\nPhotos of Ava Marie Gonzales (Courtesy Austin Police Department)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The warrant comes less than two weeks before Virginia Gonzales\u2019 trial is set to begin in a separate child abuse case uncovered in April 2025. Austin Police said they rescued her severely malnourished 7-year-old daughter from a locked bedroom closet inside an apartment on Ross Road, according to an arrest affidavit filed last year. The affidavit alleges Gonzales unlawfully restrained the child for weeks, exposing her to serious bodily injury.<\/p>\n
According to that affidavit, the child was found weighing just 29 pounds, covered in filth and suffering from long-term starvation. Medical professionals said she faced life-threatening complications, including the risk of refeeding syndrome and permanent brain damage caused by prolonged malnutrition.<\/p>\n
Investigators said the girl was confined inside a dark, unventilated closet measuring just a few feet wide, with boxes weighing more than 75 pounds barricading the doors. Siblings told police the child was given minimal food and water and was forced to urinate and defecate inside the closet.<\/p>\n
Gonzales was offered a 40-year prison sentence in exchange for a guilty plea on the charges of unlawful restraint and injury to a child, causing serious bodily injury. Gonzales and her attorney denied the proposed plea agreement.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Austin mom accused of confining daughter in closet rejects 40-year plea offer <\/p>\n
A jury trial in those cases is scheduled to begin on Jan. 26, court records show.<\/p>\n
As detectives investigated the abuse, they discovered references in government records to another child \u2014 Ava \u2014 who could not be found. Court documents state there are no school, medical or law enforcement records showing Ava alive beyond the age of 2, no photographs of Ava, and no confirmed sightings of her since 2018.<\/p>\n
Gonzales\u2019 attorney Hernandez also said in his statement, \u201cBy seeking this warrant at this time, they are effectively poisoning the jury pool by reintroducing these allegations into the news cycle just before the January 26th trial date. This creates an unfair bias and prejudice against my client, making it nearly impossible to select an impartial jury. To protect my client\u2019s constitutional rights, we have no choice but to seek a continuance and a change of venue.\u201d<\/p>\n
APD\u2019s cold case investigation<\/h3>\n
Gonzales\u2019 son, the firstborn of her eight children, confirmed to investigators that Ava was his sister and stated she was given away to \u201ca family\u201d when she was about three, according to court records.<\/p>\n
Documents state that attempts by APD cold case detectives to confirm Gonzales\u2019 statements and government records about what happened or where her 2-year-old daughter was taken in 2018 were repeatedly unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
APD obtained records from Child Protective Services from November 2023 that stated Ava Gonzales \u201cmoved in with her father.\u201d The document was allegedly signed by the grandmother of one of Gonzales\u2019 children.<\/p>\n
When detectives questioned the grandmother about the document, the grandmother informed APD that the phone number on the CPS was not hers nor was it her signature, which APD was able to verify, according to the search warrant.<\/p>\n
Records show APD was able to track down Gonzales\u2019 previous boyfriend, who was listed as the father of Gonzales\u2019 fourth child on CPS records. He informed APD that Gonzales claimed Ava was her sister\u2019s child that she was caring for and that she was living in San Antonio with an aunt and uncle.<\/p>\n
Bond raised to $250K for woman charged with felony injury to child <\/p>\n
The ex-boyfriend said Gonzales referred to Ava as a \u201ccrack baby\u201d who was born prematurely and described her as a \u201csickly\u201d girl who had health problems and looked \u201cmalnourished,\u201d records state.<\/p>\n
Hospital records obtained by APD confirmed Ava was born to Virginia Gonzales on Oct. 21, 2015, at 39 1\/2 weeks. Records said she weighed six pounds with no complications, according to the search warrant.<\/p>\n
In April 2025, after Gonzales was arrested and accused of injury to a child, detectives questioned her about Ava and she stated Ava was now living in Mexico with her father, records show.<\/p>\n
APD detectives located and contacted Ava\u2019s alleged father in Mexico, who denied ever having custody of Ava and that he hadn\u2019t seen Ava since she was about one and was last told by Gonzales that Ava was living with another family in San Antonio, according to the search warrant.<\/p>\n
Unable to locate Ava and any of Gonzales\u2019 relatives\u2019 homes and with no further leads as to her whereabouts, APD detectives conducted a forensic interview with Gonzales\u2019 oldest child, who would have been approximately 6 years old when Ava went missing.<\/p>\n
\u2018Had a sister named Ava and something bad happened\u2019<\/h3>\n
According to court records, Gonzales\u2019 now 14-year-old son explained to investigators in detail what he remembered seeing in the bathroom of an Austin motel nearly eight years ago.<\/p>\n
On May 6, 2025, the young teen told investigators they were living in a motel when he heard Ava in the bathroom screaming \u201creally bad,\u201d which is when he walked over to peek in and witnessed his mother violently assaulting Ava in a bathtub with the water running, according to the search warrant.<\/p>\n
The child said he went back to the bedroom and heard the water turn off at the same time Ava stopped screaming, the search warrant states.<\/p>\n
APD Seeks the Public\u2019s Assistance in Locating a Missing Child <\/p>\n
The child told investigators that once she was removed from the bathtub, Gonzales put clothes on her and put her in a car seat, the warrant says.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t hear Ava say anything or cry after the shower. He told detectives, \u201cAva looked like she was sleeping,\u201d according to the search warrant.<\/p>\n
When the child asked his mother where Ava was going, Gonzales told him she was going to live with a new mom and dad, the affidavit states.<\/p>\n
The child said he went to sleep and when he awoke the next morning, Ava was gone. He stated his mother seemed \u201ccompletely new. Like happy, like a whole new person,\u201d according to court records.<\/p>\n
Detectives believe Ava may have died on or around Jan. 2, 2018, and allege Gonzales intentionally caused the death of a child under 10, a capital felony under Texas law.<\/p>\n
Gonzales has been arrested and charged in connection with the abuse of her surviving child. As of the filing of the search warrant, Gonzales has not been formally charged with capital murder or any other criminal offense related to the disappearance of her daughter.<\/p>\n
To date, Ava Gonzales has not been found, and police said they have no evidence she is still alive.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/i><\/p>\n
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s Note: The above video is KXAN\u2019s coverage of the case from November 2025. Content Warning: This article discusses domestic violence and allegations of child abuse. If you are in distress and need someone to talk to, please\u00a0call the\u00a0National Domestic Violence Hotline\u00a0at\u00a01-800-799-7233\u00a0or text START to 88788. If you need to report suspected abuse, you can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/9b3b35117f78be214888ea8ec88a0151.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}