave birth to Morgan’s child. Shortly after the new baby was born, CPS was notified that the child was likely in danger due to Julia’s unfitness as a parent. Morgan was imprisoned in Issaquah, I believe on domestic violence charges (either not long before or after the baby was born). The state issued a no-contact order, which they both violated. The baby would be removed from Julia’s care, and is now living with Julia’s mother.

Maile is now 12 years old and lives with her father. She is doing well and Solomon describes her as “smart, adventurous and engaged”. Although the fear and emotional trauma inflicted on Maile by her mother will be with her for her entire life, she appears to be in a good place now.

Solomon with a young Maile (source: Kirkland Reporter)

In 2014, Solomon told the Seattle Times that Maile did not have any memory of what happened to Sky. Solomon is still holding onto hope that Sky is alive and out there somewhere, and that one day he may see him again.

While negative comments about Solomon can be found on Internet forums like Reddit, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt and believe he really is doing his best with Maile. He has made mistakes, but what parent hasn’t?

Failings of the System

A note from me on this case, that I’m sure you’ll also be thinking if you’ve gotten this far and have read from other sources…I really don’t get how this family were left alone for so long that it got to the point that Sky disappeared, likely at the hands of his mother. There were so many red flags - Julia’s multiple stays at psychiatric hospitals, Sky being left alone in the car when he was two months old (granted, both parents were guilty of this), the neighbors practically never seeing the kids and knowing they were being left alone. I’m not saying Julia is any less to blame (assuming she did do something to Sky), but if CPS had been more proactive in protecting the kids and Julia’s doctors had made better recommendations about her fitness to care for her children, Sky would not have gone missing.

Tragically, I doubt we will ever know what happened to little Sky unless Julia has a change of heart and decides to come forward. No one has given up searching for him.