VALLEJO, Calif. — Ten years after Pearl Pinson was dragged to a waiting car by an armed man while walking to school, her family gathered Monday evening at the bridge on 1000 Lewis Avenue where she disappeared and said they still do not know what happened to her.

Friends, relatives, members of the Solano County Sheriff’s Office and Vallejo Mayor Andrea Sorce joined the Pinsons at the base of the bridge as a song played for Pearl, a reminder that the case remains open because no remains or belongings have ever been found. The man later identified as 19-year-old Fernando Castro had no known connection to Pearl or her family, and he died in a shootout with police in Southern California the next day.

Rose Pinson said she spoke with Detective Charles Olmstead of the Solano County Sheriff’s Office and still lives with uncertainty that has stretched through a decade of anniversaries, birthdays and false hopes. “I woke up, and I didn’t know what to think,” she said. “I know it’s 10 years, and I keep hoping she comes home.”

Olmstead told the family it was possible Pearl did not survive. Rose Pinson said that is the hardest possibility to hold alongside the absence of physical evidence. “It’s possible she didn’t survive, but without any remains or any of her stuff, we can’t say whether she died or not,” she said. She added, “In my opinion, throughout the 10 years, with all the evidence I’ve been shown, seen, and heard about it — the amount of blood that was here and the amount of blood in the trunk, I don’t think my sister survived.”

Pearl’s father, James Pinson, said the 10-year anniversary is “hard as hell,” and that he has accepted the possibility that she may not be alive. “I’ve accepted the fact that she may not be with us,” he said. What he misses most is immediate and ordinary: “Her laugh, sense of humor, a little attitude,” he said, adding that “she was always doing something goofy.”

He said reminders of Pearl still surface in unexpected places, including when he hears a Justin Bieber song he does not even like. “I’ll hear a song by Justin Bieber,” he said. “I don’t really like him, but the song reminds me of her.” He said the family wants to keep Pearl’s name in public view and would like the bridge named after her, though “that’s up to the city.”

The gathering brought together people who knew Pearl in school and in life. Melina Caprio, who said Pearl was her fellow ninth-grade student, and Ashley Zahner hugged Rose Pinson as the tribute played. Caprio said, “There is not much that can be said in that moment,” and that the only thing to do is “be there for each other, hold each other, you know, and try to remind each other that tomorrow is a new day and we might have an answer.” Zahner remembered Pearl’s “smart mouth,” her personality and the way she did not care what other people thought. “You can tell if someone is going to be in your corner, and she was someone who was going to be in my corner, be my cheerleader,” she said.

The case has stayed unresolved for more than 10 years, a rare and painful kind of limbo in which the lack of remains has kept the final answer just out of reach. For the Pinsons, Monday was not a moment of closure. It was a public accounting of absence, and another plea to keep Pearl’s name where Vallejo cannot forget it.