By Lauren Dalban and Brielle Entzminger
On July 21, 11-year-old Beautiful and 13-year-old Zayla Christmas went missing from their home in Albemarle County. Both sisters are Black females with brown eyes. Zayla is 4-foot-11 and 115 pounds, and was last seen wearing her hair in a long brown ponytail extending down to her ankles. Beautiful is 4-foot-4 and 140 pounds, and was last seen with black and pink braids.
In a tweet on August 8, the Albemarle County Police Department announced that it had reclassified the Christmas girls’ disappearance as a runaway case. The department asserted that “an out-of-state family member, of the girls, shared with ACPD that they know their location and that the girls are safe.” However, the department has provided little additional information to the sisters’ family, increasing their worry and frustration for nearly three months, according to family member Myra Anderson.
In an open letter to the ACPD shared with C-VILLE on September 28, Anderson—who is the cousin of the sisters’ guardian, Cristal Christmas—criticized the department for its lack of transparency, and pushed for answers to a list of questions. Anderson and Christmas declined to speak with C-VILLE for this story.
“My understanding is that a Detective from your department (Lavin) has confirmed that the girls had been [sighted] in Richmond, VA, and Henderson, NC,” wrote Anderson in her letter. “If this is true, why has there been no public update on the case? If folks in these locations knew the girls were missing, they could be on [the] lookout for them and alert authorities if they are [sighted].”
In response to the ACPD’s August 8 tweet, Anderson claimed that “no one” in their family has seen or heard from the sisters since the day they disappeared. She also questioned why the department has not charged Corneesha Powell, the “out-of-state family member” who the sisters are with, or publicly announced the warrant allegedly issued for Powell in relation to the case.
“How could you take someone’s word that the girls are safe without seeing or speaking with the girls yourself?” asked Anderson. “How can you be sure they are not being trafficked? Zayla has been without medication for over two months.”
In a public Facebook post on July 26, Powell, who claims to be the sisters’ biological mother, admitted to facing criminal charges in relation to the case, and claimed she was “protecting what [she] birthed” from alleged abuse.
“To present day Zayla runs away because Cristal verbally abused her telling her that myself and her father don’t love her [and] we abandoned her. Threatened to throw her in a fireplace and physically hit [her],” wrote Powell. “So Zayla started running away … unbeknownst to me this verbal and emotional abuse turned to [Beautiful] when Zayla would run away.”
“So now they have both [run] away and I now [have] the full story to all verbal, mental, emotional, and physical abuse,” added Powell. “So no I will not tell them where my children are and if I have to go to jail because of it then so be it.”
Zayla previously went missing on May 20 and was reported as a runaway. The ACPD announced that she had been found on June 7.
According to the Black and Missing Foundation, children of color who go missing are more likely to be classified as runaways, even when case details suggest otherwise. This often means that Amber Alerts are not sent out for these children, and they receive less news coverage.
“I am feeling like this case … is not being given much attention [or] being taken seriously? Two months is a very long time for two young girls to still be missing,” wrote Anderson in the conclusion of her letter, pushing the ACPD to offer a reward for information related to the case. “I feel like if this were two little white girls missing, your department would have found them by now, or at a minimum provided more [updates] to the public.”
In a statement to C-VILLE on October 14, the ACPD maintained that it is still searching for the young girls.
“In August, we received and verified information confirming the sisters were safe,” said the department. “The Christmas sisters remain a priority for ACPD and we continue to actively investigate this case along with partners in other jurisdictions.”
Anyone with information regarding the missing sisters should contact Detective Lavin at 296-5807, or Crime Stoppers at 977-4000 or crimestoppers@albemarle.org.