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foreign [Music] [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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[Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] missing person jalik rainwalker
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on Friday November 2nd 2007. 12 year old jalik rainwalker was reported missing from his grandparents
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residence in Greenwich Washington County New York is biracial with light brown hair and
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green eyes at the time of his disappearance jaleek was five foot six inches tall
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105 pounds he is believed to have been wearing blue jeans a black high-top sneakers
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Foul Play is suspected anyone with any information is asked to contact the New York State
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Major Crimes unit at 518 -783-3211 or email NYS vicap troopers.ny.gov that's NYS v i c a p
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at troopers.ny.gov [Music] [Music] jalique rainwalker was born on August 2nd 1995 in Albany New York to a mother
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addicted to crack and alcohol jaleek was diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome meaning he was exposed to addictive
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toxic substances in utero that impacted his development despite all of our digging we have never located jaleek's
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parents names jalique was a good looking kid with green eyes and a big smile there are a few photos of jaleek
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available online and if you look him up you'll see a face beaming with personality but unfortunately due to
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jalik's parental situation he was put up for adoption shortly after entering this
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world from there he was shuttled around from foster home to foster home six in all
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before Stephen Kerr and Jocelyn McDonald adopted him in 2003 per the Albany Times
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Union jalik lived with the couple and their children for five years including three years as their adopted son
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Stephen and Jocelyn had four other children three biological sons and one adopted
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daughter the kids ranged in age from eight years old up to 14. jalique also had two biological half-brothers who
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lived in Albany New York about 35 miles from the town of Greenwich where jalique
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lived with his adoptive family and Rural upstate New York as described by our friends over at the
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Charlie project angelique's case profile page his adoptive family lived a non-traditional
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lifestyle when they first took Angelique the family lived about 15 minutes from the village of Greenwich in Washington
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County now this house was really the current house was really a Back to Nature type structure there's no indoor
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plumbing and the electricity the only electricity that the house has comes from a generator and oh it's just a one
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bedroom house so the family that sleeps together weeps together I guess it's easy to say that Julie's parents were
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the hippie types they sold eggs at local farmers markets and prefer to leave little to no environmental impact jalik
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was homeschooled by his adoptive parents and some other local kids were schooled
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Edge Lake's home as well now jaleek had some behavioral problems according to the Cambridge Greenwich Police Chief the
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boy was diagnosed with a number of emotional and psychiatric problems because of his fetal alcohol syndrome
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and being shuffled around from seven different families and his only 12 years of life his life was not easy of course
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misbehavior and lack of understanding of appropriate inner interaction was to be
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he expected but his issues resulted in emotional Outburst that could be violent his adoptive parents stated later that
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he had rage-filled temper tantrums and that his siblings were afraid of him his outbursts could last up to an hour
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jaleek was very intelligent he was an Avid Reader before jalique was adopted he lived with the showin family and they
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did plan to adopt him but after he attacked their daughters when he was seven years old they decided he could no
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longer stay in their home this is when he went to live with Stephen and Jocelyn several of the other Foster families who
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had taken Angelique temporarily over the years said that he was a loving child but his outbursts were too disruptive
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for them to feel comfortable offering him a permanent home this is just a difficult situation
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and it's a sad reality that we have this kid who is brought into this world and he's brought into
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this world a victim immediately yeah and he's given up for adoption and and to be honest with you
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Captain I thank God that those parents the woman was at least smart enough to give him up for adoption as rough as
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that sounds it doesn't sound like she had the skill set or resources to raise a child well I'm like you said I mean you
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have trauma happening to you since birth right and then you're being shuffled around and
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then you have this situation where people good people are attempting to do a good thing bring this child into their
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home try to raise them as their own but because of his issues it becomes an unbearable situation where
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now your children might be afraid of of this kid who who seems to be a great kid
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smart kid loving child but at times he's got these outbursts that are violent and
