SEATTLE, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- New leads in the case of a missing Seattle toddler suggest he may have been gone long before his mother informed anyone, his father said Thursday.
Sky Metalwala was reported missing in November by his mother, Julia Birakova, who said the child was taken from her car, which was parked by the side of the road. However, Sky's father, Solomon Metalwala, said he suspects the boy may have been missing since April.
Metalwala checked medical records, spoke with members of the Eastside medical community and found only one person -- a neighbor -- who had seen the child in April, seven months before he was reported missing.
"I believe anything is possible," he told KOMO-TV, Seattle. "We have no clue what is going on. Right now anything is possible."
Metalwala said Birakova's father visited form Ukraine in April, and he now suspects that he took the child back to the Ukraine with him. Metalwala also recalls Birakova asking to take the children to the Ukraine in an e-mail.
Birakova and Metalwala have been in a lengthy, bitter custody dispute for several months, which kept Metalwala from seeing his children for nearly a year.
