Police said Marwa Barakzai, 16, had been missing since March 19, and a toxicology report is still pending.
NEWPORT NEWS, VA — A 16-year-old Newport News girl who had been missing for nearly three weeks was found dead in a lake behind Riverside Regional Medical Center, and police said Thursday that there were no immediate signs of foul play.
Police identified the teen as Marwa Barakzai, a Menchville High School student whose disappearance had drawn citywide attention, help from the FBI and community-led searches. The case matters now because investigators still do not know exactly how she died or why she left her usual route home. Officials said the medical examiner found no sign of a struggle, strangulation or sexual assault, but a toxicology report could take six to eight weeks and may answer some of the questions that remain.
Barakzai was last seen March 19 after getting off a school bus in Newport News. Police said she asked the driver to let her off at a different location than usual instead of her normal stop. Chief Steve Drew said she left her backpack on the bus, took her school-issued Chromebook and some papers, and then got rid of the Chromebook after getting off. Investigators later said she walked away, but they never publicly identified a clear reason. A CODI Alert was issued March 21 as officers, federal agents and volunteers searched for her. At a news conference about a week into the case, Drew said he wanted her to know “that we care about her,” a line that reflected the growing urgency around the search.
That search ended Monday, April 6, when police were called at about 2:24 p.m. to the 12000 block of Warwick Boulevard after a contractor reported seeing what looked like an unconscious person in the water behind the hospital. Officers and medics found the person dead in the lake. At first, police said the body was too decomposed to determine race, sex or age at the scene, and the medical examiner was asked to assist with identification. By Thursday, Drew said dental records confirmed the body was Barakzai. He added that her remains were consistent with someone who had been submerged for about two and a half to three weeks, a time frame that roughly matched the period since she vanished. Police said they saw no immediate evidence of foul play, but they have not released a final cause of death.
Officials were careful not to claim answers they do not yet have. Drew said investigators found no sign of a struggle, no sign of strangulation and no sign of sexual assault. Still, he acknowledged that the case is not fully resolved because police do not know what was in Marwa’s mind when she left the bus route, how she got to the lake or what happened in the time before her body was found. “The only person that knows why they left is Marwa,” Drew said. He became emotional at times while describing the case and the effort to find her, saying he had stayed up late and looked for updates each morning. Mayor Phillip Jones, standing beside the chief, said the city had hoped for a different ending and offered condolences to Barakzai’s family, classmates and friends.
The disappearance had already shaken Newport News before police announced her death. Barakzai was a student at Menchville High School, and her case spread quickly through the school community, local mosques and neighborhood groups. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children listed her as missing from Newport News on March 19. Local outlets reported that the FBI joined the search as days passed with no sign of her. Community members organized search efforts of their own, while police worked to trace her movements after she stepped off the bus. The location where her body was found, the lake behind Riverside Regional Medical Center along Warwick Boulevard, added another layer of public attention because it sits in a busy part of the city rather than in a remote area. Even with those search efforts and that visibility, the case moved from a missing-person alert to a death investigation with crucial facts still unsettled.
The next steps are now largely in the hands of the medical examiner and detectives. Police have said toxicology results may take six to eight weeks, which means a fuller explanation may not come until later in the spring or early summer. Investigators have not announced charges, named suspects or described evidence pointing to criminal conduct. They also have not said whether surveillance video, phone data or witness accounts established a complete timeline from the bus stop to the lake. For now, the case remains an open death investigation rather than a closed file. That distinction matters because the absence of obvious signs of violence is not the same as a final ruling on what happened. Police are expected to continue reviewing forensic evidence and the teen’s movements in the days before her body was recovered.
As officials spoke, grief in the community was already spilling into public view. The Peninsula Islamic Community Center first shared word of Barakzai’s death in a statement on behalf of her family and urged people to respect their privacy and avoid speculation. Funeral services were held Friday in Hampton, where dozens gathered to remember her. Omar Alkhadi, executive secretary of the center, said the family was living with both sorrow and unanswered questions. He said there was “a finality now” because she had been found, but that did not erase the pain of how the case ended. Alkhadi also said Barakzai had been active during the holy month of Ramadan and would be remembered by many people in the community. Her family did not speak publicly at the funeral and asked for privacy.
Police say Barakzai’s death is still under investigation, with toxicology findings expected in the coming weeks and more answers likely tied to that report.
Author note: Last updated April 11, 2026.