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at times scary yeah you want to help the kid but you don't want to put your kid in danger as well so that's a little
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background on the events that were leading up to The Disappearance of Julie well let's go over this house really
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quick because I mean that's a very odd situation oh I didn't get into it because I just assumed everybody lived
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that way it's almost like they lived in like a hunting cabin like something that
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would be okay for the weekend we're going to go up there yeah there's no electricity but we have a generator
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we're gonna spend some time Outdoors that doesn't seem that bad it seems like a far removed a reality compared to how
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people are living currently seven people sleeping in one room too I don't know how ethical that is
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especially when you have a kid you're trying to adopt it just seems a little funny to me that's the thing it's
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it's difficult to talk about it here imagine living in that situation yeah and the younger kids probably don't know
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much different now at the end of October 2007 12 year old jaleek had a few rough
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days according to Stephen and Jocelyn jalik threatened another young boy who was in his home school class at their
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house it's reported the boy was only about five years old according to Jocelyn and Stephen jaleek
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said some pretty horrible things to this kid along the lines of a violent sexual
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assault he intended to perpetrate on him now it's important to bear in mind that
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we are hearing all of this information about this incident second hand he's just a kid himself so where is he here
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in this stuff in order to be able to make those type of threats to somebody else if in fact this went down the way
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they said it went down correct because jaleek was homeschooled and the family was somewhat isolated from society there
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is not really any way to verify whether their depiction of this incident is accurate at all yeah and sometimes it's
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just a like you said A Simple Choice this is a family that wants to live this way and sometimes it's a choice to be
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isolated because you don't want people to know what's going on behind closed doors regardless of what went down
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they're going to say this is what went down and according to them this incident was the last straw Jocelyn had become
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afraid of the boy she says according to the Charlie project on October 23rd Stephen called a crisis hotline and
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reported jalique to be unmanageable around the same time Jocelyn and Steven began inquiring of child services
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Personnel how to reverse the adoption they were informed that a legal adoption is binding and cannot be undone
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jalik was theirs to keep they were recommended respite care services respite care services is
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temporary institutional care of a sick elderly or disabled person providing relief for their usual caregiver in
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other words short-term relief with a little separation time between in this situation parents Angelique they decided
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to make use of this resource this was not the first time that they did though right the plan was for Elaine and Tom
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person to keep jalique at their home for a few days after that he would be sent to another Respite Home the persons who
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had housed jaleek in the past kept him at their home until November 1st on the evening of Thursday November 1st
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Stephen picked jalique up from the person's home near Albany Father and Son went to a Red Robin
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restaurant to get some dinner then instead of returning to the family home in Greenwich
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Steven Angelique headed to Stephen's parents house at 11 Hill Street in a different part of Greenwich this house
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was unoccupied at the time as Stephen's father was a state department Diplomat stationed in Romania and Steven's mother
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was there with him as well at the house Stephen later told police the two spent the night but in the
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morning he went into the room jaleek slept in and found that the bed was stuffed with pillows the way the kids do
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when they want it to look like someone was sleeping in that bed jalique was not there
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at 7 30 a.m Stephen found a note and then he called the Cambridge Greenwich Police at 8 57 a.m all right
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just side note here make sure you're paying attention at 7 30 a.m Stephen found a note he calls the police at 8 57
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am this note was handed over to the police it was angelique's handwriting and it
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said dear everybody I am sorry for everything I won't bother you anymore goodbye jalik
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now not on the same note but on a separate sheet of paper there was a word Albany
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later people suspect that this could be important now the story of the parents of Jocelyn and Stephen
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they were saying hey Julie clearly ran away he had gotten in big trouble with them
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and clearly felt horrible about it the adoptive family sat down with police to discuss their child well and when this
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family is supposed to be your forever home and now they're trying to give you back after seven houses you've already
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lived in this could be cause of well they don't even want me they don't want to try to
