Jaliek Rainwalker 12, msg 11/1/07 Cambridge-Greenwich, NY

Jaliek's 14th birthday is August 2nd, 2009

Not sure if this article ever made it here. Below is the interview of Jaliek's adoptive mother, Jocelyn McDonald, and adoptive father, Stephen Kerr, with a small newspaper in Cambridge, NY that doesn't post on the internet:

Searching for Jaliek Rainwalker:
Rainwalker’s Parents Speak With Main Street News, Cambride, NY
By Linda Anderson

On November 2, 2007, 12-year-old Jaliek Rainwalker of Greenwich, NY, disappeared. What happened to him remains a mystery.

Did he run away? Did he commit suicide? Was he the victim of found play?

For many months the story of Rainwalker’s disappearance has unfolded as a drama. Media coverage and the missing boy has dominated local TV news and newspapers. We’ve heard various points of view from parties of interest to the missing boy--the police, the Find Jaliek Task Force, and relatives. Who we haven’t’ heard from are the boy’s parents, Stephen Kerr and Jocelyn McDonald.

On January 22, both Kerr and McDonald were invited into the office of Main Street to talk about their concerns and issues regarding their missing son.

The parents feel that their overall experience with the media has not been a good one. While they welcomed the opportunity to share their side of the story with Main Street they were very guarded about the process. I proposed that I would taped the interview, transcribe it, and print it exactly as it occurred. I said I would begin by asking them questions and also afford them the opportunity to share what ever was on their mind. I explained that my article would include a brief summer of events and information regarding Rainwalker’s disappearance.

They agreed.

However, when the couple arrived at the Main Street office they declined to answer any questions. Instead they wanted to talk just about their intent of finding their son who they believe is alive. I turned on the tape recorder and here is what was said:

Jocelyn McDonald: We would like to talk abut the public and private things which we do, to bring Jaliek home as well as the tremendous outpouring of local support, which we have received. That is, basically, what we would like to talk about, which is about finding our son.

So we have done all different sorts of things. I wish I had brought posters. We’ve created new posters on a regular basis to bring in new awareness. We feel like people get tired of the old posters. They need the new posters. They need to see a different side of him a different, you know, a different perspective, whole body or whoever, and so we are constantly creating new posters and putting out the new posters with new pictures so that people have a different perspective.

And we’ve distributed thousands of those posters to individuals, businesses, and other areas. In the beginning we put out a lot of pleas to the press for Jaliek to come home. We really were hoping that he could hear us and come home. But now we have just spoken to the press a lot about him being missing and putting out the word and about people continuing to see his picture an, um, it’s really important to me that one in six children come home because their picture was seen by somebody and somebody called. And so, for me, it’s really important that his picture continue to get out there. That’s been, to me, one of the top things for us to do, is the just continue to get his picture out there.

We planned seven vigils and working on some fund-raisers right now. We’re connected with organizations like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children where he has information on their website and the New York State Clearing house…

Stephen Kerr: We have a social worker…working with us.

McDonald: Yeah, Missing and Exploited Children, we also have a social worker through her. We also have an individual support person from a family whose child ran away, through them…[phone call interrupts, the Jocelyn continues]…and Team Adam and the runaway hotline, which is something that we really tried to publicize is that the runaway hotline is available for young people. They will come pick kids up and take them to shelters or homes wherever they are, which I think is an amazing thing. It’s national. They will also take messages from me and if he calls in they will give him my messages and he can get messages to me through them if he’s not ready to call me directly. Um, and we keep his Face Book page current and we are working on creating a My Space page. We distribute media kits on regular basis with new photos or Jaliek to keep up the interest and, ah, we’ve arranged a reward based on ht info given to us from Team Adam National Center and the FBI. Which is that people sometimes wait for rewards to go up and so by publicly saying that this reward will go down, ah, our hope is that people will come forward on the sooner side rather than the later side.

Um, that is most of what we have done publicly at this point. We have other p0lans in the works and there are a lot of things we’ve done I can’t tell you about yet because thing that we do sometimes get sabotaged when they get put out there before they are ready. It’s happened several times.

And then on the private side, we do a lot of research on runaway shelters, and blogs. We have called a lot of shelters all over. We leave messages at 1-800-run-away and update them occasionally. We have a focus group that meets to brainstorm ideas about finding Jaliek, many of those ideas are [unclear] that they are in the works and as they come closer we will talk more.

