He declined immediate comment on the rally, which is being called Journey to Justice.
“The mission is to the keep the victims in the public spotlight and to ask support from the district attorney to help us create a task force to be dedicated to work on these cases along with different jurisdictions to get moving and make some arrests,” said Northampton County NAACP President Tony Burnette.
Burnette said family members will give impact statements on what the cases mean to them “and how they have not found justice or closure.”
Burnette said Damien Robinson will take up the mantle for his mother, Lola, who died in March after a tireless battle to find the truth behind her son, Shawn Alston's disappearance.
Burnette believes “if everyone involved comes together, puts our heads together, we can come up with something. You could get someone retired to work these cases, take somebody to work nothing but these cases, get a fresh set of eyes and ears and retrace the steps to get to the core of the matter. That's what it's going take. There are 12 people in the Roanoke Valley whose families have no closure. For the area we live in, that's a tragedy.”
Burnette believes the pull of the district attorney's office can help. “We're calling on our DA to support the families on these cases and to take that leadership role and to move these different agencies to bring pressure and try to find out what happened. We really need her to take the lead role in trying to get something done.”
District Attorney Valerie Asbell, who confirmed she would be attending the rally, along with other heads of Roanoke Valley law enforcement, said she would be listening to the concerns of those gathered.
“I think it's a good idea,” Northampton County Sheriff Jack Smith said. “It should be kept in the public eye.”
Smith said his investigators have followed up on leads which come in. All local police departments are aware of the cases and the missing have been entered into national databases. “We're doing everything we can humanly do to help solve these cases, working with the FBI and SBI and all local departments.”
Smith said the sheriff's office takes all missing person cases seriously and over the past three years have investigated around 35. “We've been fortunate enough to find all 35. We've called in dogs, helicopters, prison search teams. We meet and talk about this all the time.”
Said the sheriff: “Nothing would make me happier than to locate the missing persons. I wish we could receive some divine intervention so we could locate them. My heart goes out to the families of the missing.”
Smith says law enforcement is planning to meet with the families and he solicits the help of law enforcement officers either full or part-time to help in the search.
Sheila Moses, whose brother Daniel is among the missing, said the DA has resources such as investigators to help in the cause. “We're asking the DA to use her legal power. We're asking her to sit down with each sheriff's office to find out what they have missed, we're asking her to talk to the Justice Department, we're asking her to do her job that the voters have elected her to do. She has the power to call the sheriff's offices to bring the files and have a tip line.”
David Harvey, president of the Halifax County Chapter of the NAACP, said he is line with what Burnette is requesting. “It's about bringing attention to the missing and murdered. We would love to get a task force. It may take that. It would have to come from the SBI and FBI, but the DA has to initiate it.”
