sws4420
12-21-2007, 01:56 PM
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g192/eg0member/localtab1221kerr.jpg
Man believes missing adopted son is living with black family somewhere
GREENWICH -- The father of missing 12-year-old Jaliek Rainwalker will meet today with FBI agents who will retrace the pair's steps on the night the boy disappeared.
Washington County resident Stephen Kerr said Thursday he is "100 percent sure" that Rainwalker, his adopted son, is alive and living with an African American family in Albany or Troy. He said Rainwalker, who had one African-American parent and one white parent, has always wanted to live with a black family. Kerr is white.
Today, FBI agents and Kerr will meet in the parking lot of a Best Western hotel on Western Avenue in Albany. That's where Kerr picked up Rainwalker on Nov. 1, after a five-day stay at a respite home.
From the hotel, agents will retrace Kerr and Rainwalker's trip to the home of Kerr's father in Greenwich. Kerr and his son stayed the night in the house by themselves. The next morning, Rainwalker was gone and Kerr produced a note in the boy's handwriting suggesting he ran away.
FBI officials declined to comment Thursday.
Kerr said he's pleased to be dealing with the FBI because he wants to find his son. But he is convinced that Rainwalker is alive and living with a family who, for unknown reasons, is keeping him hidden.
"Every time we went through a predominantly African American neighborhood he was like a kid in a candy shop. 'Can we stop there and go shopping?'... I'm 100 percent sure he's in an urban setting within an African American community," Kerr said.
Police don't think so. Since Rainwalker's disappearance on Nov. 1, police, forest rangers, and FBI agents have combed the woods and waterways around the Washington County towns of Greenwich and Cambridge.
There is no evidence to suggest Rainwalker is living in a nearby city, police said.
Kerr's remarks came in a phone call to the Times Union Thursday to dispute a newspaper article that said he was tearing down fliers advertising a Sunday evening vigil organized by other relatives and former caregivers of Rainwalker.
The "Light the Night for Jaliek" event at the Greenwich VFW will include lighting a dozen searchlights and signing a Christmas card for the boy.
Kerr denied tearing down posters, but did say he asked store owners to remove them. However, police sources and multiple eyewitnesses have said they saw Kerr removing the signs.
He said the event is being organized by people who have slandered him, and he therefore wants no part of it.
"They just want to say that I've killed him. They've done nothing except harass me and my family," said Kerr who has not been named a suspect. The event's organizers include Kerr's mother-in-law, Barbara Reeley, and Elaine and Tom Person, the Altamont couple who provided respite care for the emotionally troubled youth.
When asked if, in fact, he harmed Rainwalker in any way, or had anything to do with his disappearance, Kerr said, "No. I did not."
But he added, "I could understand how people picture me as a prime suspect. That is completely understandable." He said, though, that he's opened his credit card, banking and phone records to police and let them search two homes he had access to.
"I've done everything," he said.
"All they want to do is string me up and hang me but they don't have any evidence," he said.
Police dispute much of what Kerr told the Times Union, including Kerr's claim that he has placed 78 phone calls to Greenwich-Cambridge Police Chief George Bell since Rainwalker disappeared.
On Thursday, Bell said Kerr's behavior has been unusual throughout the ordeal, and that Kerr hasn't been the constant presence at the police station one might expect the parent of a missing child to be.
"If it was your 12-year-old child, where would you be?" Bell said. "This is a public building. Don't you think you'd be camped out on the doorstep?"
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=649220&category=SARATOGA&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=12/21/2007
Man believes missing adopted son is living with black family somewhere
GREENWICH -- The father of missing 12-year-old Jaliek Rainwalker will meet today with FBI agents who will retrace the pair's steps on the night the boy disappeared.
Washington County resident Stephen Kerr said Thursday he is "100 percent sure" that Rainwalker, his adopted son, is alive and living with an African American family in Albany or Troy. He said Rainwalker, who had one African-American parent and one white parent, has always wanted to live with a black family. Kerr is white.
Today, FBI agents and Kerr will meet in the parking lot of a Best Western hotel on Western Avenue in Albany. That's where Kerr picked up Rainwalker on Nov. 1, after a five-day stay at a respite home.
From the hotel, agents will retrace Kerr and Rainwalker's trip to the home of Kerr's father in Greenwich. Kerr and his son stayed the night in the house by themselves. The next morning, Rainwalker was gone and Kerr produced a note in the boy's handwriting suggesting he ran away.
FBI officials declined to comment Thursday.
Kerr said he's pleased to be dealing with the FBI because he wants to find his son. But he is convinced that Rainwalker is alive and living with a family who, for unknown reasons, is keeping him hidden.
"Every time we went through a predominantly African American neighborhood he was like a kid in a candy shop. 'Can we stop there and go shopping?'... I'm 100 percent sure he's in an urban setting within an African American community," Kerr said.
Police don't think so. Since Rainwalker's disappearance on Nov. 1, police, forest rangers, and FBI agents have combed the woods and waterways around the Washington County towns of Greenwich and Cambridge.
There is no evidence to suggest Rainwalker is living in a nearby city, police said.
Kerr's remarks came in a phone call to the Times Union Thursday to dispute a newspaper article that said he was tearing down fliers advertising a Sunday evening vigil organized by other relatives and former caregivers of Rainwalker.
The "Light the Night for Jaliek" event at the Greenwich VFW will include lighting a dozen searchlights and signing a Christmas card for the boy.
Kerr denied tearing down posters, but did say he asked store owners to remove them. However, police sources and multiple eyewitnesses have said they saw Kerr removing the signs.
He said the event is being organized by people who have slandered him, and he therefore wants no part of it.
"They just want to say that I've killed him. They've done nothing except harass me and my family," said Kerr who has not been named a suspect. The event's organizers include Kerr's mother-in-law, Barbara Reeley, and Elaine and Tom Person, the Altamont couple who provided respite care for the emotionally troubled youth.
When asked if, in fact, he harmed Rainwalker in any way, or had anything to do with his disappearance, Kerr said, "No. I did not."
But he added, "I could understand how people picture me as a prime suspect. That is completely understandable." He said, though, that he's opened his credit card, banking and phone records to police and let them search two homes he had access to.
"I've done everything," he said.
"All they want to do is string me up and hang me but they don't have any evidence," he said.
Police dispute much of what Kerr told the Times Union, including Kerr's claim that he has placed 78 phone calls to Greenwich-Cambridge Police Chief George Bell since Rainwalker disappeared.
On Thursday, Bell said Kerr's behavior has been unusual throughout the ordeal, and that Kerr hasn't been the constant presence at the police station one might expect the parent of a missing child to be.
"If it was your 12-year-old child, where would you be?" Bell said. "This is a public building. Don't you think you'd be camped out on the doorstep?"
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=649220&category=SARATOGA&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=12/21/2007