We look up information about gangs in the Albany area. And pass that on to Chief Bell. The FBI has informed us that there are over 20 gangs in Albany alone. Nobody seems to know that. And that we have found two name of people who work with gangs, John Cutro (sp?) and Cook Barrett, which we passed on their names and information to Bell as well so he could talk to them. And there was just a conference on foster care youth in Albany and their attractions to gangs in Albany and so that is also something else that we passed on to the police. We contact the police at least once daily sometimes four, five, six times. We connect with psychics pass along their information. We collect photos form different people and edit them to take out primarily people who are not involved and deserve their privacy.

We spend a lot of time working on appropriate arrangements for Jaliek when he comes home. We continue to be prepared. When researching runaways one of the big things they talked about is that nobody is ready for when the come home. And so you need to think about when he comes h9ome, what kinds of things need to be set in place. So we are forming a [unclear] committee, which is a single point of access. Which is a group of people who know Jaliek---therapists and social workers and just, you know, you get everybody together who…

Kerr: Educational.

McDonald: Education, to, make the best decision about what can be done for Jaliek and that can take up to a year to get one of those together and actually functioning, so, we have been working on that one. And with that we have meetings with lots of people.

We continually send out new e-mails to our list asking them to pass them onto their list and print them and put them up. Let’s see the, like Friday or Saturday…

Kerr: Sunday or Monday.

McDonald: Oh, the Sunday or Monday after Jaliek left which would be like November 5, Stephen’s sister Yinka emailed one of our posters to a DEA agent on her list. All of our friends are sending them out to all of their other friends. And he [DEA agent] sent them out to 5,700 DEA agents on his list.

Kerr: Monday morning.

McDonald: Monday morning, yeah. And so wheat we are doing, is I got a phone call from the adoptive support group leader who had a family move to Indonesia. Which was interesting. Not from us but from through Yinka, actually who has contacts in Indonesia. And Stephen’s parents have a lot of contacts all over the world. So, and Stephen’s sister has sent it out all over the world and then those people, she has contacts in Zimbabwe who have friends in New York City who, you know, and so it’s just gone, it’s gone and gone and gone and gone and gone.

Let’s see, oh, different people have suggested that we do different things. People like, groups like Team Adam and other [unclear] people. We make time lines and biographies and possibility maps of all the different things that could have possibly have happened. And lists of interests and things like that where we are doing biographies of Jaliek and all the things that he could potentially be interested in. It’s useful for the police to know that he likes basketball and they can look for him at basketball courts. That they can look for him in a library because he loves libraries. I mean the source of places that he might go to hang out or get warm or be with other people.

We have learned a lot of computer and research skills. And we have connected a lot with our local school and about what he needs when he comes back. We meet with a lot of agencies like the FBI, the DSS that’s about [unclear], state and local police, the missing persons experts, psychics, Team Adam, clergy. We have nightly meetings to discuss our plans for the next day. With whoever has come to support us including family that have come from Atlanta and Romania, friends from Massachusetts, China, and Tennessee, as well as local people. We keep a daily log, that’s here (show me), and Stephen has take two months off of work to focus on this crisis and he is currently not at work.

McDonald: Are you going to say anything (speaking to Stephen)? Huh, OK, good, that leaves me.

Um, primarily, to me, the best support we are getting at the moment is this focus group which creates new ideas, brainstorms, bounces off each other, plans, delegates things.

Since Jaliek disappeared the community has made dinner for us every night, which is incredible. It’s been months. Many people have offered and done child care so we can attend meetings. People research a lot of information for us. They, the community, has copied and distributed posters far and wide. I’ve seen of black and white copes that we did not put out. And I see them everywhere. Many people have come forward with their own stories and their children running away or them running away when they were kids. Really kind of humorous to see an elderly person at the church who comes to me and says, “Well, I ran away when I was a little girl” and you are (chuckle) looking at this very proper old woman. Um, and then these people were saying that these kids returned to lead healthy lives. You know, “my son was gone for a year. Don’t worry don’t give up hope.” It’s been incredible and I’ve been really surprised how many people come forward with those stories. It’s very reassuring.

Parent with children who have similar issues as Jaliek have come forward wit their stories and talked to the police about them. Lots of professionals have donated their expertise from massage and meals and acupuncture, advice about the press and missing children therapy, other therapies, cranial sacro, lot of people have donated their time.

