Texas group to look for Jaliek
GREENWICH — A Texas search group that specializes in finding missing people has joined the effort to find Jaliek Rainwalker.
Texas EquuSearch, which takes its name from its use of horses during search efforts, has agreed to assist police as they try to find the missing 12-year-old boy from Greenwich.
Cambridge-Greenwich Police Chief George Bell said Jaliek’s maternal grandmother, Barbara Reeley, of Rensselaer County, contacted Texas EquuSearch.
Bell said the group’s founder, Tim Miller, plans to visit Greenwich in the coming days to meet with police to formulate a plan to help look for Jaliek.
“They have a lot of resources available to help with this sort of thing,” Bell said.
Cindy Wisdom, case manager for the nonprofit organization, said the group planned to bring its personnel and equipment to Washington County this spring if needed.
Texas EquuSearch uses searchers on horseback and four-wheelers, as well as technology like sonar and ground-penetrating radar, all at no cost to local officials.
“You name it, we have it, or can get our hands on it,” Wisdom said.
The organization has been involved in a number of recent high-profile searches, including the ongoing effort to find missing teenager Natalee Holloway in and around Aruba.
Information about Jaliek has already been posted on the group’s Web site, www.texasequusearch.org.
Miller founded the group after his daughter was abducted and murdered in Texas in 1984.
Jaliek has been missing since Nov. 2, when his adoptive father, Stephen Kerr, reported him missing from the Hill Street, Greenwich, home where the two had spent the previous night.
The boy had spent the previous several nights in respite care after trouble at the family’s East Greenwich home involving threats he made.
Police have identified Kerr as a “person of interest” and said he has refused to take lie-detector tests and fully cooperate with police.
Kerr has said he did not harm the boy. He and his wife, Jocelyn McDonald, have said they believe Jaliek ran away from the area to a city, and they have accused police of treating them unfairly and focusing only on the possibility the boy is dead.
Meanwhile, police are awaiting the results of forensics tests of items seized by officers Feb. 7 from the Hill Street home.
Among the items was a computer. Police are trying to determine if it was used to write anonymous letters that were sent last month to media around the region claiming Jaliek was alive.
Bell said he could not discuss the status of the evidence taken from the home.
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