Columbus police are asking for help finding a missing “endangered” child

Columbus police now believe a child who has been missing since October is “at risk of disappearance” after his non-custodial mother, believed to be the child, was arrested Thursday on unrelated charges and refused to tell authorities the child’s whereabouts.

Detectives with the Columbus Police Department’s Missing Persons Unit are asking for the public’s help in finding 7-year-old Kingston Gillyard, who has been missing from the city’s East Side since October 2023. Kingston was kept away from his custodial parent by his mother, Shadasia Gillyard, who was arrested Thursday by the U.S. Marshals Southern Ohio Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team (SOFAST) and Columbus police after a brief standoff in the 1900 block of Fountainview Court on the city’s east side became page.