It’s been four years to the day that a 21-year-old woman and her 2-year-old nephew went missing in northwest Indiana, but their family is holding out hope that they will still be found alive.
On July 25, 2015, 21-year-old Diamond Bynum and her 2-year-old nephew King Walker went missing from her father’s home in Gary, according to police.
On Thursday, Bynum’s family came together to ask for the public and media to keep interest in the case alive so that they can get the closure that has eluded them for four years.
“I feel like I don’t even have any more tears,” Lashann Walker, Diamond Bynum’s mother, said.
Diamond Bynum has a genetic disorder, which causes slow mental development. Her family says that she has the mental capacity of a 7-year-old child.
On the day of the disappearance, a relative tells police that he took a nap at the residence where Bynum and Walker were staying, and that when he woke up, they were gone.
“We don’t know if they walked out or if they left with someone they were familiar with,” Lashann Walker said.
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Fliers have been printed and distributed, and police and family members scoured the area for any sign of the missing pair, but as the days turned into years, the searches have proven fruitless.
“Another year has gone by and we have not found them,” Lashann Walker said. “Someone knows something, but no one is talking. The hard part is not knowing.”
Despite her despair, Lashann isn’t giving up hope, and she’s hoping to remain positive for the sake of her family.
“I don’t feel like they are gone,” she said. “In my heart, I feel that they are still alive.”
The Walker family says that the Gary Police Department is treating the disappearance as a cold case because of a lack of tips in recent years, and as she tries to get the case back into the public eye again, she says she won’t give her search.
“It’s never going to be a cold case for me. Never,” she said.