Mother Holds Out Hope For Baby Kidnapped 24 Years Ago
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Three babies were abducted from three different families back in 1989 – all about the same time and in nearly the same way.
And as CBS 2's Mary Calvi reported Wednesday night, the years have not diminished one mother's desire to see her only son again, as she pushes for new technology to provide her the answers for which she has waited so long.
On Aug. 10, 1989, Shane Walker was taken and never heard from again.
"I turned my head for a minute, I turned my back, and my son was gone," said his mother, Rosa Glover.
Now, all these years later, Glover said she has not given up -- and believes her son is still alive.
Shane was just 19 months old when he was abducted from Martin Luther King Jr. Towers Playground on Lenox Avenue near 111th Street in Harlem. A man distracted his mother and she looked away, only to find her son gone when she turned back.
Now, nearly 24 years later, Glover has been looking at a succession of age-progression pictures carrying images of Shane into his early 20s. And two other families are going through the same nightmare.
Someone abducted Christopher Dansby from the very same park in the same way just three months earlier, on May 18, 1989. And Andre Bryant was kidnapped in February of the same year in Brooklyn.
For Glover, the struggle is so much more than just not knowing. She said as she waits, she suffers.
"I carry on just praying that one of these days I'm going to see my son,'" she said.
Glover fought breast cancer not once, but twice.
"I've been through all of that twice waiting for him," she said. "And I'm still around, you know. They say the Lord works in mysterious ways."
At the time, investigators worried the children might have been sold into an illegal adoption ring. Since then, few leads have turned up, and now, advanced technology may be her only hope.
"I keep him all over the house (in pictures); I figure he's right here with me," Glover said.
While DNA is the common investigative tool right now, it was never even considered back then.
"I kept everything," she said. "I'm not getting rid of nothing until I find him."
After requests from CBS 2, the family's DNA is now in a databank that one day may lead to an answer.
"It's hope. That's all it's about – hope," Glover said, echoing her words from 24 years ago -- "hope and pray that somebody brings my kid back to me."
There are nearly 100 unsolved cases involving missing children in the Tri-State Area, officials said.
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