Christie Claytor recently reported seeing a girl outside a mini-mart in Denton who she said resembled Lina. She urges everyone to report, no matter how uncertain.
SAN ANTONIO — It’s been almost four years to the day since 3-year-old Lina Sardar Khil vanished from a northwest side apartment complex in San Antonio. While tips about her possible whereabouts have dwindled, Lina’s family and advocates supporting them say their search for answers remains as urgent as ever.
Lina disappeared from the playground of the Villas Del Cabo (now called the Vive) apartments on Dec. 20, 2021.
Over the years, loved ones have relied on hope and community support to keep Lina’s story alive. Missing persons advocate Pam Allen, who has stood with the family since the day Lina went missing, noted the passage of time hasn’t dimmed their determination.
“This case still remains unsolved, this case still has so many questions,” Allen said. “We still have hope.”
That hope has been fueled in part by ongoing tips from across the country. People continue to reach out to Allen, Lina’s father, and San Antonio police with possible sightings.
“Saying that they believe they have seen Lina, and we continually get those,” Allen said.
But as the years have passed, those leads have slowed significantly. Allen said tips poured in by the hundreds during the first year, then gradually began to taper off. Now, approaching the fourth anniversary of Lina’s disappearance, tips are few and far between.
In February 2014, law enforcement followed up on a tip that Lina’s remains may be located in a wooded area off Gardendale Road in San Antonio, not far from where she was last seen.
That tip ended up being not credible after two days of searching in the concentrated zone situated between two apartment complexes. The FBI and police utilized K-9s, an excavator and equipment that’s able to detect underground objects during the operation.
Christie Claytor, who recently reported seeing a girl resembling Lina outside a mini-mart in Denton, said she wrestled with whether to call police. Her husband initially cautioned her about giving false hope, but Claytor felt compelled to report it anyway. As a kid, Claytor’s brother went missing for 12 hours, which terrified the family. He was found safe.
“If it was our daughter, if it was our baby girl, before I could even get ‘what would you do’ out of my mouth, he said, ‘make that call,’” Claytor said.
Claytor hopes others will do what’s right as well.
“Basically, if you see something, say something,” Claytor said. “It might be nothing. But then again, it might be something. If it was my kid, I’d want somebody to say something.”
For Lina’s family and support team, every call, photo, or message, no matter how uncertain, brings a measure of comfort.
“We think it’s tremendous that there are people who send us likenesses of Lina,” Allen said. “That to the family means there are that many people who care about their daughter. And that gives them a little bit of comfort in the midst of this tragedy.”
If you have any tips on where Lina might be, call SAPD’s Missing Persons Unit at 210-207-7660 or Crime Stoppers at 210-224-7867.