SAN ANTONIO — Gone without a trace.
An entire week has gone by and there are still no signs of missing Lina Sardar Khil, the 3-year-old girl who disappeared from a playground near her apartment home on Fredericksburg Road.
The total reward money to help find her stands at $150,000, as of Monday evening. Earlier in the day, agents suited up on the ground of the northwest-side complex where she lives. Investigators were in hazmat suits sifting through dumpsters.
"I've got three children, and just thinking about it, it is heart-wrenching," said retired FBI agent Abel Peña, who heads up a new nonprofit called Project Absentis. Founded this year, it assists in missing-person cases, especially those which have gone cold.
Peña and his team, who sport more than a 100 years of background in law enforcement combined, are looking at potentially getting involved to help find Lina. He said their goal is to help the family and law enforcement too.
During part of his nearly 27 years with the agency, he worked child abduction and kidnapping cases. Peña is keeping a close eye on this San Antonio case, which is at the center of an ongoing AMBER Alert.
"I know law enforcement is on top of this thing," Peña said.
The San Antonio special acting agent in charge on Friday said hundreds of agents were reviewing video and going through hundreds of leads. He said different FBI teams are on the ground in San Antonio, including the Behavioral Analysis Team from Quantico.
"They are essentially the FBI profilers," Peña said. "What they do is put together an analysis and give that to the case agent to where they can make a determination or direction of where to take the case."
Peña said video evidence is critical. So is interviewing every single person who lives at the complex.
He said if the leads dry up, the agency will expand its area.
"They are working 24 hours a day," he said. "They've got agents deployed conducting interviews throughout the night going to addresses. There is a lot of things happening behind the scenes the average person doesn't know (about)."
Anyone with information on the child's whereabouts is urged to contact the San Antonio Police Department at 210-207-7660.