Ah, local people have spoken out in our behalf and written letters to the editor. Lots of local businesses keep our son’s picture up in their windows. Many people have taped Jaliek’s picture to their cars. Um, we have received many cards, hugs, and supportive words (shows me a card). This is the latest one that we got from a friend of ours, which was very sweet. And it came with quite a substantial financial gift, which helps us a lot at this point. Our community has reached out to their bigger communities, creating a larger web of people who are caring and supporting us. We have been kind of amazed a the young people who have come forward, many, many young people, teenagers or even younger have felt very moved to write letters, letters to the editor. One young lady put up the Face Book page. We were in the process of trying to put up a Face Book page and found out there already was one up. Which we keep updated. Younger kids draw pictures, other kids come over and play games with our kids who are, you know, struggling in this crisis.

Lots and lots and lots, countless people have walked the streets and the fields and volunteered their time to peek inside each “hoody” at the face and people inside there. I have lot of people say, “I ran and ran and ran and caught up with this kid and looked inside and it was not Jaliek, you know.” And ah, that is pretty amazing. Groups of people have gathered and organized food shopping, laundry, pharmacy pickup, animal care, and people come with lists, “What can I do for you? Do you need laundry done, do you need like let me take this, let me do this.” That’s been pretty amazing.

People I don’t even know on the streets have been overwhelmingly supportive. Stephen and I have both had people walk down the road, come up to us and give us hugs and say, “I am so sorry. We have be through something similar or we haven’t,” or whatever.

[Phone interruption]

McDonald: Let’s see, like I said, overwhelmingly people have just, walking down the street, I have become a celebrity that I didn’t want to ever be and people will just walk up and say, “I am so sorry I hear about it on the news. I pray for you.” Check-out people at Hannaford’s, “oh, I am so sorry. I see your things on the news and I know it’s not true, and I pray for your family.” That has been incredible the number of people, you are walking through your day kind of like, this, and people have been great.

Lots of people came forward at the holiday season to try and help our kids to have as good a time as they could. [Including Rainwalker, the couple have five children--two adopted and three natural---between the ages of 7-15.] It was a hard holiday and I don’t mean with gifts, I mean with caring and…

Kerr: Time.

McDonald: Time. Especially at the time very few people have extra time, but lots of cookies! (chuckle).

And then we’ve had lots of other, more private, gifts of love and support that, you know, that people don’t want us to talk about. Um, but I do want to acknowledge that lots other things have happened and it’s been, I will say that I grew up moving constantly, I was a military brat, and I went to 18 schools before I graduated from high school and I never had a home base, and when we moved here, what Stephen and I like about the community was that it’s very much a community. It’s very much settled and yet it has taken me a long time to feel a part of the community but this has been the thing that makes me realize that I am a part of the community. That people really care and see us and one of the things that Stephen and I realize is that this has woven us into the web of community. This whole story in a way that you know never got had this not happened. So anyhow…

Kerr: Our minister wrote a letter on our behalf at one point and she said that there’s been a number of families, people, she has heard over the years who knew our family and knew we adopted two children, kids and adults who have outwardly said I wish they would adopt me. She had never heard that from anyone before in her entire life.

McDonald: I will tell you honestly I have had a lot of adults say that to me, “I wish you would adopt me.” One just called me the other day and was crying and said, “Jocelyn, remember that thing I said to you two years ago about I wish you would adopt me? I think I need to adopt you!” (chuckle) that was so sweet. You know with what you are going through and how hard things are. She has gone out of her way to invite us to meals and reach out to us.

The talk continued, but in the end the couple asked that what followed not be printed--in part because of their intent to provide their other four children with privacy. The talk ended with Kerr reiterating the couple’s intent with talking to Main Street…

Kerr: Our interview here is about finding my son…My goal is not to respond to what other people have said, my goal here is to give information about what I have done, what my family has done, and how I am moving forward because we believe our son is alive, and he is somewhere. There is absolutely not one, single, single, tiny, microscopic…

McDonald: Shred of evidence that he’s not alive.

Kerr: Shred of evidence that he’s dead.

Linda Anderson: Where do you think he is?

McDonald: I think that he could be in many, many, many, different places and my original ideas are not broad enough to the possibilities and that is part of what our focus group is working on. Is absolutely how broad are the possibilities or where he could be.