The fifth episode of the second volume of " Unsolved Mysteries" focuses on the case of Shane Walker and Christopher Dansby, two children who were killed in Harlem, New York in 1989. Missing from the playground. There are some striking similarities between their cases: The two boys were from the same apartment building; they were both found playing with the same older children before disappearing; although Walker disappeared after Dansby Nearly three months later, he also disappeared on Thursday night. Over time, these details sparked multiple theories about Walker and Dansby's disappearance.
Although the two boys never played together, they both lived in the Martin Luther King Tower housing project and frequently visited the playground near Lenox Avenue with their families. According to Pix11, at 7 pm on May 18, 1989, a busy Thursday, 2-year-old Christopher Dansby disappeared from the playground. His mother, Alison, left her two sons with their grandmother while she went shopping for groceries. Dansby disappeared from her grandmother's sight, and when Alison returned, he was gone.
Likewise, 19-month-old Shane Walker disappeared from the same park at 5pm on Thursday, August 10, 1989. Rosa Glover and Shane were sitting on the bench when two children, ages 5 and 10, approached and asked to play with Walker. "I said, 'He's young.' They said, 'We don't mind,'" Glover recalled to CNN in 2009. While they were hanging out, a man sat near Glover and started talking about crimes that happen to children. He has scars on his body. , Glover turned to look at them. "When I looked back, I didn't see my son," she said.
The bizarre details led investigators and armchair detectives to speculate that the two cases were actually connected.
This is an adoption conspiracy
One popular theory is that Dansby and Walker were part of a conspiracy to traffic babies for adoption. Investigators even re-investigated two other cases of infant abductions in the area to see if there was a pattern.
In 1989, Deputy Commissioner Ronald J. Fenrich told The New York Times , "We have linked the child abductions, but it's not the same person." He said cryptically that they were questioning The two suspects were described as "two black men, similar only in skin color." Braid hairstyle. ” He went on to mention a baby-stealing ring as a possible reason for the kidnapping.
But Elaine Rosenfield, director of the adoption agency Louise Wise Services, disputes that theory. "It's hard to imagine," she told The Associated Press bluntly. "There's a black market for white babies, but for black babies, I don't think so."
drug related
Spence-Chapin adoption director Catherine Unsino offered another theory to The Associated Press. "I have not heard of children of this age being kidnapped to fulfill the wishes of an adoptive couple...I can't imagine the end result (of a kidnapping) being adoption," she said. Illegal activity...children being trafficked for drugs. "
A family member took them.
"Abductions by strangers are rare," Sarah White, a case manager with the New York Department of Criminal Justice Services, told CNN. "So far, most missing persons cases are non-custodial." Sexual Parental Abduction and Runaways.”
This is a serial killer
After the kidnapping, Glover told police she received a call saying her son was buried in an abandoned building, which turned out to be false. Investigators did look into whether the kidnapper was a serial killer or a pedophile, but they couldn't find any conclusive evidence.
Many theorists have also linked Dansby and Walker's case to that of Andre Bryant, a 6-week-old baby who disappeared in Brooklyn in 1989. However, the details of Bryant's kidnapping are very different, making the possible connection rather tenuous.
Ultimately, neither boy was found and their families hope they are both still alive. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has rendered a rendering of what Dansby and Walker will look like now in hopes of one day bringing them home.