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work with me on any of the issues that I have and now they're bouncing me back around I I don't want to keep doing this
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so it gives a very plausible reason of why he would want to just leave the situation Stephen
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and Jocelyn told Chief Bell and his officers that their son was very troubled and he was both suicidal and
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homicidal at the time of his disappearance but they said they had not attempted to
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provide him with any counseling or medications for this it's unclear whether they just did not believe in
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medical intervention or if they were exaggerating jalik's condition Stephen and Jocelyn tried to come up with some
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possible destinations where jalique might have run off to they informed the Cambridge Greenwich PD about jalik's
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brothers his half-brothers in Albany that makes sense he's been there before maybe he wanted to seek them out or
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take up residence with them if possible right he's 12 years old you know it's it
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when you're 12 especially when you've been bounced around from a few different houses you might feel that it's not that
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difficult to just pick up roots and start elsewhere Jocelyn said perhaps jalique hitched a
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ride somewhere maybe like New York City because that was somewhere that jalik had always wanted to go
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now according to Stephen jaleek had befriended some older teen boys while at the Parsons home and he
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said well maybe they he ran off with them or they suggested that jaleek was interested in his Heritage and maybe he
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wanted to live with an African-American family well we have a missing 12 year old boy and thus the search Begins the
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police took this case very seriously from the beginning and that is obvious police chief Bell sent out officers to
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Canvas the area quote if he got out onto a main road somebody would have seen something Chief Bell said and working on
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the assumption that the child had gotten lost or God forbid harmed himself they pulled out all of the stops
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police and other agencies searched a five-mile radius of the Kerr's home where jalique was last seen by his
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adoptive father they used infrared cameras helicopters canines divers and even drained a pond
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in their aerial land and water searches for the missing boy forest rangers joined in to help scour
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the dense wooded areas tips were called in from around the Nation about supposed sightings
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these were checked and run down police investigated more than 200 leads in the first few days
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because this was not Chief Bell's first rodeo both the family's house and the where
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they actually lived and Steven's Father's House were both searched immediately when they didn't find jalique in the
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first couple of days things began to look worrisome November in Upstate New York has very
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cold nights Jocelyn and Steven were able to describe what they believed jaleek to
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be wearing at the time that he went missing a yellow fleece jacket a t-shirt with a dragon on it jeans and black high
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tops police could not totally rule out suicide or running away but since not a trace of jalique turned up in any of the
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searches things were looking dire Chief Bell told reporters on November 12th if he ran away he would have turned up by
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now and we just don't have a runaway kid here yeah I mean it's 12 years old so it's not like he has the resources to
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just go start a new life even though maybe he wanted to because of all the problems I think he was
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having but he's also 12 years old so we can assume he's a little as far as Street smarts go a little
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naive and becomes a likely victim yeah I mean he could have taken off he's he's a child that children are impulsive
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and he is making irrational decisions or choices or or the ability to not make good choices when he is throwing fits
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so he may just be reacting to stuff going on and may have made some bad choices now the adoptive parents in the
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family they tried to pull the community together as one would expect immediately
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after the kid went missing they spent weeks putting up flyers and Jocelyn implored residents to post jaleek's
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missing flyer and keep an eye out for the boy they held prayer vigils they hired a psychic they offered a cash
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reward but pretty quickly it became apparent that their public facade was not the
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same as their private Behavior something's wrong here police chief George Bell said to the newspapers he
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said in 30 years of experience a kid of 12 years old and he says I don't care what his mindset is he doesn't fall off
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the face of the world and chief Bell came right out and stated that Stephen and Jocelyn were not acting the way
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other concerned distraught parents acted in his experience they didn't set up shop at the police
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station demanding action and answers now Stephen claims to have called the police
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station 78 times but Chief Bell disputes this right he pointed out that Stephen and his wife
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agreed to be interviewed only with an attorney and Stephen did not agree to be polygraphed on the advice of his
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attorney yeah which we we see that happen often but you'd think they'd do a thorough search of the the house yeah
