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DNA evidence proves that skull found in Santa Cruz Mountains is hers; search for kidnappers still ongoing 

VALLEJO – With a 7-year-old girl confirmed dead after more than a year of hope for her safe return, volunteers and authorities are steeling their resolve and seeking justice for those responsible for the crime. 

The death of Xiana Fairchild, missing since Dec. 9 1999, was confirmed Saturday at a Santa Clara County Sheriff’s department news conference. The DNA test results on a child’s skull found in the Santa Cruz Mountains confirmed the bone fragments belonged to Fairchild. 

The medical examiner’s report indicated Fairchild died of “homicidal violence.” Now authorities will try to determine who killed the girl and why. Volunteers who searched tirelessly for Fairchild over the past year want someone held accountable. 

“I really wanted her home alive,” said Deena May, a volunteer who spent nearly every Saturday searching for Fairchild, a child she never knew. She said she wants answers about the death. “Until I know why, it’s not going to sink in. It still feels like she’s missing” 

Kim Swartz, whose daughter Amber has been missing for 13 years, also wants to know who killed Fairchild. 

“That brings us one step closer. We now have Xiana. We know she was murdered. Now we just have to figure out who it is (the suspect),” Swartz said. 

Vallejo police said the discovery creates no new suspects, but among those under suspicion in Fairchild’s disappearance are her mother, Antoinette Robinson, and Robinson’s boyfriend, Robert Turnbough. 

Turnbough initially told police he had left the girl at a bus stop, but later changed his story to say she walked alone to catch the bus. Vallejo police never labeled Turnbough a suspect, but did say he had been under “a cloud of suspicion” because of his conflicting tales. 

“From the very day that Xiana disappeared we got conflicting stories from her mother and her mother’s boyfriend,” said Vallejo police chief Robert Nichelini. 

Fairchild’s kidnapping case revived interest recently when a man in jail for allegedly abducting one girl began telling reporters he was also responsible for Fairchild’s disappearance. 

Curtis Dean Anderson told Fairchild’s great-aunt that the girl was still alive and he knew of her whereabouts. The latest findings contrast Anderson’s accounts. 

“At this stage of the investigation there is no evidence of links to Anderson to this case,” said Capt. Brian Beck of Santa Clara County investigative services. “We’re all aware of his notoriety and his discussions with the press, but that does constitute evidence.” 

Anderson is charged with kidnapping an 8-year-old Vallejo girl last August. The girl managed to escape when Anderson allegedly left her in his car unattended. 

Anderson’s attorney, Carl Spieckerman, said jail officials have told him his client was going to be transferred from Solano County to Santa Clara County where Fairchild’s skull was found Jan. 19 by a construction worker. 

“They’re going to book him,” Spieckerman said. “And I believe he’s going to be charged with something in connection with this case.”