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In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that everyone has a different version of events.
Hear the story on Where's Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics, including violence, abuse, and murder.
My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice. Today, I am discussing the disappearances of Christopher Dansby and Shane Walker.
You guys know I don't usually cover two cases in one episode, but these two incidents are so similar that putting them together just makes sense. They were both black male toddlers taken from the same park just three months apart around the same time of day on the same day of the week.
Not only that, their families also lived in the same building, just two floors apart from each other. And maybe most chilling of all, both toddlers were last seen playing with the same set of children before they went missing. Again, the similarities are just insane in these cases, so let's get into it. This is the case of Christopher Dansby and the case of Shane Walker.
It's the summer of 1989 in New York City. According to a report from the New York Police Department, or NYPD, in 1990, over half a million major crimes were committed. This report includes murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny auto. Now, half a million crimes in New York City may not sound like a lot.
But every year since 1990, these crime rates have actually been going down. By 2021, they were down over 80% compared to 1990. All of this to say, New York City in 1989 looked a lot different than it does today.
According to Shane Walker's mother, Rosa Glover, she says the city, and specifically her neighborhood in Harlem, was just riddled with crime. Now, the war on drugs and the implications it had on New York City residents could be a podcast all on its own. It is a fascinating topic to research if you're interested.
But Rosa Glover describes her area as being filled with people battling drug addiction, saying it wasn't uncommon to see people doing things like running down the street naked.
In short, it just wasn't the best neighborhood. But it was also a neighborhood filled with kids and families. Both Rosa Glover and Christopher Dansby's mother, Allison Dansby, lived in the Martin Luther King Jr. housing development in Harlem. This is located at about 112th Street and 5th Avenue. It's comprised of 10 towers, and each tower has 14 floors, for a total of over 1,800 individual apartments.
Both families lived in the same tower, only two floors apart. Like I said, a lot of families lived in the towers, and often took their children to the Martin Luther King Jr. playground. It's literally right next to the towers off Lenox Avenue.
Now, with over 1,800 individual apartments in an area with a lot of families, this park gets insanely busy. So it makes complete sense to me that although these families lived so close together and frequented the same areas, Rosa Glover and Allison Dansby didn't know each other. Now that I've set the scene a bit, let's talk more about these families and what happened to Shane and Christopher.
Two-year-old Christopher Dansby lived with his mother, Allison, his grandmother, Elizabeth, and his older brother, Levon. Christopher's father, Milton Westcott Robbins, worked as an aircraft mechanic in Florida at this time and wasn't really in the picture. I think it's interesting to note that Allison actually grew up in the Martin Luther King Jr. Towers, so she knew the area very well. Allison does admit that at this time she was battling addiction, like so many others in the city were.
But she had a lot of help from her family, and by all accounts, Christopher was very loved. Now, it's always really hard to describe what babies were like. But I can tell you that Christopher's nickname was Choo Choo. He was extremely attached to his mother. He was very cuddly. He was talking up a storm already. And his favorite thing to do was go to the park. That's exactly what the family did on Thursday, May 18th, 1989.
it was about six p m and there was plenty of daylight left as usual there were a ton of people in the park that day including allison her mother her sister two of her cousins and several kids including christopher
their normal routine was to all meet up at the park play for a bit then someone would run to grab the kids some snacks this time it was allison dansby's turn so allison gives christopher a hug and a kiss christopher says i love you mommy and she makes her way across lenox avenue to the store
But while she's out, she decides to make her way to another store on 119th Street to grab some crabs for dinner. She's gone for about 20-30 minutes and returns to the park around 7pm. When she gets back to the group, she doesn't see Christopher. Now, at first, no one really panics. Her mother, Elizabeth, reassures Allison that he's around there somewhere. They just saw him playing with a red ball and two older kids, a boy and a girl.
After a quick glance around the playground, they don't see Christopher. So the adults decide to split up to look for him. But it quickly becomes clear that Christopher isn't at the park. So they call police.
They responded quickly and aggressively. Soon, there were dozens of officers and helicopters searching a 24-block area surrounding the park and the towers. There was a dive team searching the Harlem Mirror, a body of water just blocks from the park. And they brought in dogs to track Christopher's scent. The dogs led them south on Lenox Avenue to 110th Street near the Harlem Mirror. But then they lost the scent.
later that night a seven-year-old boy from the neighborhood reported seeing christopher walking west on a hundred and eleven street with a black male with braided hair unfortunately this lead doesn't appear to have led police to anything
Of course, the families were interviewed extensively. Allison was very upfront about her battle with addiction, but insisted it wasn't related to Christopher. She had no debts and no enemies. When police questioned Christopher's father in Florida, he was also cleared. Christopher was just gone, and no one had any idea where he could be.
