Editor’s note: This is the second column in a three-part series by Stephanie Salter on the June 13, 2006, abduction and killing of 4-year-old Collin Walker, allegedly by his father. Part 1 appeared Sept. 2, Part 3 runs Sunday.



By Stephanie Salter

Terre Haute Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — Teresa Walker would not learn of it for more than a year, but Terre Haute police made their first inquiry about a possible Amber Alert not long after Walker’s father phoned 911 to report that his grandsons had been taken from his home at knifepoint by their father. Click here to see related story.

Some seven hours would pass between that first inquiry to the local Indiana State Police post and the issuance of an Amber Alert by the Indiana Missing Children Clearinghouse in the state capital. Before June 13, 2006, ended, Walker’s 4-year-old son, Collin, would be dead from a stab wounds to the chest, and her younger son, Monte, would be flown by helicopter to Indianapolis for surgery on his wounds.

The boys’ father, Katron Walker, would spend the next three nights under police guard in Terre Haute’s Union Hospital for treatment of self-inflicted cuts. Murder and attempted murder charges awaited him on release.

Fourteen months later, Teresa Walker says her version of that day — her repeated attempts to convince local police of the need for an Amber Alert — can be summed up this way: “I felt like, ‘What part of this don’t you understand? What part of taking your children by force at knifepoint seems like rational behavior for a parent?’”

With her friend and St. Mary-of-the-Woods co-worker, Catherine Saunders, who accompanied her throughout her ordeal, Walker said she raised the subject of an Amber Alert with every law enforcement representative she encountered that day — and there were many.

Walker had left her husband June 11 and moved into a women’s shelter operated by the Council on Domestic Abuse. On the 12th, she filled out a request for an emergency protective order against him for her and the boys.

A little before 9 a.m., on the 13th, she called the Terre Haute Police Department’s main business number from her office at the college. Four disturbing voicemails and a threatening live call from her husband, she said, made her fear for herself and her two pre-school-age sons.

“He said he was going to do something that would change my life and he was going to be remembered,” she said of the actual conversation.

The police operator told her that because St. Mary-of-the-Woods is not in Terre Haute, Walker needed to file an intimidation report with the county sheriff. Walker said she called the Vigo County Sheriff’s Department and was informed that a deputy would come to the college to take a report.

Shortly before 10 a.m., Michael Dwyer, Walker’s father, phoned in a panic. He had just called 911 because Katron Walker had come to his home, punched and kicked him and his sister, and taken Collin and Monte, at knifepoint.

Teresa Walker and Catherine Saunders left the college and drove toward Dwyer’s. On the way they spotted a West Terre Haute Police car in a restaurant parking lot south of U.S. 40 and flagged it down. “I thought he could take me to my dad’s faster,” Walker said.

The police officer said he couldn’t accompany the women, but he told them an all-points-bulletin already had been issued to local law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for Katron Walker and the boys. For the first time, Teresa Walker asked about an Amber Alert, which brings commercial broadcasters and the public into a search for a missing child.

Walker asked again a few minutes later when the county sheriff’s deputy, now-rerouted, pulled into the restaurant parking lot. The deputy took Walker’s intimidation complaint and a family photograph of Teresa, Katron, Collin and Monte. It, too, was the first of many.

“I pulled out photos all day and handed them over to police,” she said.

At her father’s house, Walker said, a uniformed THPD officer conveyed “no sense of urgency” about the abduction. As others would during the day, she said, he reminded her that Katron Walker was the boys’ biological father and entitled to have them with him.

WTWO reporter Jon Swaner had heard police scanner traffic about the 911 call, driven to Dwyer’s home then to the police station.

“Jon was the first one who asked us for descriptions of the boys, not the police,” Walker said. “Then the officers asked, and I gave a very detailed description, including everything they were wearing.” Once again, she said, she gave police photos of the children and asked about an Amber Alert.

For the next several hours, Walker and Saunders answered questions, filed reports, gave statements and drove back and forth on Wabash Avenue, between the police station and the county emergency communications center in the basement of City Hall.

Saunders’ husband, Jason, a lawyer, joined them at THPD headquarters sometime between 11:30 and noon. with a list of the four Amber Alert criteria with him. According to all three, police there questioned whether the knifepoint abduction of Collin and Monte met the second criterion — a child must be believed to be “in danger of serious bodily harm or death” — because their father had not directly threatened them.

The police were made even more hesitant by the language of Indiana’s 2006 Amber Plan guidelines — since modified — that appeared to prohibit an Amber Alert for any child “taken in custody disputes.”

While the women waited, Jason Saunders drove to the county courthouse to get a copy of the recently signed emergency protective order, which police had asked to see. He was delayed because the court was closed for the lunch hour.

Walker said that while she and Catherine Saunders sat at police headquarters “there was a lot of waiting to hear back from the state police. They [Terre Haute Police] said, ‘We’re trying to find out what we need to do’ for an Amber Alert.”

At least once, she recalled, a police officer said that the department had to be careful in domestic dispute situations because, if Katron Walker turned out to have done nothing wrong, “he could come back and sue us.”

By about 1:30 p.m., when Jason Saunders returned with the protective order, said Walker, a detective was assigned to the case.

“About 3 o’clock, they told us they thought they could get an Amber Alert, but that we’d have to go to the communications center to file missing person reports on both boys,” said Walker. “That was needless, but we didn’t know” it wasn’t required.

The pace of that process, both women said, was more befitting a stolen bicycle report. At one point, the police officer taking the missing persons information excused himself to go buy a soft drink from a vending machine. Everything he had written down, he then took to a clerk inside the communications center to input into a computer.

“She kept sticking her head out the door to ask for clarification,” said Walker, who could only watch the clock in increasing anguish.

Next, the women were sent back to THPD headquarters, this time to the juvenile division, so Teresa Walker could give another statement. She was quizzed then, she said, about her husband’s record of misdemeanor drug possession and whether he kept any guns in the house. When Walker said she had seen a gun but didn’t even know if it was real or a toy, detectives asked her to take them to the Walker home.

On the kitchen table, Walker said, a newspaper was spread out “with what looked like every knife in the house” lying on it. While detectives searched the home, a television that had been left on broadcast the news that an Amber Alert had been issued for Collin and Monte Walker.

It was nearly 5:30 p.m.

Coming Sunday: Coping with grief, loss and the daunting aftermath of an unimaginable tragedy.

Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.