Experts explain what goes into age-progressed photo of missing San Antonio girl

Age-progressed photo for missing 3-year-old

Lina Khil disappeared in San Antonio in 2021. An age-progressed photo of Lina, who would now be six, hopes to help bring new leads to the case.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas - The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) released an age-progressed photo of a three-year-old girl who disappeared in 2021. Officials hope it will bring in leads.

Lina Khil would be six years old this year.

Authorities say she was last seen on Dec. 20, 2021.

Surveillance video shows her at a playground at an apartment complex, where she walked away from her mother and was never seen again.

Her father, Riaz Sardar Khil, spoke through a translator, Lawang Mangal, in 2022 on the one-year anniversary of her disappearance.

"It was really painful for me and, especially, I couldn't tell my wife today is the one year... she's in really bad shape, and she was crying all today," he said.

"I understood how the family felt that she's still missing, but unfortunately, we haven't come across anything that's led us to her," San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said at the time.

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Officials say last month, they got a tip that claimed Lina was buried in a field a half mile from where she disappeared. After searching, police say the tip wasn't credible.

NCMEC says their forensic imaging artists use Photoshop to create age-progressed photos.

"They spend maybe six to eight hours with each age-progressed photo, and they get quite attached, our forensic imaging artists, to the child and to the case as they pore over and create these age-progressed photos," Leemie Kahng-Sofer, director of case management with the Missing Children Division at NCMEC, said.

There are a couple of different ways they do them.

"If we're able to collect them, we collect what are called reference photos. Those are photographs of close family members, usually parents, siblings, and they're photographs taken at the age the child would be at the time that we're age-progressing the photo," Kahng-Sofer said.

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There are techniques they can use even without reference photos.

"They're going to look at the eyes, the ears, the nose and features, and ultimately, what it is, it's not an exact science, but it is an estimate. It is an estimate really designed to spark recognition," she said.

NCMEC usually does photos every two years after a child goes missing until they turn 18, then every five years. The hope is cases won't be forgotten.

"It's to really keep that community engagement and keep them aware that this little girl is still missing," Kahng-Sofer said.