Now, despite this immediate and large response from the NYPD, when I looked for newspaper articles from 1989 about Christopher's disappearance, there was nothing. According to Allison, he was featured on the local news, but it wasn't until a second toddler, Shane Walker, went missing that the media royally picks up these stories.
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In the summer of 1989, 19-month-old Shane Walker was living with his mother, Rosa Glover. Rosa was 35 at this time, and after thinking she could never have children, she was overjoyed to find out she was pregnant with Shane about two years earlier. By all accounts, he was her entire world. Now, life wasn't easy for Rosa. She was a single mother working five days a week as a cook at Columbia University.
Shane's father, James Edward Walker, worked in construction. He worked and lived in the city, but he wasn't really involved in Shane's life. However, he would stop by every Thursday to give Rosa money for Shane.
Now, Shane was so small when he went missing. At 19 months old, he wasn't talking, and he hadn't even gotten his first haircut yet. Rosa braided it and was waiting until his second birthday to cut it. Shane was also very attached to his mother, and each night Rosa would tuck him in with his Mickey Mouse and Babar stuffed animal before she rocked him to sleep.
Not long before Shane went missing, Rosa took him on a trip to Disney World in Florida. Rosa says it was a great trip, and Shane's favorite part was the pool, saying she could barely get him out of the water. He enjoyed the rides too, but apparently he was pretty afraid of Mickey Mouse in person outside of his familiar stuffed animal. Rosa says she never heard about Christopher Dansby going missing from the park, or she never would have taken Shane there. But of course, we know she did.
On Thursday, August 10th, 1989, at about 5 p.m., Rosa and Shane walk down to the store to grab a snack, and then to the Martin Luther King Jr. playground like they had so many times before. Like most days, it was extremely crowded. Shortly after getting to the park, they're sitting on a bench while Shane is enjoying some chips, and Rosa is approached by two children, a 10-year-old girl and a 5- or 6-year-old little boy.
now in my research for this episode i found conflicting ages for the boy but we know that the boy and girl are brother and sister what's important to know here is that these are the same two children that were last seen with christopher dansby before he disappeared they ask rosa if they can play with shane
Rosa says up to that point, she had never let Shane play with other children before. I mean, he was only 19 months old and an only child. He could barely go down the slide by himself, and he wasn't even talking yet. So she tells the children no, saying he was just too young. But they insist, and eventually Rosa says fine, you can play with him for a little bit on the slide.
At this same time, a man sits down on the bench next to Rosa and strikes up a conversation. He begins talking about crime in the neighborhood, specifically crimes against children and kidnapping. He also shows Rosa some scars he'd gotten fighting. Rosa says her eyes were off Shane for no longer than three to four minutes. That's it. But when she looked back at the playground, she didn't see Shane or the two children who had asked to play with him.
So, she begins searching the park, but doesn't see him anywhere. Then, she begins to scream his name. Eventually, some other parents join her in searching for Shane, but he was just gone. During the search, Rosa sees the children who were playing with Shane re-enter the park through a hole in the fence. She flat out asks them what they did with her son, and the kids say they left him in the park. Rosa is obviously upset.
She tells the kids that if that were the case, her son would still be in the park and not missing. From here, Rosa calls the police. Like with Christopher Dansby, the response is massive. Police officers are searching dumpsters, air shafts. They were going door to door in the Martin Luther King Jr. Towers, asking for information. It seemed like they were doing everything they could to locate Shane.
Then police announced they were looking for an unidentified black male, 19-24 years old, that was approximately 5'8", wearing a yellow shirt and acid-washed jeans, stating he was just wanted for questioning. But they would later say that this man was possibly the perpetrator.
A sound truck, which is basically a police vehicle with a bunch of speakers on top, drove around the neighborhood playing this message. Attention please. The New York City Police Department asks for your assistance in locating a missing child. His name is Shane Walker. He is male, black, approximately 18 months old.
He weighs approximately 23 pounds. He was last seen about 5 p.m. Thursday night. He was wearing a blue and white shirt and blue pants. If you see this child, please call the 28th Precinct. Allison Dansby said when she heard the sound trucks going around the neighborhood for another missing child, her heart just dropped. And soon, there were rumors that people were kidnapping babies to sell them on the black market.
In 1989, Allison Dansby told Newsday, "...I grew up in these projects. Nothing like this ever happened here before. It's a horrible situation. I believe it's some kind of organization that kidnaps them and sells them." One mother who lived in the same towers was quoted in the same article, "...I'm not letting my kids out of sight. I hear there's a black market that sells them down south."
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Despite the striking similarities in these cases, two black male toddlers missing from the same park on the same day of the week at almost the same time of day, last seen with the same set of children just months apart, whose families lived in the same building just two floors apart from each other, at this point in time, the police say there's no clear connection between the cases.
