Easter 2016 was the last holiday Fiona Galvin spent with her daughter, Kianna. She would report her missing on Mother’s Day.
The 16-year-old left her family’s South Elgin home on May 6 and never returned.
Galvin has been fighting to find out what happened to her daughter ever since. There’s been renewed attention on the case thanks to the Cook County sheriff’s office appeal for information on social media.
“Thank you, Jesus,” Galvin said of the sheriff’s office’s effort. “I’m thankful and humbled that people still care.”
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart started a Missing Persons Unit in 2021. The unit is “near and dear to the sheriff,” office spokeswoman Shereen Mohammad said.
“The sheriff’s office highlights its missing persons cases on social media weekly to help generate public interest and potentially gain new leads,” Mohammad said. “Maybe someone who has some information will decide to come forward.”
The unit concentrates its efforts on “locating individuals, particularly women, who have been missing for three or more years throughout Illinois,” she said. “Our Missing Persons Unit is comprised of dedicated investigators who focus on these specific cases.”
Authorities posted information about Galvin earlier this week, but the office has not yet received any new leads, Mohammad said.
Fiona Galvin, Carolyn Cynowa and the Rev. George Birungyi hold candles during a 2016 vigil for Kianna Galvin, a South Elgin teen who disappeared May 6, 2016. (Courier-News file photo)
South Elgin Police Sgt. Anthony Martinez said his department continues investigating Galvin’s disappearance, but acknowledged “there are no major developments.”
Their department doesn’t have the resources to create a cold case or missing persons unit, Martinez said. The Cook County post was welcome because they “could use all the help we can get. The more information out there, the better for the investigation,” he said.
Investigators are in regular contact with Galvin’s mother, Martinez added.
Kianna was born on July 16, 1998. She is biracial with brown hair and hazel eyes, standing 5-foot-6 and weighing 145 pounds. She has nose and navel piercings and a tattoo of a heart and a cross on her left wrist.
The teen and her younger sister had just finished cleaning their house on May 6 when Kianna decided she was going to a nearby park, according to police accounts.
But she “never went to the park. (She) went to a house five houses away from me and has never been seen or heard from since,” Galvin said in a documentary created by the Missing Person Awareness Network in 2018 that can be viewed on YouTube.
She tried calling Kianna after getting off work, but the call went straight to voicemail, she said in the documentary. She kept calling and texting her the rest of the day and evening.
Kianna’s phone battery was either removed or destroyed within 22 minutes of leaving home because no pings were recorded after 1 p.m. that day, according to the film.
Cell phone records indicated the last ping was at the home five doors away. The man who lived there told police Kianna left his house between 12:30 and 12:45 p.m. and noted that she was messaging someone as she was leaving, but no other contacts were recorded.
Blood was found on a garbage lid at the man’s home, according to the video. Her family said he remodeled a basement bathroom within days of Kianna’s disappearance.
Two years after Kianna’s disappearance, the man was convicted of slashing his girlfriend’s throat. He is currently serving 15 years in prison.
Galvin fears the worse.
“When is he a murder suspect?” she said this week.
She said she had followed the cold case of Karen Schepers, the Elgin woman who disappeared in April 1983 and whose remains and car were found in the Fox River a few weeks ago.
Galvin said she knows there’s lot of public interest in cold cases but she doesn’t “want to be a 90-year-old mother waiting to find my daughter. I don’t want to wait 42 years to find out what happened,” she said.
Through the years, the family has kept a social media page updated and previously they had hired a private investigator. An organization that helps the families of missing persons has offered a reward for information.
“I’m not letting it slide. I will find out what happened to my child,” Galvin said.
Anyone with information about Kianna or the case should call 773-674-9490 or email ccso.missingpersons@ccsheriff.org.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
