RIP Heather Walker

Residents say area where teen's body was found is riddled with crime
Heather Walker's body was found Saturday morning in a trash can between abandoned buildings.
WWW. MYSPACE. COM/HEATHERWALKER07
By Jim DeBrosse
Staff Writer
Sunday, April 27, 2008
DAYTON — — Police woke James and Joy Kinsler at 8 a.m. Saturday, April 26, at their residence at 2911 E. Third St. to tell the couple they had found a girl's body in a trash can just two doors away.
"They asked if I had seen any strange people in the area lately, which is kind of a crazy question for this neighborhood," 28-year-old Joy Kinsler said. "I told him if there was NOT something strange going on, that's when I would call them."
The Kinslers say prostitutes and drug dealers work the area near East Third and Jersey streets where the body of missing 18-year-old Heather Walker was found stuffed in a trash can between abandoned buildings.
Walker had lived with her parents, Robert and Tammy Marie, and her 2-year-old son, Devin, at 1748 Gummer Ave. until she disappeared Feb. 9, the Walkers said. She had been dropped off by friends at an East Third Street convenience store parking lot at 7:30 p.m. that night just three blocks from where her body was found.
The Walkers say they notified police after Heather failed to call them for several days, but police declined to file a missing person's report because Heather had run away several times as a youth. "Because she had a history of running off, they wouldn't take it seriously and blew it off," Robert Walker said.
The Walkers made up hundreds of fliers with Heather's photo, her father said, and family and friends distributed them "as far away as Springfield and Troy."
The fliers drew numerous calls, but none of the tips could lead them to Heather, her father said.
Heather Walker's MySpace page reveals a young woman whose obscenity-laced blurb mentions that she's the 17-year-old mother of a 14-month-old son.
Next to the Heroes heading, she wrote, "No one has rescued me yet!"
The Kinslers say police have been ineffective in stopping vandalism, theft and prostitution in their neighborhood. After his car was broken into for the third time and the stereo stolen, James Kinsler said he installed video cameras around his home so he would have the evidence police say they need to investigate a theft.
Paul Dameron, 71, lives on Jersey Street, two doors west of where Heather's body was found.
"I have no idea who the person is," he said. But he said that, in the last few years, nothing that happens in the neighborhood would surprise him.
"We need a gun really bad here," Dameron said. "They're likely to kick your door down while you're watching TV."