Chief of Detectives Robert Colangelo told reporters in 1989, "...the descriptions of the possible perpetrators do not match. We do not feel at this time that the same person abducted both children." Despite Chief Colangelo making this statement, they did combine their efforts in these cases to one larger search.
They made one flyer with both boys' pictures and descriptions on it and went to every single unit in the Martin Luther King Jr. Towers to ask about the boys three times. After receiving a tip that Shane was buried beneath a nearby building, they literally knocked it down and dug up the earth to search for him.
They searched sewers, roofs, basements, air shafts of occupied and abandoned buildings. They traveled to Alabama, Wisconsin, and the Caribbean to follow up on leads about the kids. They researched and interviewed local sex offenders. They created a task force. There were specialty units assigned to the case, and there was a $30,000 reward.
They even reopened two other cold cases of infants that were kidnapped to look for similarities in the cases. It really seems like they did all they could to locate Shane and Christopher, but they couldn't find any trace of either toddler.
After Shane went missing, the media really ran with this story. It was all over the papers. Rosa Glover went on the Geraldo Rivera show to discuss the cases, and it was featured on America's Most Wanted. In 1989, there were 30 detectives working these cases. Rosa Glover says two detectives came to her home every single day to discuss the latest updates in the case.
Authorities also tapped both families' phones in case anyone called in a tip or demanded a ransom for the boys. And they set up surveillance outside of the towers to look for any suspicious activity. But there was just nothing. By 1990, the team of 30 detectives was reduced to just three.
Around this time, Lt. Dominic Caracappa of the Housing Authority Police Department's detective squad said they just hadn't made much progress in the case, saying, quote, It seems like these two children vanished from the face of the earth, end quote. Now, I know what you're thinking. What about the brother and sister seen with Christopher and Shane before they went missing? Well, according to police, they were extensively interviewed, as were their parents, and they've all been cleared.
So was the man on the park bench who distracted Rosa Glover that day, and both of the boy's fathers and families. Law enforcement investigated drug-related motives, cults rumored to sacrifice children. They also investigated the possibility that there was a network of people kidnapping and selling black babies on the black market. But this was also largely discredited by both the police and local adoption agencies.
Elaine Rosenfeld, the executive director of private adoption agency Louise Wise Services in New York, told the media in 1989, "...it's hard to imagine. There is a black market for white babies, but black babies? I don't think so." The police simply said nothing in their investigation has led them to believe there was any type of underground adoption ring for black children.
As the media died down, leads dried up, and the investigation was scaled back, it was obviously extremely difficult for both families to deal with. The park that once held so many great memories for families in the area now had the nickname Poltergeist Park. Kids in the area would tell Shane and Christopher stories, saying the park ate little children.
Allison Dansby eventually moved out of the towers where she and her children were raised. She said there were just too many bad memories.
Rosa Glover's journey was a bit darker. In 1991, Rosa did an interview with the Daily News and said, "...I was going to kill myself." By this point, she'd thrown out most of Shane's clothing, telling the news outlet, "...there's nothing here of his. He ain't here. It's too late to blame anybody. Ain't going to bring him back."
Luckily, Rosa's sister took note of this shift in behavior, saying the family basically put Rosa on suicide watch until they could install bars on her windows to prevent her from jumping. Now, things in the case really slowed down after this. Although the leads were still coming in, there was just no movement in the cases.
In 1997, there was a controversial discovery, however. After battling in court, Rosa Glover was awarded $10,000 by Golden Eagle Mutual Insurance for a policy she'd taken out on Shane just nine days before he went missing. Not only that, she'd tried to collect on this policy just seven weeks after Shane went missing. But without a death certificate, the insurance company refused.
However, now eight years later, Justice Alice Schlesinger ruled in Rosa's favor, stating under state law, any person missing for three years who is not found after a diligent search is presumed to be dead. So Rosa was awarded the money. Detective Frank Sayes told the Daily News in New York, quote, we were never told that there was any kind of insurance. We have enough to be suspicious, end quote.
But Rosa Glover took to the media to defend herself. She said she took out the policy for Shane before taking a trip to Florida, saying she'd seen a lot of plane crashes. As far as trying to collect on the policy weeks after he went missing, she told the media, quote, when my son disappeared, I wasn't thinking about the insurance policy. It was the man who sold me the policy who suggested I might be entitled to the money, end quote.
Now, Rosa's lawyer did make a statement, which is to be expected. However, a lawyer representing the insurance company also came out to defend Rosa, telling the public there was no reason to believe she was involved in Shane's disappearance, adding, quote, the insurance covers loss of life, not the disappearance of children, end quote. It seems the theory that Rosa Glover was involved in her son's disappearance isn't one the police moved forward with.
And as far as I could find, authorities aren't searching for the two men they first identified as possible perpetrators either.
