BEDFORD, Va. – It’s been 25 years of waiting for a Bedford County family. Their father, James Walker, was last seen on April 7, 2000, in Bedford. Since then, despite promising leads, there has been no sign of him.
The family still holds hope that the case will be solved.
“Oh, it eats at you. It really does,” said Bobby Walker, James Walker’s son. “Because I mean, it’s just not knowing nothing. That’s the part. At all. Just nothing.”
Bobby Walker doesn’t just miss the times he had with his father; he misses the times they could have had.
“Man, just the things we think we could have done together,” he said. “He could have seen his grandchildren raised, come up. You know, gone with us to the beach. You know, because I never got to go to the beach with my dad at all. ... We always went to the river to fish, but never down on the beach!”
Originally, investigators were told that James Walker was last seen at the Food Lion in Bedford. He was 53 years old at the time. But according to his son, the stories of those who were believed to have last seen his father changed.
“First, they said he sat on the park bench, then they changed it to where he stood outside the car, then the last one said he never got out of the car,” Bobby explained. “So, a lot of the stories change from the people he was with.”
There have been some promising leads over the years, including one that led to a search in 2015 on Taylor’s Mountain near James Walker’s last home. But still, there is no sign of him.
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10 News spoke with Lt. Jon Maddox from the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office, who emphasized the community’s desire for closure.
“Everybody from the family to the community to the office would like closure and answers to this one,” Maddox said. “And we’re steadily trying to get to that point. We’re just missing one or two little fine things to give us there.”
And the family still has hope that new attention on the case is making a difference.
“I hope and pray I can find Dad and bring him back home and put him to rest before I’m gone,” Bobby Walker said. “You know, I’m older than Dad right now when he disappeared.”
While answers won’t bring back the years of memories lost, a new understanding of what happened to James Walker can still be found.