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there's some debate on how thorough the search of the houses were because what's
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going to happen is that's really you're doing like a cursory search at that point in your investigation you're
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really just going in there and looking for the boy himself right A lot of times kids are just hiding somewhere there's
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there's an amazing amount of calls where it's a missing person's case little kid
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especially the younger they are they're often found in the home right so you're just looking through these
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houses for this young boy himself and that makes you move from room to room rather quickly
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you're not really there looking for evidence of what could have happened to the boy unless things are obvious any
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obvious side so later you're going to have the parents say hey we submitted to these searches
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on both of these properties very early on later the police are going to have a different version of that saying these
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were just cursory searches we didn't really get into any detailed searches of the home and when we tried to go back
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they said no no no we don't want you here now Jocelyn on the other hand did agree to be polygraphed and I couldn't
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find the results of that but my guess is what there's just a lot of things with these individuals that don't make a lot
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of sense like the one the lawyer told the husband not to take a polygraph test but it's okay for the
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wife to take one it's just seems very strange I don't know could not find the results
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of that test but uh I'm thinking that they didn't gain anything to further fuel their suspicions from
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that polygraph test right the husband's refusal to cooperate and it goes beyond forever you know there
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are people out there going right now well who cares he didn't agree to the polygraph test it wasn't just that it
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was other forms of not cooperating not answering basic questions not being willing to sit down without an attorney
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present and not setting up uh information center at the police department setting up shop I mean some people will
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hunker down at the police station to keep an eye on what's going on and and be fully aware and be the first to know
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what's going on with their child that didn't happen here so these things are setting off some alarm bells to to some
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people out there and as there were hints there were also hints that Stephen Kerr
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had a problem with his own temper and had flown off the handle at jaleek in the past
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one story Chief Bell learned from Jocelyn's mother Julie's grandmother Barbara really
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who heard it straight from her daughter was of a situation when jaleek was nine years old and he was continually making
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some noise by like drumming his fingers or hands on the table even though Stephen repeatedly asked him to stop at
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some point as The Story Goes Stephen lost it and grabbed the boy dragged him down to a creek to the creek near the
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home and was holding his head under water this until the wife intervened right that's that's called attempted
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murder Stephen and Jocelyn hired an attorney right from Jump Street they got a bulldog at a big local firm named
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Jeffrey McMorris this lawyer said publicly that the Cambridge Greenwich Police and state police were treating
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Stephen as a suspect and clearly embraced the idea that he had done something to jaleek rather than
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investigating if the boy ran away McMorris requested that the FBI take over the investigation
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articles show that the FBI became involved in the case of missing jalik Graham Walker by the end of November
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and while Stephen and Jocelyn stopped cooperating with police and refused to participate in searches for their son in
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early December they appeared in an exclusive interview with Anya Tucker of tv10 Albany in which they refused to
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answer most of the questions instead declaring how much they were doing to find jalik and were preparing for when
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he returns to their home and then there was this on December 20th an article in the
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Albany Times Union states Stephen Kerr the last person to see jaleek rainwalker his adopted son before the boy
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disappeared November 1st has been seen around Greenwich and Cambridge tearing down Flyers advertising a vigil for the
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missing boy police chief Bell says he receives several calls a day from people who are angered and perplexed by Kerr's
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Behavior police sources and multiple eyewitnesses told the newspaper they saw Stephen
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removing the signs apparently Steven said that he wanted the Flyers gone because the event they were promoting
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was organized by people who were slandering [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music]
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[Music] we're back cheers to you Captain cheers to all the people out there especially the people
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in the back I want to make sure that I point out that the cheap seats hey those are the best seats those are the people
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that fought to get in what did John Lennon used to say he'd say that people in the cheap seats clap your hands and
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the people up front just jiggle your jewelry [Laughter] captain that we relied on the excellent