So, if the families aren't suspected to be involved, the two children seen playing with the kids before they went missing aren't suspected to be involved, and authorities aren't seeking information about the two males initially suspected to be involved, what happened to Christopher Dansby and Shane Walker? The police have openly stated they don't believe it was some kind of baby kidnapping ring. They just didn't find anything to point them in that direction.
But I can't discount the similarities in these cases. Both kids were toddlers, both boys, both black, both taken from the same park on the same day of the week around the same time of day. Either they are connected, or it's one of the biggest coincidences I have seen in true crime yet, which, to be fair, happens.
I think the biggest thing that leads people to believe these cases are connected are the two children seen playing with Christopher and Shane before they went missing. One of the leading theories I found in my research is that these kids were somehow a part of these disappearances, possibly being paid or threatened in some way to bring the kids to an adult who would do god knows what with them.
Now, to be totally fair, I am terrible at math, but when I thought about how many people were likely living in those towers, especially how many kids were probably living there in 1989, and the statements from residents about how crowded the park always was, I don't think it's crazy to think that those siblings were probably there pretty often.
in nineteen eighty nine in the summer when school's out unless you have a game system at home or something to keep you entertained i think i can safely say most kids were playing outside i'd bet there were tons of the same kids at this park when both children went missing
If the police hadn't extensively interviewed these kids and their parents, I might be telling you something different today. But what I've found in my research doesn't lead me to believe these children were involved. And as far as I could find, Allison and Rosa don't believe so either. Though they do believe that the disappearances are likely connected.
Although it seems like we don't have any strong leads to tell us what happened to Christopher and Shane, I see a lot of hope in these cases. While of course it's possible someone took these kids and did something terrible to them, I also think it's possible they were taken to be raised by other adults. This is what Allison Dansby and Rosa Glover believe and hold out hope for.
that if the children were taken and raised by other parents, they would learn something or eventually just feel like something's off and make their way back home. This might sound like wishful thinking, but it's happened many times before. Kamiya Mobley was 16 when she went to apply for a job and her social security number didn't work. She later discovered her mother was her kidnapper.
Sun Bin was 27 years old when he discovered his family purchased him from a human trafficking ring after he was abducted from a vegetable market.
One of the most famous and perhaps most relevant given the location and timing is Carlina White. When Carlina White was 23 years old, she discovered the woman she thought was her mother had actually stolen her from a hospital in New York in 1987, when she was less than a month old.
While these resolutions are uncommon, they aren't impossible. And the good news is, Christopher and Shane's cases are still being worked by law enforcement and in the spotlight today. Authorities say they have followed up on countless tips and over 500 sightings in every single state, the Caribbean, and Canada.
For years after Shane and Christopher went missing, they kept clothing with their scent on it sealed in evidence bags, just in case they could use them again. Now, I don't know how solid the logistics are of using these toddlers' scent to track full-grown adults decades later, but the sentiment is there. Law enforcement and these families, even decades later, want these cases solved.
In 2018, Rosa Glover announced that Shane's case was assigned to a new detective. I have to assume that after so much time, Christopher's was likely reassigned since the 90s as well. And in 2020, the cases were featured on the Netflix reboot of the TV show Unsolved Mysteries, which garnered a lot of attention.
Rosa Glover never had more children. She keeps and displays every age-progressed photo of Shane in her home, in hopes that one day they'll be reunited. And she can show him she never forgot about him after all these years. Alice and Dansby has grandchildren now. She tells them about their Uncle Christopher, and shows them his photos. She too is waiting for the day she will be reunited with her son.
As of recording this episode, Christopher Dansby and Shane Walker have been missing for 33 years. But their families still have hope that they will come home someday. Which brings me right to our call to action. Please share the age-progressed photos of Christopher and Shane.
You can find them on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's website, missingkids.org. And of course, I will have them available for easy sharing on social media.
Christopher Dansby went missing from the Martin Luther King Jr. playground in New York City on May 18th, 1989. He was just two years old. He was last seen wearing a blue jacket, floral print shirt, blue jeans, and green and white sneakers. Christopher is a black male with black hair and brown eyes. He has a figure-eight scar on his thigh. He would be in his early 30s now.
Shane Walker went missing from the same park on August 10th, 1989, when he was just 19 months old. He was last seen wearing a blue and white shirt, light blue pants, and white LA gear sneakers. Shane is a black male with black hair and brown eyes. He has a scar on his chin and a birthmark shaped like a liver on his shoulder.
He would also be in his early 30s now. Anyone with information about the disappearance of either child is urged to contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678 or the NYPD at 212-694-7781. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.
Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney. For more information about the podcast, to suggest a case, to see resources used for this episode, and to find out more about how to help the cases I discuss, visit VoicesForJusticePodcast.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show in your podcast player.
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