Seven-year-old Jamal Abdul’Faruq and his brother, 8-year-old Basil, disappeared while playing outside in their Virginia neighborhood on April 16, 1990.
Three days later, Basil was found slain in a garbage bag in a private landfill. But now, 22 years later, no one has been charged in his death, and Jamal’s fate remains a mystery.
“We have no idea what may have occurred or who’s responsible for it, and we certainly have no idea what happened to Jamal,” said Melinda Stevens, director of the missing children division of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, or NCMEC.
The two boys were playing in the yard of the Richmond home while their mother took a nap, Stevens said. When the woman woke up and her children were gone, she scoured the area and called police, but no one in the neighborhood had information.
After Basil’s body was found, investigators searched the Chesterfield County landfill for Jamal’s body.
“That search was unsuccessful,” Stevens said.
But the investigation remains active. Jamal’s disappearance has been featured on “America’s Most Wanted,” and Stevens said her agency has received several leads about the case in the past year.
“You never get it over it,” the boys’ mother told the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 2008.
When Jamal went missing, he was described as black, 4 feet 5 inches tall and weighing 47 pounds, according to NCMEC. He had brown eyes and black hair and was last seen wearing a black Batman T-shirt, blue jeans, white tennis shoes, and a gray and red fleece jacket. Jamal would now be 29 years old.
Anyone who has information about his disappearance is asked to call NCMEC at 800-THE-LOST (843-5678).
