The police who seek missing girl after the mother arrested for allegedly locking the brothers in the closet

Police in Texas said they are looking for a 9 -year -old missing girl who was not seen in more than seven years whose disappearance was discovered after the girl’s mother was arrested for allegedly locking her 7 -year -old daughter in a closet for weeks.

Virginia Marie Gonzales, 33, from Austin, was arrested for a charge of injury to a boy after the 7 -year -old girl was found “locked in a closet and hungry” last month, according to the detective of Austin Russell Constable.

The girl’s grandmother called the police after she found the boy “malnourished, dirty and locked in a bedroom closet” on April 3, according to the affidavit of the arrest warrant. The grandmother had gone to the department after Gonzales was arrested for possession of marijuana, according to the affidavit.

Gonzales supposedly closed his son in the closet for a month, giving him a hot dog or a corn dog in the morning and half and a half cup of water a day, according to the sworn statement.

The girl was immediately taken to a local hospital to receive medical treatment, where it was discovered that it weighed 29 pounds and had signs of malnutrition, according to the affidavit. He is currently recovering, Constable said during a press conference on Tuesday, qualifying the case as “emotionally difficult.”

There were six other children in the house between the ages of 2 and 14 who seemed to be physically healthy, police said. Although during the investigation, the authorities learned that there was an eighth son, Ava Marie Gonzales, who was not inside the house and had not been seen by family or friends since December 2017, when he was 2 years old and under his mother’s custody, police said.

“The detectives of missing persons of the Austin Police Department are seriously concerned about Ava’s well -being, given the circumstances in which the 7 -year -old’s brother was found,” said Constable.

ABC News contacted Gonzales and did not immediately receive an answer. She is stopped in the Travis County Correctional Complex with a bail of $ 75,000 and has a programmed judicial hearing next week, as shown in the prison records and the online court.

Ava has not been reported as missing by her mother or any other person, Constable said.

Constable said that the girl’s mother “provided contradictory information to many different family members” about Ava’s whereabouts, and the police are asking anyone who has seen her or knows where she will be presented.

The police have not identified their father, he said.

Constable said that Gonzales has given the police information about their missing child that they are trying to corroborate.

“We hope to get more information and try to find out where it is,” he said.

As for the Austin Police, none of Gonzales’s children is enrolled in school, Constable said.

Police launched a photo of Ava progresses by age, which has brown hair and brown eyes.

Any person with information must send an email to Ava@austintexas.gov or can call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 512-572-8477.

Amanda Morris of ABC News contributed to this report.