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coverage of this case for our coverage of this case by The Post Star newspaper articles
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by Don Lehman as well as the excellent coverage by the Albany Times Union I want to put that in there before we got
00:29:59
too far right let's try to make sense of this so it's it's the adopted father so
00:30:04
Stephen yeah yeah but to go around and to pull down Flyers it makes zero sense to me I don't care what they're saying
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about you by having that flyer up there it's bringing attention to the fact that
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your adopted son is missing the whole point of anything is to find him safe or find out what happened to him and by
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ripping down these flyers and not talking to police and not doing certain things it's almost like you're stepping
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away and and we know with a lot of these missing person cases you you need the story to
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be as loud as possible so you can get as much of a spotlight on the case right and there are people out there that will
00:30:47
argue hey this was not technically missing persons Flyers these were Flyers advertising the the prayer vigil or the
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candlelight vigil for this missing boy but you're spot on Captain any any publicity is good publicity at this
00:31:02
point right and you would also think that your headspace would be so or gone from
00:31:10
other than finding the boy right like wouldn't that just be consuming you at the time like you don't need that sweet
00:31:17
taste of vindication of ripping down Flyers to get even with these people that you think are bad-mouthing you
00:31:23
you'd be too concerned about finding your son but if this is true then maybe this is a
00:31:31
check mark there is verification of this dude not being able to control his behavior and
00:31:39
reaction to things yeah I mean this guy's [ __ ] stain but I also like we go back to that house
00:31:47
you have a adopted son and you were saying an adopted daughter correct correct and then biological kids
00:31:56
and they're all sharing one room they're all sleeping in one room I just and this has happened several
00:32:04
times where we have these sick individuals that will adopt children and they abuse them
00:32:13
and I think there's some kind of law against some of these things I know in certain States
00:32:21
that if you let's say you get remarried your step daughter can't share a room with your biological son
00:32:30
certain things like that that they have to if they're not blood relative that they can't share a room
00:32:37
I know that's a law in several States you'd think that would apply also to people that are going through adoptions
00:32:44
but it seems like they got these adoptions to go through and then they just said well we'll do whatever we want
00:32:49
we'll live however we want um this just seems like a very dark situation that should have been
00:32:57
investigated before the kid even went missing if anybody knew to investigate it so I I mean I don't to me it's really
00:33:06
pretty cut and dry right it's either a situation of this is a family making do the best they can
00:33:14
I mean look some people are forced to live in their cars for months at a time right but either this is a situation
00:33:21
where families just trying to make do and squeak by or you're right maybe maybe there's
00:33:27
something something weird going on here or or it's just somebody milking the system
00:33:33
yeah or a little bit of both I mean but I think the thing is is most people that
00:33:38
can't help themselves or can't help their family they don't look into the idea of adopting
00:33:44
more children that's more mouths to feed that's more bodies to house what's the advantage I get what you're saying but
00:33:53
we got to keep in mind he was with them for five years so their situation could have changed when he was 12 could be
00:33:59
much different than when he was seven yeah okay so what we have here now is the boy still missing jaleek's still
00:34:06
missing and now we got this added threat of the cold weather and possibly snowy winter weather is on
00:34:15
the way volunteers continue to go out looking and looking for jaleek but nothing was found
00:34:22
and then Steve and Kerr looks like he was feeling the heat a little bit he told the Times Union
00:34:29
claiming to be completely Cooperative by the way he said he opened his bank and phone records to police and let them
00:34:37
search the two homes that he had access to we touched on this a little bit before he said quote I've done
00:34:43
everything all they want to do is string me up and hang me but they don't have any evidence
00:34:51
but Chief Bell said Stephen wouldn't even put his fingerprints on the door of the police
00:34:58
station he said he used his elbows to open the door at the police station in Cambridge
00:35:04
when he came in to bring in some information Bell is on record stating I mean this
00:35:13
whole thing is weird end quote yeah I mean look you just get that feeling and especially as police
00:35:20
officers or law law enforcement officers they're they're around this stuff often I mean
00:35:27
to me it feels a lot um pedo-like and child abuse that's that's my gut feeling so what did the investigators uncover
00:35:38
about Steve and kerr that clearly convinced them that he knew more than what he was saying well on the morning
00:35:46
that he reported jaleek missing he told them that he found the goodbye note as I'm calling it from his son at 7 30 a.m
00:35:54
when he woke up but as we pointed out earlier he didn't call the police until 8 57 a.m what did he do during the hour
00:36:03
and a half between finding the note and calling the police he took a shower and he returned some
00:36:09
rented movies Be Kind Rewind he did admit this to Chief Bell in all fairness he wasn't like hiding this information
00:36:18
well in all fairness you get charged for the late fee that's important yeah but I think I think I do think it's
00:36:25
important to point out he wasn't hiding they didn't have to dig this up right right you know but it does seem weird
00:36:32
an hour and a half goes by before you report him missing and there's more what no the reporting the kid missing like an
00:36:39
hour and a half later not a big deal to me if you're looking for the kid if you're
00:36:45
calling around if you're doing some work you know they're not necessarily you got
00:36:50
a 12 year old boy right this is of age where you could go to the store and let him stay behind and maybe babysit some
00:36:58
of the kids so when you see this note that your 12 year old adopted son is missing you go
00:37:05
well let me look around real quick let me go to some spot that I know he hangs out at let me take a shower and return
00:37:12
some movies right but let me let me call some of his friends if you told me he did all those things and then he called
00:37:20
the cops I go okay that makes sense but taking a shower and returning some movies
00:37:26
