Video and Cell Phone Records

There’s a lot of news tonight surrounding the Jaliek Rainwalker case.  Here are 2 articles from the Post Star paper, one of which has the actual video.

Police release video in Jaliek case

Cambridge-Greenwich Police Chief George Bell on Tuesday released new information in the case of missing 12-year-old Jaliek Rainwalker.

A surveillance video (shown below) shows a van driving by the Glens Falls National Bank branch in Greenwich early on the morning of Nov. 2, which  they believe to be Stephen Kerr’s. Kerr was Jaliek’s adopted father and has been named a “person of interest” in his disappearance.

The video shows a Chrysler minivan driving by the Main Street bank branch at 12:16 a.m. that day. If it was Kerr, it would show he left his home that night when he said he had stayed there after arriving home with Jaliek.

Bell said the gold van appears to be the one owned by Kerr’s father that he was using at the time. The chief asked that anyone who might have driven by the bank that night or early morning in such a van call police at 692-9332.

http://www.poststar.com/articles/2008/03/25/news/latest/doc47e95e110f5b0296446562.txt

Police: Phone records dispute Jaliek story

GREENWICH — Cell phone records show that the adopted father of missing 12-year-old Jaliek Rainwalker took a different route home on the night Jaliek disappeared than he told investigators, police said Tuesday.

The inconsistency between what Stephen Kerr told police and what phone records indicate has led police to conclude Kerr has not been truthful about where he went after picking Jaliek up at a respite home the night of Nov. 1, said Cambridge-Greenwich Police Chief George Bell.

Kerr told police he received a call about 8:15 that night when he was on Route 40 in the hamlet of Melrose in the town of Schaghticoke, Bell said.

“He told us he was in front of Henry’s Garage in Melrose when he received that call, but we know for a fact he has lied to us about that because the cell phone records show the call was received in South Troy,” Bell said. “He was nowhere near the route he told us he took home.”

Engineers from Verizon Wireless analyzed the call data and determined where Kerr was based on which cell phone tower the call “hit,” the chief said.

Bell would not say who called Kerr at that point, but he said cell phone records show it was the only call Kerr answered that night.

“The person who called him said he seemed quite agitated,” Bell said.

Kerr has repeatedly given police a route of travel from the Albany area to Greenwich that night that does not include a detour through South Troy, at one point going with FBI agents to retrace his route and singling out the Melrose garage as the spot where he took the phone call, Bell said.

Kerr told police he arrived home with Jaliek the night of Nov. 1, and that he awoke the next morning to find the boy gone. No trace of him has been found since, despite extensive search efforts and a massive police investigation.

Kerr did not respond to a message left on his cell phone voicemail.

His lawyer, Jeffrey McMorris, said he was not familiar with the cell phone issue being raised by police and could not yet discuss it.

“I want to take a look at what they’ve got and then I’d comment on it,” he said.

McMorris lashed out at police for being “goal-oriented,” with the goal being a prosecution of Kerr instead of the discovery of Jaliek, who, his client believes, ran away.

“What are they doing to bring a live runaway home?” he asked. “Have they been visiting the bus stations and homeless shelters in New York City?”

Bell said a group of volunteers that has worked with police, known as Team Adam, sent thousands of fliers to homeless shelters and organizations that assist runaways and the homeless around the country.

“We’ve covered that,” he said.

Bell on Tuesday also released a video of a van driving by the Glens Falls National Bank branch in Greenwich early in the morning of Nov. 2. Police believe the van is Kerr’s. The video, which can be found on The Post-Star’s Web site, shows a Chrysler minivan driving by the Main Street bank branch at 12:16 a.m. Nov. 2.

Bell said the gold van appears to be the one owned by Kerr’s father that Kerr was using at the time. The chief asked that anyone who might have driven by the bank that night or early morning in such a van call police at 692-9332.

If it was Kerr driving the van, the trip would not jibe with the version of events he gave police, Bell said. Kerr told police he stayed at the Hill Street home after arriving there in the middle of the evening, Nov. 1, with Jaliek.

McMorris has said it was not Kerr driving the van that was filmed passing the bank that night.

Meanwhile, police continue to await the results of forensic examinations of a computer and other items seized from the Hill Street home from which Kerr reported Jaliek disappeared, Bell said.

Bell added that the U.S. Secret Service has gotten involved in the case to help police trace the origins of several letters sent to the media in January in which it was indicated Jaliek was alive and living downstate. Police have said there is no evidence Jaliek is alive.

Bell said that analysis could include a check for DNA on the envelopes.

Barbara Reeley, Jaliek’s maternal grandmother, who is involved with the group that has dubbed itself the Find Jaliek Task Force, said the group has been working to put up two billboards on Route 40 in the coming week or so that picture Jaliek and list information about the case. One will be north of the village of Greenwich, the other south in Easton.

“They’re not fully designed yet, but they’re going to be a big plus,” she said.

The owner of the billboards has offered to put them up at his cost, Bell said.

Reeley said a number of volunteer groups have resumed searching for Jaliek in recent weeks as snow melts. She said searches have taken place near Battenkill Country Club and in the Troy area.

