Missing 8-year-old may be headed toward Gallup, Navajo Police say

The Navajo Police Department is asking McKinley County and nearby communities to watch closely for 8-year-old Alissandra Begay, who was last seen around 2 p.m. Friday in Lukachukai, Arizona, and may be traveling toward Gallup. Investigators say she may be with an unknown young woman and a young boy, making the alert especially urgent for drivers, store workers, hotel staff and anyone moving through the Gallup area.

Police said Begay was picked up by a young woman described as short with shoulder-length hair and accompanied by a thin young male child with short hair. Authorities believe the three may be in a white four-door sedan or hatchback. For residents in Gallup and along travel corridors across McKinley County, that vehicle description is one of the most important details to watch for.

Begay is described as about 4 feet tall and 90 pounds, with brown eyes and black waist-length hair. She was last seen wearing a light blue long-sleeve shirt over a white shirt, along with purple leggings with pink flowers. Anyone who sees a child matching that description, or a white four-door sedan or hatchback carrying a young woman and a small boy, should contact the Navajo Police Department Chinle District immediately.

Her information has been entered into the National Crime Information Center, the computerized law-enforcement index that is available to federal, state and local agencies around the clock. That kind of entry can move a missing-child alert quickly across jurisdictional lines, which matters in a case where investigators believe the child may be headed toward Gallup, a city of 19,969 people on the U.S. Census Bureau’s July 1, 2025 estimate and one of the largest hubs in the region.

The case also moves through broader alert systems used in Navajo and state law enforcement. Arizona and New Mexico both maintain Turquoise Alert tools for missing endangered people, including tribal members, and New Mexico’s Missing Persons Clearinghouse works with police agencies and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to keep information current. In a region where long road stretches and multiple jurisdictions can slow searches, those systems are meant to push the information out fast and keep the public alert until Begay is found.