When Malaiyah Wickerson and Ashton Mitchell disappeared in Missouri in August 2023, they were so young that photographs showed the faces of toddlers.

More than three years later, those photographs create a new problem.

Even if Malaiyah and Ashton are alive and living somewhere in plain sight, they would no longer look exactly like the children shown on the original missing-person posters.

Someone could encounter them today and never realize they were looking at two children whose disappearance has puzzled investigators since 2023.

That is why the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has taken an important new step.

NCMEC released new age-progressed images showing what Malaiyah and Ashton may look like at approximately 5 years old, then brought their case before thousands of people at CrimeCon 2026 in Las Vegas in an effort to generate new leads.

The new faces are not photographs.

They are forensic interpretations of how the children may have changed as they grew.

But after years without a confirmed sighting, they may be among the most important tools investigators have for getting strangers to look again.

Two Children, Four Adults — Then Everyone Disappeared

The case involves far more than two missing children.

The FBI says Malaiyah and Ashton disappeared along with four adults: Malaiyah’s mother, Ma’Kayla Wickerson; Ashton’s mother, Gerrielle German; Mikayla Thompson; and Naaman Williams.

All six had been living together in a rental home in Berkeley, Missouri, near St. Louis Lambert International Airport.

According to NCMEC, Ma’Kayla had moved with Malaiyah to Berkeley in late 2022, telling relatives she was beginning a “spiritual journey.”

Months later, Gerrielle arrived with Ashton from Mississippi.

Family members said communication with both women became increasingly limited before eventually stopping altogether.

Investigators later said evidence found inside the Berkeley home connected members of the group to the University of Cosmic Intelligence, an online spiritual movement authorities have described as a cult.

But whatever was happening inside that group, investigators eventually faced a more immediate problem.

Everyone was gone.

The Last Confirmed Trail Leads to a Hotel

Police conducting a welfare check at the Berkeley house in August 2023 found no one there.

There was no indication of forced entry, according to the FBI, but there were signs suggesting the residents had departed unexpectedly.

Investigators began working backward.

They obtained surveillance footage showing Ma’Kayla, Gerrielle and another missing member of the group at a convenience store in nearby Florissant on Aug. 4.

Then police discovered that the group had been staying at a hotel across the street.

NCMEC says they stayed there between Aug. 2 and Aug. 6.

The FBI identifies the last confirmed sighting of all six missing people as Aug. 6, 2023, at the Quality Inn at 55 Dunn Road in Florissant.

Then the trail stops.

NCMEC says there have been no confirmed sightings of the adults or children since they left the hotel.

That means investigators have been trying to reconstruct more than three years of unknown movements from a final verified location outside St. Louis.

Why the Old Photos Are Becoming Less Useful

A photograph of a missing adult may remain recognizable for years.

For a toddler, three years can completely transform a face.

A child can grow taller, lose baby fat, develop different facial proportions and change hairstyles. Even relatives can struggle to predict exactly how a very young child will look several years later.

That is where forensic age progression becomes important.

NCMEC says its forensic artists create age-progressed images in long-term missing-child cases because older photographs may no longer accurately represent what a child looks like today.

Artists can study images of the missing child, examine photographs of relatives at comparable ages and apply their knowledge of facial development to create a possible current appearance.

The result is not meant to predict every detail.

Its purpose is recognition.

For Malaiyah and Ashton, that distinction could be crucial.

Someone seeing them today might compare their faces with photographs from 2023 and see two completely different children.

The age-progressed images give that person another chance.

What Malaiyah and Ashton Might Look Like Now

NCMEC’s new images depict both children at approximately age 5.

The organization released them in February as part of a renewed appeal for information.

The images were later displayed again during CrimeCon 2026, where NCMEC dedicated a session to the disappearance titled “The Cult Connection: Inside the Search for Two Missing ‘Cosmic’ Toddlers.”

The panel included a Berkeley Police detective, a cult-behavior expert and Malaiyah’s grandmother, Cartisha Morgan.

That decision was deliberate.

CrimeCon attracts thousands of people interested in unresolved investigations. Putting the new images in front of that audience dramatically increases the number of people who may recognize a face, remember an encounter or recall information that once seemed unimportant.

For investigators, a lead does not necessarily need to come from someone who knew the children in Missouri.

It could come from a person who encountered them much later.

Investigators Are Not Limiting the Search to Missouri

One reason recognition matters so much is that investigators do not necessarily believe the group remained near St. Louis.

NCMEC says local and federal investigators believe the missing group may have traveled to Mexico, the Caribbean or Atlanta, Georgia.

Those possibilities dramatically expand the geographic search.

They also raise the possibility that Malaiyah and Ashton may have spent much of the past three years around people who have never seen the original missing-child posters.

Authorities have not confirmed that the children reached any of those destinations.

The locations remain investigative possibilities, not verified sightings.

And that distinction is important.

There have been tips and potential leads during the years since the disappearance, but NCMEC continues to identify Aug. 6, 2023, as the last confirmed sighting.

Why No Confirmed Sighting Matters

Six people disappearing together presents a very different investigative problem from one child vanishing alone.

If the adults deliberately attempted to live outside ordinary systems, moved frequently or stayed with people who shared their beliefs, the children might be especially difficult to locate.

But none of those possibilities proves what happened.

Investigators have not publicly established where the group went after leaving the hotel.

They have not confirmed that Malaiyah and Ashton crossed an international border.

And the absence of a confirmed sighting does not establish whether the children are still with the same adults today.

It simply leaves investigators with an enormous gap:

Aug. 6, 2023, to the present.

The Search Now Depends on People Looking at New Faces

Malaiyah’s grandmother and Ashton’s grandmother have continued publicly appealing for their grandchildren to come home.

Their hope is now being paired with something investigators did not have in 2023: an approximation of what the children may look like several years later.

That may be the most important reason the new images matter.

Somewhere, a teacher, neighbor, store employee, doctor, traveler or ordinary stranger could have seen Malaiyah or Ashton without knowing their names.

They may have looked at the original toddler photographs and felt no recognition.

Now investigators are asking them to look again.

Anyone with information about Malaiyah Wickerson or Ashton Mitchell can contact the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678) or the Berkeley Police Department.

Three years after six people walked away from a Missouri hotel, the mystery remains unresolved.

But Malaiyah and Ashton are no longer the toddlers shown in the photographs most Americans first saw.

And that creates the question behind NCMEC’s renewed search:

Could someone have already seen these children — and simply not realized who they were?