Jaliek search nearing one yearDespite lengthy investigation, police still at loss over missing Jaliek Rainwalker
By Don Lehman
dlehman@poststar.comUpdated: Thursday, October 23, 2008 1:51 AM EDT
Saturday, Nov. 1, will mark the one-year anniversary of the disappearance of Greenwich youth Jaliek Rainwalker.
But to those who have closely followed the boy's plight, Wednesday marked the one-year anniversary of the events that some believe ultimately led to Rainwalker's disappearance.
It was Oct. 22, 2007, that the 12-year-old threatened to hurt a child in a home-school program with him, prompting his adoptive parents to place him in a "respite home" in the Albany area for several days.
It was the night of Nov. 1 that his adoptive father, Stephen Kerr, picked up Rainwalker in Latham, had dinner with him at a restaurant and, according to what Kerr told police, drove back to Greenwich with the boy to stay the night in a Hill Street, Greenwich, home owned by Kerr's father.
The next morning, he reported Rainwalker missing, telling police he awoke and Rainwalker was gone.
There has been no trace of the boy since.
Nearly one year later, police are fairly confident that Rainwalker is no longer alive, and they believe they know who was responsible for his disappearance.
They have labeled Kerr a "person of interest" and publicly questioned his version of events from the night Rainwalker was last seen.
They have said they don't believe he has told them all he knows about what happened to the boy. Police have also said there are inconsistencies in his story and pointed to his refusal to take a lie detector test.
But despite thousands of hours of searching and investigation, police still don't know where Rainwalker is or what happened to him.
They have dramatically scaled back their investigation over the months, but police continue to handle leads as they come in and get together at least every few weeks to discuss the case and try to come up with new ideas.
Cambridge-Greenwich Police Chief George Bell, whose agency has headed the inquiry, still meets and speaks frequently with members of the Find Jaliek Task Force, a group of volunteers working to help police.
The task force has been led by Barbara Reeley, Rainwalker's adoptive maternal grandmother, and Elaine Person, a former foster parent of the boy.
Searches continuing
Despite the fact that police and state forest rangers broke off formal ground and river search efforts over the spring, members of the task force and volunteer searchers have continued to search virtually every weekend, Reeley said.
They plan a search this Saturday, with as many as 60 people involved. She would not say where they will search, but said the group has been checking around the region, in western Vermont, and in the Troy area.
"The searches have been going on all summer. Most of the time we haven't made it known where we were going," Reeley said.
Vigils, billboards planned
The following Saturday, on Nov. 1, members of the task force will lead a vigil that will retrace the route Kerr said he took on Nov. 1, 2007, from Latham to Greenwich, and end with a candelelight vigil in Greenwich's Mowry Park shortly after 9 p.m. It will start at Latham Farms at 7 p.m., and Reeley said a group will also hold a vigil at the missing person's monument at the New York State Museum in Albany.
"We don't want it to be cookies and punch because it is a very sad event," Reeley said.
A billboard bearing Jaliek's face remains up on Route 40, and one was to be put up on Route 7 in Hoosick in the coming weeks. One that was up on Route 40 in Greenwich had been taken down, but will be put up again for the one-year mark.
Bell said tips continue to come in to police frequently, many of them about boys being spotted who look like Rainwalker.
Just last week, a tip came in that a boy who resembled Rainwalker had been seen at a video rental store in the Glens Falls area. State Police checked it out, located the boy, and found it was not Rainwalker but a look-alike who has been scrutinized several times, Bell said.
Police are at a point where there's little they can do other than investigate leads as they develop and wait for a break in the case, Bell said. They meet at least once a month to discuss the case, more frequently as issues arise, he said.
"They continue to investigate it as they get leads. They'll continue to investigate it until there is a resolution," Washington County District Attorney Kevin Kortright said.
Costly investigation
The investigation has involved dozens of officers. Between the agencies involved -- Cambridge-Greenwich Police, State Police, FBI, Washington County Sheriff's Office and state Department of Environmental Conservation -- a "fortune" was spent, Bell said.
He said he could not provide a cost estimate, but recounted the number of times helicopters and planes were used for aerial searches and boats for checks of the Hudson River and Batten Kill.
"If you think of the personnel, the support, the gas that was spent, it was a lot of money," the chief said.
Cambridge-Greenwich Police went over budget last year because of costs associated with the investigation, though Bell said he could not estimate by how much.
In part because of the exhaustive police efforts that have turned up no evidence that Rainwalker was still alive, the state Division of Criminal Justice Services recently changed the missing persons flier that was prepared for the case.
Since he disappeared, the flier had indicated he was believed to have run away, based on Kerr's statement that he believed the boy ran away and information provided by Kerr that he left a note behind. Now, it has been changed to indicate he disappeared under "unknown circumstances."
The note Kerr turned over to police, which included a "goodbye," has been a bone of contention as well. Person, the former foster parent of Rainwalker, has said the note was prepared by the boy as a homework assignment before he left her home Nov. 1.
Police are still awaiting a final FBI analysis of computer equipment that was confiscated from the Hill Street, Greenwich, home in February, after anonymous letters were received by members of the media indicating Rainwalker was still alive and had been picked up on Route 40 by someone.
Police believe the letters, sent from a Westchester County post office branch, were a hoax. Forensic analysis of them did not turn up any significant clues, Bell said.
A phone message left on Kerr's cell phone voice mail was not returned Wednesday. Kerr and his wife, Jocelyn McDonald, have been at odds with police since shortly after the investigation began, filing a notice of claim (the precursor of a lawsuit) against the village of Greenwich over police actions when their Hill Street home was searched in February
Kerr's lawyer in that case, Tucker Stanclift, said no settlement was offered by the village, and it hadn't been decided whether a lawsuit would be filed.
'He's out there somewhere'
Jeffrey McMorris, the lawyer representing Kerr and McDonald for the criminal investigation, said his clients frequently look for the boy, and are preparing a new flier to be distributed in the coming weeks.
They believe Rainwalker ran away, and they're optimistic he's still alive, McMorris said.
"He's out there somewhere, is what they believe, what they want to believe," McMorris said. "They believe he's a survivor type of kid."
After a reporter called Kerr's cell phone on Wednesday, Kerr and McDonald issued a statement through their lawyer in which they wrote that they "pray that he is safe and will return home soon."
They went on to thank a number of agencies involved in the search, though the police were not mentioned among them.
McMorris and his clients have been critical of the police investigation, saying they believe police arrived at a theory as to what happened to Rainwalker and have not deviated from it.
Reeley, meanwhile, was charged with second-degree burglary, a felony, in July based on a complaint from Kerr that she went in the family's former home in East Greenwich without permission. She told police she went into the vacant home because she saw a yellow fleece jacket there, similar to what Kerr has told police Rainwalker was wearing the night he was last seen.
That charge is still pending.
Reeley said she has had high praise for Bell and the rest of the police for their diligence in pursuing the case, and said she knows they won't drop it.
She said she plans to meet in the coming weeks with leaders of the Division of Criminal Justice Services, which oversees police agencies in New York, to let the agency know her feelings about those involved with the inquiry and try to brainstorm new ideas for the investigation.
"Chief Bell, (State Police) Senior Investigator Tom Aiken, the State Police and FBI, the forest rangers, they've all been phenomenal," she said. "I know they're not going to give up on this."
http://www.poststar.com/articles/2008/10/23/news/local/14022987.txt
