After years of inactivity, the search was on Wednesday in the Jaliek Rainwalker missing person case.
Rainwalker's adoptive grandmother got the call early Wednesday morning saying State Police were putting together a search team after receiving what seemed like a good tip.
Barbara Reeley said from their vague description of where they were searching, she thought it was a place she herself had searched years ago.
The tip led Troopers to the area around the South Troy Dodgers baseball fields on Thompson Road.
BCI Captain Robert Appleton would not reveal any details about what the tip was or what, if anything, they found, just saying it is an active investigation into the disappearance nearly 15 years ago of the 12-year-old boy from Greenwich.
Investigators spent about five or six hours at the scene before winding up.
But for Barbara Reeley, the call--and the search--were a bolt from the blue in a case that had gone cold without any searches for the past five or six years.
NOVEMBER 1st, 2017: 10 years after his disappearance, no sign of Jaliek Rainwalker
Stephen Kerr is Jaliek's adoptive father who has long been a person of interest in the young boy's disappearance. Jaliek was last known to be with Kerr before disappearing.
Reeley said: "I believe on November first when Stephen and Jaliek left the Red Robin that Stephen's cell phone pinged off South Troy--off the tower--and there is always that possibility that Stephen had been there with Jaliek that evening."
The State Police BCI Captain called the area where they searched rough terrain and added: "What we've done is search for evidence. The property is pretty vast. We're looking for things based on the lead.
...we had our URT team, which is our underwater recovery team, we had our canines, we had our BCI investigators and uniformed presence as well...."
Captain Appleton said there was storm drainage in the area which led to the Underwater Recovery Team being involved.
For Barbara Reeley, now living in Florida, it was another day of hoping: "There's no closure, no putting him to rest or finding him. It has always bothered me that I could be driving by where he is and not know it. At one point I wanted to start at my front door and start digging. He's got to be somewhere..."
MARCH 7th, 2017: Police investigate connection to missing persons case
The late Cambridge Greenwich Police Chief George Bell more than once tried to get Stephen Kerr to speak about the investigation, but he refused. Kerr and his wife have since moved to Vermont.
Reeley says she was heartbroken at Chief Bell's passing in 2018 because he was crucial to the investigation and followed up on every viable lead. She says her husband--who was her greatest support over the past nearly 15 years--died two weeks after Bell, leaving her no one to lean on when she got the word that another search was underway.