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VALLEJO – One year ago, 7-year-old Xiana Fairchild left home for school and never came back. 

A high-profile search for the girl with wavy-hair and a gap-toothed grin has seen flurries of accusations, rifts between families and countless leads — but no prospect of her return. 

On Dec. 9, 1999, Fairchild’s mother Antoinette Robinson reported her daughter missing. Robinson’s then-boyfriend, Robert Turnbough, told police he had left Fairchild at a bus stop, but later changed his story to say she walked alone to catch the bus. 

Vallejo police have never called Turnbough a suspect, although they said he has been under “a cloud of suspicion” because of his conflicting tales. 

A federal grand jury questioned both Turnbough and Robinson a half- dozen times in the past year. Over that period, police sifted through a landfill in Washington that accepts Vallejo’s trash, organized searches and kept up hope. 

But a mystery that involved 30 Vallejo investigators has become just another case that a team of three detectives must juggle. 

Still, some in Fairchild’s family persevere. 

Stephanie Kahalekulu, the girl’s great aunt, has drawn hundreds of people to the periodic fund-raisers and continues with weekly searches. 

“I know they say there’s a good chance she’s not alive, but I can’t accept that,” Kahalekulu told the San Francisco Chronicle. “You know there’s one person or a whole group out there who’s evil, who knows what happened to Xiana, and I believe any day now we are going to find out who they are.” 

Kahalekulu raised Fairchild in Hawaii and Colorado until six months before her disappearance. She sent Fairchild to Vallejo, a former Navy town about 30 miles north of San Francisco, after Robinson assured her family she had kicked a drug habit. 

Vallejo police say though it’s not likely Fairchild is alive, the investigation presses forward. 

“We’re actively pursuing leads and keeping our hopes up,” Vallejo police spokeswoman JoAnn West said. 

Some of those hopes are tied to another kidnapping case in Vallejo. In August, police charged Curtis Dean Anderson with kidnapping and sexually molesting an 8-year-old girl. He has denied all the charges and has not been charged in the Fairchild case. 

Following Anderson’s arrest, however, Vallejo police repeatedly searched his mother’s house for clues that might link him to Fairchild’s disappearance. 

In an interview, Anderson told the Contra Costa Times there was nothing wrong with adults having sex with children. 

“I’m different,” he told the paper. “I do what I want, when I want, how I want.”