Ten years ago, on Mother’s Day, Fiona Galvin reported her 17-year-old daughter missing.
This Sunday, she’ll be spending another Mother’s Day without any definitive answers as to what happened to Kianna, who went to visit a friend who lived around the corner from their South Elgin home and never returned.
Information uncovered as a result of an HBO/Discovery “Hunt for the Missing: Chicago” episode on Kianna’s case led to the excavation Thursday of the Revere Road home where the teen was last seen, but ultimately provided no new evidence as to her whereabouts or fate.
“Our family is just very disappointed it took this long and that this hadn’t been done sooner; to say the least,” Fiona Galvin said in a text message. “We are still waiting for answers our family deserves after a decade. JUSTICE FOR KIANNA.”
Pamela Childs, the retired Chicago police detective who hosts “Hunt for the Missing: Chicago,” said she got to know Galvin when she was putting the documentary episode together.
“Her heart is hurting,” Childs said. “Her daughter is missing. Her daughter is much more than just a face on a sheet of paper wrapped around a light post.”
Childs, who spent 20 of her 26 years on the Chicago Police Department working on missing persons cases, said tracking down people who were never interviewed by police yielded new information about Kianna.
South Elgin detectives met with Childs after the episode premiered in April and started looking into the case again. When they used thermal radar to scan the home on Revere Road, “anomalies” were found that led to this week’s forensic excavation.
While the search failed to turn up new evidence, “someone has the answers,” Childs said.
“The search for Kianna goes on,” said Pablo Foster, a private investigator working with Childs on the show and other cases. “We don’t stop on this particular road because there’s a stop sign.”
Fiona Galvin has long suspected something happened to Kianna in that house on Revere Road.
On May 6, 2016, Kianna and her sister, Miah, were home cleaning the house for Mother’s Day while Fiona was work. Kianna told Miah she was going to run over to a friend’s house and that she’d be back in a few minutes. She never returned.
As they tried to piece together what happened, the family discovered messages from a childhood friend who told Kianna she should come to his house to pick up some marijuana, according to the documentary. The man was living with his girlfriend in the basement of a house in the 800 block of Revere Road, which belonged to his girlfriend’s parents.
When Galvin got home from work, she started calling Kianna’s phone but there was no answer. Galvin was worried, but friends with law enforcement experience told her she had to wait 48 hours to report her Kianna missing.
That’s a common misconception, Childs said.
When Galvin went to the South Elgin Police Department on May 8 to file a missing person report, she was told her daughter was probably a runaway. Kianna wouldn’t run away, she told them.
Galvin later confronted the man who had messaged Kianna, who told her several different stories, according to Childs’ report. He initially said she didn’t come inside the house. He later acknowledged she did come inside but only to get up a bag of marijuana. He saw her get picked up in a car and leave, he said.
A neighbor, however, told police that he saw Kianna go into the house but not leave. The man’s girlfriend arrived about 20 minutes later, the neighbor said.
When blood was found on a neighbor’s garbage can, police searched the Revere Road house but found nothing.
After that, the investigation went cold.
Galvin was frustrated with the police, and ultimately hired their own private investigor and created a Justice for Kianna social media page. They’ve worked hard to keep kept her memory alive for 10 years, said Childs, who took an interest in the case last year when the Cook County Sheriff’s Office released information on it and asked for the public’s help.
“Fiona loved her daughter. Miah loved her sister. (Kianna’s disappearance) is a huge void in that household to this day,” Childs said.
One thing she learned over a long law enforcement career is the importance of being a good listener, she said.
“If you cut (people speaking) off, you may be cutting off the one thing that might lead you to an answer you need,” Childs said. “Your listening skills have to be sharp. Everybody has something to say. Some people have something different to say. If you listen closely, you won’t miss it.”
One fact that came out during Miah’s interview is it was initially reported by police that Kianna told her sister she was going to a nearby park when she left the house. But Miah said she didn’t say that — she was clear that Kianna told her she was going to a friend’s house and would be back in a few minutes. Kianna’s messages confirmed that she went to the Revere Road house.
Kianna’s family has never disputed that Kianna went to the man’s house to get marijuana.
The man, his girlfriend and Kianna were childhood friends who all attended South Elgin High School. The friends’ names have not been released publicly because they’ve never been named as official suspects in the case.
Brandy, a close friend of Kianna’s, told Childs that the male friend had a crush on Kianna, but Kianna didn’t feel the same way about him, Childs said.
A year after Kianna’s disappearance, the man was arrested after stabbing his girlfriend in the throat following an argument. The girlfriend told police the argument was over her refusal to take him to a liquor store.
Brandy said she later learned the argument was actually about the girlfriend threatening to reveal what her boyfriend had done to Kianna, according to Childs’ show.
The boyfriend was convicted of armed violence in the stabbing and is serving a 15-year prison term in a downstate prison.
Childs and her former police partner, retired Chicago detective Joe Struck, went to Tennessee in an attempt to speak with the woman, but she and her family wouldn’t meet with them.
“I just wanted to get her story,” Childs said. “We were coming to talk to them to see if they would reveal anything to us that could (tell us) what happened to Kianna Galvin.”
While Childs didn’t get any answers, she said she believes what they reported helped get the police to take another look at the case.
“I think the South Elgin Police Department is really coming forth right now and are diligently working on behalf of the Galvin family,” she said. “They really want the answer as to what happened to this young girl.”
Childs said she plans to share any new leads she receives with police. Ultimately, she wants to help give Kianna’s mother some closure, if she can, and to take away some of the family’s suffering, she said.
“This job never leaves you,” Childs said.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
