An Upstate New York Child Is Still Missing With No Arrests In The Case

If Jaliek L. Rainwalker is still alive, he would be 27 years old, though he hasn’t been seen since Nov. 2, 2007, when he was a 12-year-old child reported missing by his adoptive father.

According to reporting from the Times Union in Albany, New York, Jaliek had been adopted by Stephen Kerr and his wife, Jocelyn McDonald. Kerr and McDonald accepted Jaliek into their Salem, New York, home as a foster child just days before his 8th birthday in 2003, but it was difficult for them to manage an attachment disorder and emotional issues that stemmed from his time in foster care. Formal adoption papers were signed about a year later, and Jaliek became an official member of the family as one of five siblings including another adopted child and three biological children of the couple.

By the time Jaliek went missing in 2007, he was being kept separate from his siblings due to increasingly violent outbursts that were beginning to take on a reportedly sexual tone. There had even been some talk of undoing the adoption and sending the boy back to foster care, according to the Times Union.

On Nov. 1, Kerr picked Jaliek up from a respite foster parent who had watched Jaliek for a few days. After Kerr picked Jaliek up, the pair went to eat at a restaurant. Later, their server would tell police that Kerr had been unkind to her and that Jaliek had seemed very quiet and ate very little food. After dinner, Jaliek and Kerr stayed at Kerr’s parents’ home on Hill Street in Greenwich, New York.

According to Kerr, he awoke around 7:30 a.m. on Nov. 2 and found Jaliek missing from his bed and a handwritten note on the table that said, "Dear everybody, I'm sorry for everything. I won't be a bother anymore. Goodbye, Jaliek." Kerr reported the boy missing 90 minutes later.

Kerr became a person of interest in the case and authorities executed a search warrant at his parents’ home in February 2008, though they found nothing helpful to the investigation. Multiple searches of wooded areas and marshes have been conducted throughout the years since Jaliek went missing, but there has been no trace of Jaliek since that final day when the respite foster parent and a server at a restaurant told police they’d interacted with Jaliek and his father that evening.

In 2012, the case was reclassified as a “presumed homicide,” though authorities still haven’t charged anybody in Jaliek’s disappearance. In June 2022, police conducted a search of the woods in Troy, New York, after they reportedly received a credible tip, but they released no information about whether or not they found anything substantive.

If you have any information about Jaliek Rainwalker’s case, please call the Greenwich Village Police Department 518-692-9332.