The last images of Lina Sardar Khil show a tiny girl, playing just yards from the apartment where her family thought she was safe.
She was three years old, with brown hair, black shoes and a dark red hooded jacket.
It was December 20, 2021, a winter afternoon at the Villas Del Cabo apartment complex in San Antonio, Texas. Then, in the space of a few minutes, she was gone.
Four years later, Lina’s disappearance remains one of America’s most haunting missing child cases.
Now, the heartbroken father of the Afghan girl, whose family had fled the Taliban in search of safety, has spoken out about losing their daughter in the place they believed would be their refuge.
Riaz Sardar Khil told the Daily Mail this past week that Lina had been with her pregnant mother, Zarmeena, near the playground outside their apartment building when she suddenly disappeared.
Zarmeena had turned away briefly and walked toward a nearby path. When she looked back, Lina was nowhere to be seen.
‘My wife thought Lina may have returned to the family’s apartment,’ Riaz said. She had not.
Surveillance footage would later capture the last known images of the little girl playing in the complex, dressed in her red tunic and matching pants.
The family had arrived in the United States from Afghanistan in 2019 after escaping the Taliban and hoping to build a safer life in Texas.
The Villas Del Cabo complex was home to a large Afghan community.
But the Daily Mail can now reveal that there were fears predators may have been living there too, hiding in plain sight.
Lina Sardar Khil was three years old when she vanished from the playground at the Villas Del Cabo apartment building in San Antonio, Texas, on December 20, 2021
Late last year, Lina’s father learned the horrifying news from police that a sexual predator named Pete Tamez lived in the same apartment complex he does.
Tamez had a history of sexual assault, drug possession and was a wanted fugitive who was convicted of smuggling undocumented immigrants into the country.
One of the charges he was hit with was inappropriately touching a five-year-old girl.
He spent 15 months behind bars before going on three years of supervised release, then he was re-arrested for violating the conditions of his release.
Tamez later told investigators that he sexually assaulted and killed Lina before dumping her body and gave the authorities her location.
Based on the information given, multiple searches were conducted but nothing was found.
When the prosecution team presented the case to the court during trial, they showed evidence that Tamez made false allegations about Lina, the Bexar County District Attorney’s office said in a statement.
In October 2025, Tamez was sentenced to 75 years in prison in connection with other crimes as a ‘habitual offender.’
It meant the unanswered questions for Lina’s family wouldn’t go away.
Riaz, who speaks limited English and has been getting help from advocate Pamela Espurvoa Allen, founder of Eagles Flight Advocacy and Outreach, a non-profit that helps refugees.
For the last 14 years, Allen has been working with the refugee community in San Antonio.
She and Riaz both question the information they were given about Tamez.
‘They told us there is not enough proof to say that he did it. Not enough proof to say that he didn’t,’ Allen said.
Allen openly expressed her frustration with the San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) and told the Daily Mail she believes they ‘botched’ the investigation.
Pamela Espurvoa Allen, founder of Eagles Flight Advocacy and Outreach, and Riaz searching for Lina with other volunteers from the community
A daughter and daddy photo that was taken weeks before Lina mysteriously vanished
Allen claims there are gaps in the investigation and believes the family has not been given all the information that police know.
‘We were told about the first dig that happened in February 2024, but was unaware that there were three other digs that took place,’ she said.
When the Daily Mail contacted the SAPD about Tamez, they said they were unable to provide further information on the case.
An SAPD spokesperson confirmed they were continuing to work with the FBI and said it was an ‘active and ongoing investigation.’
‘For over four years, SAPD has continued investigating the disappearance of Lina Khil. The San Antonio Police Department remains committed to following up on and investigating every lead that we receive,’ the spokesperson said in part.
Allen doesn’t buy it.
‘They can’t solve it so they don’t want anyone else to solve it either – which is craziness.’
‘And here we come to the bigger question: ‘What constitutes a cold case? When will the SAPD release the case to the Attorney General’s cold case division?’
The Daily Mail reached out to the State Attorney General’s Office to inquire but they did not respond to our request for comment.
Lina in a pink and white floral dress blowing a kiss
Lina relaxing indoors as she smiles in her dark sunglasses
Lina wearing a dark colored hijab, a traditional Muslim head covering, as she sits on a mat
Lina taking a photo with her doll
Retired FBI agent Abel Pena of Project Absentis, a nonprofit organization made up of retired FBI agents, law enforcement and IT professionals that helps find missing loved ones, has been working on Lina’s case.