it's ridiculous well I I in full disclosure Captain I'm with you the note by itself doesn't doesn't alarm me to
00:37:34
the point of immediate panic but when you compound that with oh I found his bed stuffed with pillows to make it look
00:37:41
like somebody was sleeping in it and I'm trying to reverse you know I'm a week away from trying to have reversed this
00:37:49
adoption yeah that's weird you know what I mean there's a lot there's a lot of stuff going on so the other thing too is
00:37:55
that the police did they did have to uncover this the uncovered video surveillance camera
00:38:01
footage of a Chrysler Town and Country van that Chief Bell stated on the record was
00:38:07
exactly like the gold one owned by Stephen's father remember the night that jalik went missing or the morning
00:38:14
however you want to look at it that he went missing he and Stephen were at Stephen's parents
00:38:21
home just the two of them and this van that they found on the surveillance camera footage
00:38:28
it was seen driving by the Glenn's Falls National Bank branch on Main Street and Greenwich at
00:38:37
12 16 a.m on November 2nd that's the night that jalique vanished Stephen told investigators that he was asleep at his
00:38:48
father's house at that time of night liar well I mean they've never been able to confirm that it was in fact the same
00:38:55
van but it looks identical according to the police chief right investigators stated that Stephen refused to allow
00:39:03
them to inspect the minivan to compare it to the one seen on the video of course he did of course he did further
00:39:11
Chief Bell subpoenaed Steven's cell phone records and they showed some inconsistencies with what Stephen Kerr
00:39:18
told police about that night his cell phone history showed that on the night of November 1st after he and
00:39:26
jaleek left the Red Robin Stephen took a different route to the Hill Street house
00:39:33
then he had claimed Chief Bell said we know for a fact he has lied to us about that route because
00:39:41
the cell phone records State he was nowhere near the route he told us he took home
00:39:47
there was also very little cell phone activity that has been reported for Stephen for that night in question
00:39:55
he had one call at 8 15 the night before and then there was no other call until he called the police at 8 57 a.m the
00:40:06
morning when Stephen said he found the note I'd like to know if his phone was even on
00:40:12
or in service because with cell phone ping technology maybe we would know where he went
00:40:19
so what we have here Captain is about roughly 12 hours you know what was Stephen doing
00:40:26
either he was doing exactly what he told the police he was doing but it doesn't seem that way you know he's at his
00:40:32
parents home with jaleek and they went to bed and Stephen slept for the night or or was it more of what we have
00:40:38
evidence of that's just not true the story might just not be true if that's the case then
00:40:46
we have ours oh we know he could have been covering something up or getting rid of something well but right but
00:40:54
we're pretty clear on the fact that this guy's a liar and if we think he's a liar
00:40:58
then law enforcement thinks he's a liar and it's like what else is he lying about well let's get into that 8 15 PM
00:41:05
call this was very shortly after Stephen Angelique finished eating dinner at the
00:41:10
Red Robin according to the Post-Star this call was from a friend of Stevens who later spoke to police
00:41:19
this is some weird stuff he told them that on the phone Stephen was agitated and angry and Stephen made
00:41:26
several rude comments about jalique the caller's impression was that jalique was in the
00:41:34
vehicle and could hear the insulting and derogatory things that Stephen was saying about the child
00:41:43
in January of 2008 it came out in the media that Stephen and Jocelyn were continuing to receive monthly stipend
00:41:53
checks for fifteen hundred dollars of course they were these were funds paid to adoptive families of challenged
00:42:01
children by the Department of Social Services to help pay for their care of course jalique had been gone for
00:42:09
months by this point all of this was enough to tip the scales let's say in a news conference on
00:42:17
January 14 2008 police named Stephen Kerr as a person of interest in jaleek's disappearance this was based all on the
00:42:28
information we just went through and the fact that he was the last person to see
00:42:33
the child before jaleek vanished meanwhile at the other end of January 2008 there
00:42:43
was a big development in this case an anonymous letter sent to Media around the region that claimed missing
00:42:52
12-year-old Julie grainwalker was alive and was picked up on route 40. this was being investigated by police
00:43:01
the Post-Star says they received the type Written Letter on Wednesday as did at least two Albany
00:43:11
television stations but the contents of the letter are a lot more in-depth than that
00:43:19
the letter which contained no return address and was postmarked and was postmarked Westchester New York
00:43:28
reads jelik still alive needed a foot soldier for this War on Drugs picked him up Route 40 post 30. he's
00:43:40
okay no fake he says ask his mama and papa who are the macaroni family my cat name Diamond yes
00:43:53
why does Franti yell fire and then it says rapper question mark I don't know what that means don't try to
00:44:01
look we are not there clearly this letter was designed to make it look like jalik was alive and maybe
00:44:08
even well and living somewhere else with a crazy person yeah I don't know I mean or
00:44:16
who knows or was it supposed to be some code for something there's no indication
00:44:20
of who wrote it I mean your guess is as good as mine or anybody else's I mean did you like write it did somebody write
00:44:27
it on his behalf as somebody holding him somewhere against his will is he living
00:44:32
there happily it's a confusing letter well this I'd really like to know if if the
00:44:40
initial letter that was supposedly written by jalik was actually written by jalik and if this and if that wasn't
00:44:48
then I would guess that this one isn't as well and this is just to throw law enforcement off this well this was a
00:44:55
typed letter so it again it's it's the person no return address it's kind of cryptic it's typed there's whoever
00:45:05
whoever gave this to the media they're clearly constructing the thing with without the intention of you
00:45:14
determining who authored this letter right right now Stephen and Jocelyn's lawyer Jeffrey McMorris jumped on this
00:45:21
opportunity to say hey I Told You So Right their lawyer said that the letter contained information that only jalik
00:45:29
would have known so that's got to be proof that he's still alive somewhere right and his clients Stephen Kerr and
00:45:35
Jocelyn McDonald were excited and they said that it was a sign that rainwalker was still alive and again they're just
00:45:43
they're doing everything they can this is what they're saying and not only are we doing everything we can but we're
00:45:50
also preparing for the boy to return now this letter arrived hey we were preparing for the boy to return when
00:45:57
we're going to try to get rid of him anyways and we we keep taking the money we keep taking money for him even though
00:46:04
