On April 16, 1990, seven-year-old Jamal Abdul’Faruq was last seen playing in the front yard of his mother’s apartment in Richmond, Virginia, with his eight-year-old brother Basil. Their stepmother had dropped the boys off earlier; their mother, coming off a night shift, was asleep inside and discovered both children missing after a 45-minute search failed to find them. Jamal was a second-grade student who liked pizza, basketball, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He was last seen wearing a black Batman T-shirt, blue jeans, a gray and red fleece baseball jacket, and white sneakers.

Three days later Basil’s body was found in a Chesterfield County landfill about ten miles from the home; he had been bound, gagged, stabbed, placed in a plastic bag and discarded in a dumpster that was emptied at the landfill. Investigators searched the landfill for four days but did not find Jamal. Authorities have said they believe Jamal was likely murdered alongside his brother, but no trace of him has ever been located. The parents were investigated and later cleared; police reported having a person of interest in 1991 but no arrests have been announced. The case remains an active but cold missing-person investigation.

Did anyone in the Richmond area at the time see the boys that afternoon or notice suspicious activity near dumpsters or the route to Chesterfield County?