He said many witnesses told him that Lina was often seen by herself without her mother and observed wandering into other people’s apartments.
Riaz vehemently denied those wild claims, telling the Daily Mail his wife would ‘never’ leave their daughter alone.
Pena said on the day she vanished, one observer said they saw Lina walk off with two boys that were a few years older who were dressed in Afghani attire.
Others recalled Lina as being very ‘trusting’ of strangers and had been observed holding hands with some.
On the day she went missing, Pena shared with the Daily Mail footage of the playground where Lina was last seen in.
He also gave an account of the different pathways at the Villas Del Cabo apartment buildings and the various areas one can enter and exit.
Shortly after Lina vanished, Pena said the name of the building was changed to VIVE apartments and some of the areas around the complex were made more secure.
Riaz, 31, served as an Afghan soldier and assisted US troops in the Khost Province, located in the southeastern part of Afghanistan, from 2013 to 2019.
His family survived bombings and the daily struggles and chaos in their native homeland.
In 2019, Riaz took his wife and infant daughter Lina and emigrated to the United States on a special immigration visa seeking safety and a better life for his family.
Riaz settled in the San Antonio area due to its large Afghani refugee community.
When Lina first went missing, the community came together and held prayer vigils and participated in search missions, but now there seems to be less activity.
Lina kissing her father as he holds her younger brother
Allen has worked as a case worker for more than 30 years. Before moving to San Antonio, Texas, she was assisting the refugees in Bosnia and Sarajevo, who were entering into the Czech Republic.
She has been granted countless awards for her humanitarian work. Part of her work is teaching the refugee community about the American way of life.
‘In my years of working with the Muslim families and a lot of refugee families and some from the African nations as well leave their front doors wide open,’ she said.
Allen explained that in the Afghan community, it is common for children to run around in groups with the oldest looking after the younger.
‘The children are all running around together cousins, neighbors because that is their culture. I had to teach them what sexual predators look like, what they look for and how they differentiate.’
Between 2009 and 2012, Allen said it was ‘alarming’ the number of children who were getting lost and she had to tell the refugees not to let their children run around.’
She said many of the Americans who live in the apartment complex were outraged by what the Afghan children were doing, which is part of their culture and society.
‘Some would put their photos and videos on social media actually making them a target for predators,’ she said.
She is currently working on a bill that will give people with missing family members more access to information from the police.
Some of the families she is working with are Jason Landry’s; Jason was a 21-year-old Texas State University student who went missing while driving home to his family in Missouri City while on winter break in December 2020.
Patty Vaughn, 32, a mother of three who disappeared on Christmas Day 1996 and is Texas’ longest running missing person/cold case.
And the case of baby Gabriel Johnson, whose parents were in a custody dispute and the child disappeared in December 2009.
‘There are holes in those cases and they remain unsolved,’ Allen said.
Like, she asked in Lina’s case, she asks again: ‘Why can’t the Attorney General take over?’
A poster of Lina from The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children that provides a brief biok, photos and contact information for anyone who may have information on her case
An age-progressed photo of Lina by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
For Lina and her family, she continues to seek answers.
A combined reward of $250,000 – $200,000 by the Islamic Center of San Antonio and $50,000 by San Antonio Crime Stoppers – is still valid for any information leading to the location and safe return and resolution in Lina’s disappearance.
As a mother and grandmother, Allen sees the pain and heartache the family goes through since their nightmare began.
‘I sat next to Zarmeena in the early days of Lina’s disappearance. She rocked back and forth on the floor, weeping, picked up her phone to show me pictures of Lina,’ she said.
‘I will never forget that day. She showed me her hurt and it was unbearable.’
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) issued an age-progression rendering of Lina that was created by their forensic artists in 2024.
An NCMEC representative told the Daily Mail that the age-progression renderings are updated every few years.
On February 20, Lina turned eight years old.
Riaz and his wife are busy caring for their two young sons and, in late 2025, had a baby girl.
But their joy is overshadowed by great sadness with the absence of their firstborn.
‘We are missing Lina all the time,’ he told The Daily Mail. All that he asks is for ‘prayers’ for his precious daughter’s safe return.
If you have any information about Lina Sardar Khil or her disappearance, please call NCMEC at 1-800-THE-LOST or the SAPD at 1-210-207-7273.