he's not around even though we're probably the cause of him not being around but we're going to
00:46:09
keep taking money so what shows you what kind of people these are well this letter arrived it came about
00:46:16
as the Kerr McDonald Clan was in the process of packing everything up to move to Vermont
00:46:24
because Stephen felt that he was being persecuted by the police in the meantime as they prepare to leave
00:46:31
the family was staying at the Hill Street home of Stephen's parents where Stephen Angelique spent the night that
00:46:39
last night that julieq was seen yeah well you got to stay there so you can monitor it so you can monitor if the
00:46:46
police are searching that area but but then you're also leaving the other place abandoned to not keep an eye on it so
00:46:54
yeah but you but if if you're the one responsible for him going missing you know which property is important
00:47:02
which one's not on February 7th the Cambridge Greenwich Police visited the family there it seems as though this
00:47:11
impromptu visit was deliberately intended to allow the police you know to look around scout out what was going on
00:47:18
in the house they saw a computer when they were there and this this is when they're like uh oh
00:47:25
they freeze the scene and they sent someone out immediately to get a search warrant so they could confiscate the
00:47:32
computer yeah Chief Bell would not comment on whether they planned on searching the computer to see whether it
00:47:39
had produced the anonymous letters about jalique being alive but they want to search it for something so we can assume
00:47:46
that's probably what they're looking at amongst other things but according to the Post-Star newspaper the letters were
00:47:53
typed in a font and style that bore a quote strong resemblance to those used by Jocelyn and other correspondents to
00:48:01
the media unfortunately forensic examination of the letters themselves did not provide really any indication as
00:48:10
to the source of the latter as a result of this search though Jeffrey McMorris filed a notice of claim against the
00:48:18
police department naming Chief Bell specifically alleging trespassing and fall false imprisonment no lawsuit was
00:48:26
ever filed and nothing was ever settled it really looks like this Captain was kind of a warning shot you know from the
00:48:34
attorney to the police department telling them to back off right don't bully my clients
00:48:41
so bully don't do your job that's what he was trying to say don't do your job McMorris was dramatically
00:48:48
indignant about all of these unwarranted infringements on his clients rights he was constantly making statements like
00:48:56
the police conduct was outrageous and calling Chief Bell the ringleader of The Witch Hunt against his clients he
00:49:05
continued to declare that the police were focusing on the wrong person that jalique was out there somewhere and the
00:49:12
investigators were suffering from tunnel vision I do want to get into a couple of people
00:49:19
that well they seem to really truly care about jalique let's talk about two women
00:49:27
involved in this case who have principles and stood up for this unwanted child despite the personal cost
00:49:34
of doing so one is Elaine person she's the respite caregiver she was an advocate for jalik from the beginning
00:49:44
she was of course aware of his behavioral issues but as a respite caregiver she was trained to deal with
00:49:53
them and look past them to the person that the child truly was she says quote jalik was a beautiful
00:50:01
sweet intelligent generous and loving child with some behavior issues according to Elaine she and her husband
00:50:12
Angelique had a nice five days together and when jaleek left her home with Stephen on that day November 1st she
00:50:21
said he seemed happy it certainly did not seem to her that jaleek was planning to run away or harm himself and remember
00:50:30
she said she did not believe that the boy knew that his adoptive parents were trying to give him back right
00:50:38
besides just offering insight into jaleek Elaine had some important information for the investigators she
00:50:47
told them that during julieq's stay with them she and her husband Tom observed jaleek doing some homework assigned to
00:50:54
him by his father remember the whole the kids were homeschooled right and this homework
00:51:01
assignment was to write a letter of apology to the other kids in his home school classroom who he had hurt by this
00:51:09
recent outburst Elaine said that she did not read the note written by jalik out of respect for
00:51:17
his privacy but she knew what it was and what purpose it was intended for when she saw the news that Stephen Kerr
00:51:28
was you know she sees this on the news Kerr is holding up this same note as evidence saying that
00:51:35
jalik had left on his own volition she's shocked you know she yelled at the TV that's not a goodbye no that is a
00:51:44
homework assignment now we could give Stephen the benefit of the doubt and assume that he simply mistook this
00:51:52
letter of apology for a departure note but remember Stephen was the one who assigned jaleek to write the note in the
00:51:59
first place a really Suspicious Mind might even make the leap that Stephen had done so
00:52:06
deliberately planning to possibly later use the note to explain why jalik had vanished but it's
00:52:15
almost like he put him in a situation you go here for a couple days one write this note for me I'm going to use that
00:52:23
against you but I'm also going to use this time to figure out how I'm going to get rid of you
00:52:28
I find the whole thing a little weird and I question a lot of it I understand Elaine's suspicions but the way that the
00:52:37
letters written the the way it's constructed does seem a little more goodbyish to me
00:52:44
than apology right it says goodbye it says I won't bother you anymore um I guess you could take that
00:52:52
really one of two ways or maybe even both Now Elaine made it her mission to find
00:53:00
jalik she took a leave of absence from her job and started a task force comprising of her herself her husband
00:53:08
Barbara really who's Julie's grandmother and some of jalik's other Foster families they were calling themselves
00:53:16
the fine jalique task force they started a website publicizing jalik's disappearance it became a
00:53:24
bulletin board of sorts listing all sorts of suspect Behavior and past transgressions on the part of Jocelyn
00:53:31
and Steven the website has been taken down since then but we were able to find some
00:53:39
excerpts from it the website did not pull any punches for example Elaine wrote she believed
00:53:46
Stephen harmed jalique and caused his disappearance from a section titled what the police
00:53:53
know it's alleged that the family applied to adopt julique and another child basically in a bid to have access to the
00:54:05
state provided funds that accompanied such adoptions and then after these adoptions went through they moved to
00:54:14
that inadequate housing situation with no Plumbing or electricity right it was said that Stephen and Jocelyn
00:54:23
sent their own children to private school but made jaleek and the others make do with hand-me-downs and they were
00:54:31
homeschooled other posts on the website provided Snippets showing what life was like there for jalique
