SAN JOSE — As family members mourn the deaths of a young boy and his great-grandmother in a grisly double stabbing earlier this month at their San Jose apartment, key questions remain, the biggest being: Who committed the killings?
On the morning of Aug. 4, Jordan Cam Walker, 6, was found dead along with 71-year-old Delphina Turner at the Parkmoor Avenue apartment where they lived. San Jose police confirmed that both were stabbed.
“We are at a tremendous loss,” Morian Walker Sr., Jordan’s grandfather, said in a phone interview Thursday with Bay Area News Group. “We’re relying on the power of prayer, love and support to get us through this.”
Turner’s memorial service was set to take place Thursday at the Cathedral of Faith in San Jose. Jordan was to be memorialized at a Friday service at Emmanuel Baptist Church in San Jose.
Starting at 9 a.m. Friday, the family of Jordan Cam Walker will accept donations of flowers, sealed and store-bought food and gifts at his public memorial, Morian said.
“(Jordan) was just a joy,” Morian said. “Very smart, intelligent, witty, adventurous. He had a very outgoing personality.”
Morian noted Jordan’s athleticism and keen interest in sports. Coming from a family with multiple Division I college athletes, Jordan excelled in basketball and enjoyed swimming.
“We as a family were looking forward to cultivating whatever sport that he wanted to pursue,” Morian Walker Sr. said.
After Jordan is laid to rest on Friday, the Walker family plans to start a foundation in his memory, Morian added.
“There shouldn’t have to be another Jordan Cam Walker,” he said. “I’m going to develop a program, a foundation, that will allow us to help other Jordan Cam Walkers.”
He said the planned foundation will have a sports and educational component, and will help provide families with grieving services in the event of lost loved ones.
Meanwhile, little information has been released by authorities on the investigation into the killings, which appear to have occurred in a sprawling apartment complex with scores of neighbors in the immediate vicinity. No suspects have been publicly identified and no arrests have been announced.
Police continue to decline comment on the state of the investigation, but have suggested the stabbings were not random in declaring that there was not a known threat to public safety based on the preliminary investigation.
The coroner’s office has formally identified Turner, and confirmed she died from stabbing injuries, but the office has not publicly released Jordan’s name or his cause of death. The first public acknowledgment of the child’s death emerged in a GoFundMe fundraising page whose listed organizer is Morian Walker Sr. As of Thursday afternoon, $11,832 had been raised out of the $25,000 goal. To donate to the fundraiser, go to https://gofund.me/1f7180ba.
An obituary for Turner published in The Mercury News described her as a longtime Sunnyvale resident who “dedicated 35+ years of service to NASA” and in recent years moved to San Jose to be near her family.
“She was a beautiful woman, beloved mother, awesome grandmother, hip great-grandmother, and most importantly a Child of God,” the obituary reads. “She touched the lives of everyone who crossed her path.”
Anyone with information about the stabbings can contact the SJPD homicide unit at 408-277-5283 or email Detective Sgt. J.J. Vallejo at 3810@sanjoseca.gov or Detective Mike Harrington at 4365@sanjoseca.gov. Tips can also be left with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-7867 or at svcrimestoppers.org.
Source: www.mercurynews.com