Reeley said details are still being worked out on when Texas Equusearch, a nonprofit organization that assists in missing persons cases, will come to the region to help with the case.

Officers thought they might have gotten a break in the case over the weekend.

Bell and State Police investigators were called out Saturday after a body was found floating in the Hudson River in Troy, near where State Police divers had searched in Jaliek’s case earlier this year. But the badly decomposed body turned out to be that of a New York City man who disappeared from Troy last month, officials said.

Police have called Kerr a “person of interest” in their investigation, but he has said he did not harm Jaliek and he has not been charged.

http://www.poststar.com/articles/2008/03/25/news/latest/doc47e97274ea0cf154145401.txt

Surveillance Video Released

Police release surveillance video taken the night Jaliek disappeared

GREENWICH, N.Y. – Video taken from the Glens Falls National Bank in Greenwich at 12:16 a.m. on the morning of November 2nd shows a gold van driving through. Police want to know if the gold Chrysler minivan that they see in the video belongs to Jaliek Rainwalker’s adoptive father, Stephen Kerr.

Greenwich Police Chief George Bell said, “If it’s Stephen and his van, it certainly doesn’t indicate that…you know, he says he was in bed.”

Now police are asking for help again. They want to know if anyone was driving this van through this bank at that time in early November – the night Jaliek disappeared – so they can try to figure out if it was Kerr, or someone else. They also want to compare the van to the video, but Kerr and his attorney won’t let them near it. The van is in the garage at Kerr’s father’s house on Hill Street.

Stephen Kerr’s Attorney Jeffrey McMorris said, “I had a hard time somewhat even figuring out that it was a van. Every time they’ve asked for something, I ask, how is this going to lead to Jaliek coming home, and they can’t answer that question and until they can, I see no relevance in letting them see the van or consenting to that.”
 

McMorris said police had the van early when they first started investigating but that was before they had this surveillance video. Police also said Verizon has looked at Kerr’s cell phone records because he said he was on the phone with a friend the night Jaliek disappeared. Where he said he made the call and the cell phone tower Verizon shows was used for that call was two different places.

Bell said, “He was definitely in South Troy. I can’t tell you exactly where, but he was not on his route that he says he took.”

McMorris said at this point, he will only give police what they ask for if it will help get Jaliek home.

He also said the reason his client has repeatedly refused to take a polygraph is that they don’t prove anything in the courts and when asked if there are any circumstances under which they will give the van up to police, he said he could not think of any.

 

http://capitalnews9.com/Default.aspx?ArID=112930

Evidence in Rainwalker Case Revealed

Police Share Evidence in Rainwalker Disapperance Case

Cambridge-Greenwich Police are sharing more evidence with the public in the case of the disappearance of Jaliek Rainwalker.

The 12-year-old Washington County boy has been missing since last November.

Now, investigators are showing surveillance video footage that they say could blow a hole in the alibi of Stephen Kerr, Rainwalker’s adoptive father whom police have labelled a person of interest in the boy’s disappearance.

The black-and-white video comes from the Glens Falls National Bank branch on Main Street in Greenwich.

The timestamp on the footage is 12:16 a.m. on November 2nd.

Cambridge-Greenwich Police Chief George Bell explains, “It shows a gold Chrysler minivan, similar to what Stephen was driving, headed west on State Route 29 or Main Street here in Greenwich.”

Bell says he decided to make the video evidence public in the hopes of finding out whether or not the van in the video is the same as Kerr’s father’s van:  the one Kerr was driving on the night that Rainwalker vanished.

If the person driving the van in the bank surveillance video is Stephen Kerr, police say his trip west down Main Street shortly after midnight on November 2nd does not match the story he told investigators.

“He said he was in bed at 12:16 a.m.,” says Bell.

Police also say they’re now more confident than ever that Kerr is lying about where he was when he used his cell phone on the night that Rainwalker disappeared.

“He was definitely in South Troy,” Chief Bell tells FOX23 News.  “I can’t tell you exactly where but he was not on his route that he says he took when he received that phone call.”

Jeffrey McMorris, Kerr’s attorney, calls the video evidence ridiculous.

McMorris tells us, “It’s black and white.  It’s jumpy.  It’s choppy.  I would think they might be able to do a little better job than that.”

The Glens Falls lawyer says his clients won’t allow police to take another look at the van until investigators can explain how an additional search will help find Rainwalker.

Kerr still hasn’t submitted to Chief Bell’s request that he take a polygraph test.

McMorris explains, “If he wanted to guarantee for us that Stephen takes the polygraph and is cleared that he’d get full immunity, then we might consider it.”

FOX23 News asked McMorris from what charge or charges would Kerr want immunity.

McMorris explains that he’s looking for immunity from whatever charge or charges police might try to pin on the missing boy’s father.

http://www.fox23news.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=d51d7c97-5fd2-462b-8d47-cbe9269a44a4

Technical Difficulties

What’s going on with my format?  Everything that was in the column to the left is all the way on the bottom and to the right.  Unless you click on a comment.  I don’t want to have to change my background but I might have to if I don’t figure it out.  HELP!