The AWARE Foundation is highlighting the cold case of James Davis Walker, who was last seen on April 7, 2000, in the Food Lion parking lot on Longwood Avenue in Bedford.
Walker, known to friends and family as Slim – he was 6’7”, 140 pounds, at the time of his disappearance, at the age of 53 – may have been the victim of foul play, according to authorities.
According to the AWARE Foundation, Jason Hinton, an investigator in the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office, is now heading the search for Walker.
An NBC News report from 2020 has the detail about how Walker was sitting in his friend Donald Adams’ car while Adams and two other unnamed people they were with went inside the store.
Per the NBC News story, there are conflicting reports on whether Walker, who was a smoker, got out of the car to smoke a cigarette during that time.
His friends told police that when they returned to the car, Walker was gone.
According to the AWARE Foundation, the surveillance video is grainy and hard to see.
Hinton says the one thing it does show is that Walker was not with the man and woman who claimed he went with them to the store that day.
“[The woman] initially was cooperative. She actually gave us a really good interview and then later recanted her entire statement based on advice she got from somebody,” Hinton said.