Chilling cold case: Mom faces park where son disappeared for first time
HARLEM, Manhattan (WABC) -- Nearly three decades after two toddlers went missing from the same Harlem playground, New York City Police have yet to find the boys or name a suspect.
At the age of two, Christopher Dansby went missing on the evening of May 18, 1989, while playing at Martin Luther King Playground.
Nearly three months later, on the evening of August 10, Shane Walker disappeared from the same park under eerily similar circumstances.
"I turned my head and turned back, and Shane was gone," remembered Shane's mom, Rosa Glover.
Glover said she had the day off and took her son to the neighborhood playground in the early evening.
She recalled a young boy and a girl asked to play with Shane, which she found odd because they were several years older than her son.
Glover said she agreed to let them push Shane in the swing and sat on a nearby bench.
She said a man came and sat beside her and started talking to her. She says she looked away for a second, and Shane was gone.
"My heart just dropped," Glover said. "Not a day goes by that, that doesn't haunt me."
Glover has never stopped searching for her son. This year, he'd be turning 31. Age progression images illustrate what he may look like today.
"He looks a lot different," Glover said referencing the photos.
"I can't imagine. I don't know if he's married, got kids," she said wishfully. Glover chooses to believe her son is somewhere out there, alive and well.
Back in 1989, neither the two children last seen with Shane nor the mysterious man on the park bench offered police any leads, according to Glover.
About a year after Shane disappeared, Glover appeared on the "Geraldo Rivera Show" and talked to psychics who provided a theory.
"They said he was sold in the black market and adopted," Glover said.
Glover has suspected both her son and Dansby could have suffered the same fate at the hands of the same people.
Glover has avoided the park where she lost Shane since the incident, but she decided to face it for the first time with 7 On Your Side Investigates.
"Wow, I didn't expect to feel this way," Glover said, fighting back tears while looking at the bench where she sat the day she lost her son. "My heart, it's just moving fast, moving fast. All the memories coming back. Wow."
Glover said she can't understand how nobody saw her son leaving the park.
"Somebody knows what happened, but nobody is saying anything," Glover said. "I want to find him. That is all you can hold onto is hope, you know?"
The National Missing and Unidentified Person System estimates there are roughly 85,000 active missing persons cases at any time in the US.
"It's like trying to put together a puzzle. With even one missing piece you can't complete it," said NAMUS Director of Case Management Todd Matthews. "I have come to realize I will probably spend the rest of my working career, and I will not finish."
Glover said she knows her odds of finding her son are not good, but she added that as long as she is alive, she will never stop looking for him.
"I love him, and I still want him," Glover said. "Where ever he is, when I find him, we are going away. I am leaving New York City, and we are going somewhere, just the two of us."
Shane's disappearance is something long-timers in the neighborhood still remember, and there's hope that after all these years, someone might finally come forward.
Glover said she was recently assigned a new detective, and she is hoping that will breathe new life into the case.
Police are asking anyone with information about what happened to Shane or Christopher to call Crime Stoppers at 1800-577-TIPS for an up to $2,500 reward.
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