Shane Walker and the Baby Ring

At 5pm, August 10, 1989, Rosa Glover took her 19-month-old son, Shane Walker, to the park. When they arrived at the park, two young children came up to them - a girl aged 10 and her brother aged 6 asking to play. While she was hesitant because Shane was too young, the children insisted. “Yeah, go ahead, he’s going on the slide.” While the children took Shane on the slide, Rosa sat on the bench.

Moments later, a man sat next to her. Bizarrely, he began talking about how parents do not pay enough attention to their children and how “things happen to children.” He then pointed out scars he had which caused Rosa to take her eyes off Shane. When she looked up, Shane was not on the slide. She looked around, hollering this name.

Three minutes later, the children returned to the park through a hole in the wire fence, without Shane. “What did you do with my son?” They insisted that they left him at the park. Bystanders began helping her look for him.

Rosa took the children to the police station to report her son missing. Investigators quickly connected his disappearance to the case of Christopher Dansby, who disappeared from the same park just three months earlier, on May 18, 1989. Eerily, Christopher and his family lived in the same complex - Martin Luther King Jr Towers in Central Harlem.

Around 6:30pm, on May 18, 1989, Allison took her two sons, Levon, 3, and Christopher, 2, to the park. She sat on the bench watching as they went down the slide. Allison’s mother, Elizabeth Manley and other relatives met up with them at the park.

Since Allison did not have a stroller, she went to the store to grab something for dinner while her mother watched the boys. She hugged and kissed Christopher goodbye, telling him she would be right back. “I love you, mommy, “ he said.

Thirty minutes later, Allison returned to the crowded park to only find Elizabeth and Levon, but Christopher was gone. She started asking anyone if they had seen him and soon people began to help look. Elizabeth last saw Christopher playing with his cousin. She looked away from him for a few minutes; when she looked back, he was gone.

A seven-year-old boy from Christopher’s neighborhood later told police that he saw Christopher walking on West 111th Street later that day. He was accompanied by a black male. However, police were never able to determine who the man was. The day after Christopher disappeared, his cousin reportedly saw him walking with a man near the cousin’s school. The man had Christopher by the hand. Christopher was wearing the same clothes he had on the day before. His cousin went to the principal to report what he had seen. Police were called; however, no trace of Christopher or the man was found.

Investigators noted that the cases were eerily similar. Both boys were black between the ages of 1-2, taken from the same park between 5-7 p.m. on a Thursday. It was still light out and the park was crowded. The boys were last seen near the slide and they lived in the same apartment building at 41 W. 112th Street. Police felt there were way too many similarities between the cases to be a coincidence.

The kids that were with Shane were interviewed at length by police. Police suspected the kids had acted as "decoys" and that somebody had stolen Shane. But both kids said they only played with him. They said they turned around and he went off and played in another part of the park. The parents of the kids were also interviewed. Inspector Lindahl said they were checked out and there was no indication that they were involved in any way.

The man sitting next to Rosa on the bench was also brought in for questioning. Inspector Lindahl said he was checked out completely. There was no indication that he was involved in any way with Shane’s disappearance. Police questioned Rosa, James, and their relatives. They wondered if a family member had taken Shane from the park. James was interviewed for several hours and was given a polygraph test. However, no evidence was found to implicate any family members in the disappearance.

Around that time, Murphy started hearing talk about a possible "baby-selling ring." Harlem residents began wondering if the children were being abducted and sold on the "black market." There were rumors that the children were being taken to childless couples in the South. Another missing black child, Andre Bryant, was also suspected to have been sold in this operation. His mother, Monique Rivera, was found murdered in Brooklyn on March 29, 1989; he has never been found.