00:54:39
one says one time after a series of ignored reminders jalik's mother banned him from using the outhouses for several
00:54:49
days jaleek's only option was to either use the woods this around the house or try to wait it
00:54:58
out until the family went on some errands so he could use you know restrooms at these different businesses
00:55:05
both jaleek and Jocelyn told jaleek's former foster parent that jalique was locked in his room at
00:55:14
night they saw the locks on the doors when they visited jalik jalik's grandmother also confirmed that the
00:55:21
locks were there and used Julie's room also had no heat according to this post so the small
00:55:29
portable heater was I guess they put a small portable heater in the room at times but would remove it this to
00:55:36
believe believed to be a form of punishment now of course we should make sure that we don't believe everything
00:55:42
that we see on websites especially websites like this others on social media have posted that
00:55:49
Jocelyn had the kids best interest at heart and she was trying to protect jalik from her husband
00:55:57
Barbara really is Jocelyn McDonald's mother angelique's adoptive grandmother Barbara told the media that in the five
00:56:08
years jaleek lived with her daughter's family he exhibited instances of uncontrollable rages that were
00:56:15
frightening to other family members she also said that very quickly very early on she began to question the story
00:56:24
that jalique ran away because she did not like the answers she was getting from the parents to her
00:56:32
questions this comes to light and gets into some good detail from a 2016 post by Barbara on the Facebook page she
00:56:42
started for jalique and chime in at any time here Captain if you need clarification on anything
00:56:48
because there are some names in this post that we have not yet introduced to the audience
00:56:54
she posted nine years ago today jalique was last seen by the waitress and manager at Red Robin restaurant in
00:57:02
Latham New York just after 8 pm jaleek and Stephen left Red Robin and Steven's parents gold van
00:57:12
12 hours later my daughter Jocelyn McDonald called me saying jaleek had run away in the night and she wanted me to
00:57:20
drive to Greenwich she says this was a hurried 45 miles to Stephen's parents house where she found
00:57:29
Stephen Jocelyn and Robin Robin's one of the uh is her grandson in the family room of the house Robin had just
00:57:39
showered Jocelyn was heading into the shower and Stephen was talking rapidly about finding a note and that he had
00:57:47
gotten up early and looked in and seen what he thought was jalique in bed and then he had gone to shower and have
00:57:55
breakfast Stephen was rambling and talking faster and faster about the Respite Home and
00:58:03
the other foster children and then returned to talk about his meal that he had the night before
00:58:09
she says I asked questions about whether they'd reported jalique missing to the police and whether they'd gone to the
00:58:18
neighborhood houses searched the streets whether the house and the garage and the
00:58:23
van had been thoroughly searched how Jolie could have left the house through which door you know she's asking all the
00:58:30
normal questions whether there was any clothing or a jacket that might be missing the answers were that there was
00:58:39
only one way Julie could have left the house through the back door into the garage
00:58:45
and then out the automatic door of the garage she says I asked about the noise of the
00:58:53
garage opening and that there were extremely close neighbors that may have heard something
00:58:58
but the response was they didn't want to bother the neighbors with any questions
00:59:05
the front door was locked from the inside with a key that was still in the hall cupboard
00:59:11
there was no missing jacket or clothing that they remembered being in the house they hadn't gone to any neighbors or
00:59:20
searched the streets they hadn't searched the house except the bedroom jaleek had supposedly slept in the
00:59:27
previous night there was no overwhelming sense of urgency or danger for jaleek she says
00:59:35
indeed she says Jocelyn was concerned because Bevin and Kiana these are the the other
00:59:43
children were in the home school and she needed to get them and take robin to his
00:59:49
doctor's appointment she said that Stephen said he had an office birthday party to go to
00:59:55
after a half an hour Stephen and Jocelyn decided we all needed to go to their house on Raven way and then she would
01:00:04
get the kids together and then go to the son's doctor's appointment she says that
01:00:11
they all drove but they took separate vehicles to the home she said when she got into their house Jocelyn was on the
01:00:19
phone on her cell phone calling The Homeschool family and Steven started circling around her asking if she wanted
01:00:27
breakfast and listing all of the things that he could cook for her he was speaking rapidly she says in
01:00:34
walking in circles now once Jocelyn finished her phone call she got Robin into his coat and was
01:00:41
going to go pick up the other children then go on to the doctor's appointment Stephen said he was going to his work to
01:00:49
his boss's birthday party she says she was stunned and said that she would drive around and
01:00:57
look for jaleek which is how she spent November 2nd 2007. nine years ago today was the last time anyone other than
01:01:05
Stephen Kerr saw jaleek nine years of searching and investigating still no definitive answer jaleek was a wonderful
01:01:14
and loving child and deserves to be cared for and kept safe she says I feel we are in a holding
01:01:21
pattern but one day the final piece will be found and we'll know what happened to
01:01:26
jaleek and there will be Justice our search for jalique Will Go On until there are answers we love you jalik we
01:01:34
miss you look I wanted to go through that whole post there because it's important to
01:01:40
note that she's pointing out that as soon as she was alerted to this missing child as soon as she got involved as
01:01:48
soon as she's face to face with both mother and father neither of them seem to be concerned that the boy was missing
01:01:56
neither of them seem to be looking for how the boy would have left the home checking with the neighbors looking on
01:02:02
the streets they didn't want to bother the neighbors she's the one saying hey this is what we
01:02:07
should be doing this is what we should be investigating we should be calling this in we should be doing that
01:02:12
meanwhile adopted mom is worried about getting the other kid to the doctor's appointment getting kids to school
01:02:20
the dad is worried about oh hey sit down I can cook you some some breakfast this
01:02:25
is what I had for dinner last night I have to go to my boss's birthday party so a whole lot of
01:02:33
I mean there's no sense of urgency there's no there's no effort being made at that time when she walks into the
01:02:40
situation on behalf of the parents of Julie graemon [Music] all right thanks for joining us so much
01:02:58
more to get into tomorrow and we're going to be back here so we want to see you in the garage
01:03:05
tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't live foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music]