Jaliek Rainwalker

Jaliek Rainwalker was a twelve-year-old boy who had endured a difficult early life before his disappearance from the village of Greenwich, in Washington County, New York. Born addicted to crack cocaine, he spent his early childhood moving through a series of foster placements before being adopted by Stephen Kerr and Jocelyn McDonald, with whom he had lived for about five years. Jaliek struggled with serious emotional and behavioral problems, and by the fall of 2007 his adoptive parents were reportedly seeking to reverse the adoption, especially after an incident in which he threatened another child.

On November 1, 2007, Jaliek was returned from a brief respite-care stay, and that night he stayed at a house on Hill Street belonging to his adoptive father's parents. Stephen Kerr was the only adult with him. According to Kerr, when he woke the next morning, November 2, the boy was gone, and he found a note that read, in part, "Dear everybody, I'm sorry for everything. I won't be a bother anymore. Goodbye, Jaliek." Kerr reported him missing, and an extensive search of the community began.

Investigators quickly grew skeptical of the runaway theory. Some who knew the family questioned whether the note was truly a farewell message or something Jaliek had been told to write. More significantly, police said they obtained surveillance footage showing Kerr driving his van around Greenwich in the early morning hours, at a time when he had claimed to be asleep in the house. Kerr also declined to take a polygraph examination, deepening detectives' suspicions.

In January 2008, police publicly named Stephen Kerr a person of interest in Jaliek's disappearance, a designation reaffirmed in later years as the anniversary passed. In December 2012, authorities reclassified the case, shifting it from a missing runaway inquiry to a missing-child investigation treated as a presumed homicide. Despite these steps, prosecutors have repeatedly said they lack the physical evidence needed to bring charges, and no arrest has ever been made in connection with the boy's disappearance.

Multiple agencies, including the New York State Police Major Crimes Unit, the Washington County Sheriff's Office, the Cambridge-Greenwich Police and the FBI, have worked the case over the years, conducting ground searches, following up on tips and periodically appealing to the public for new information. Investigators assigned to the cold case have said they remain optimistic it can still be solved and have urged anyone who held back details in 2007 to come forward now. Jaliek Rainwalker would be an adult today, yet no trace of him has ever been found and foul play is still strongly suspected. His disappearance remains an active, unsolved case, marked by community vigils that continue well over a decade and a half after the small, troubled boy vanished from a home in Greenwich, his fate still unknown and no one held to account.