Infant's Disappearance Shrouded in Mystery

As the search for a missing North Port infant moves into week two, the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office reports that there have been no breaks in the case.

“Leads are still trickling in and detectives spent this weekend and today methodically and logically following up on each of them,” a Monday afternoon email from the agency stated. “No additional search activities are currently planned, but should new information lead us to additional locations that need to be searched, we will.”

On Oct. 4, Chance Walsh’s maternal grandmother contacted the Sarasota sheriff’s office to say she had not seen the then 9-week-old baby since Sept. 9, the sheriff’s office said. She and the boy’s paternal grandmother made a number of attempts to check on the baby’s welfare.

Chance’s parents, Kristen Bury and Joseph Walsh, “are longtime drug users,” the sheriff’s office wrote in a media release last week.

Family members heard from the couple that they had been involved in a car accident in South Carolina. The couple, the sheriff’s office said, provided conflicting reports about Chance in relation to the crash. They told some relatives that Chance was unharmed, but others heard the boy died, the sheriff’s office said. Still another relative was told the baby was given to a women at a hotel in Georgia.

“Detectives confirmed with South Carolina law enforcement that there was no baby in the vehicle at the time of the crash and no room for a car seat,” the release said. “They also confirmed with Georgia law enforcement that the couple stayed at an Augusta hotel but there was no baby with them. A woman staying at the hotel reported that Kristen tried to sell baby clothes to her and that Kristen told her the baby had died three weeks earlier.”

Walsh and Bury were charged with child neglect by the sheriff’s office and were brought into custody in Jasper County, South Carolina. They are being extradited to Sarasota County.

Anyone with information about Chance’s whereabouts is asked to call the sheriff’s office at 941-861-4074. Anonymous tips may be submitted via Crime Stoppers at 941-366-TIPS or online at www.sarasotacrimestoppers.com.

Photos of Chance Walsh, Kristen Bury and Joseph Walsh courtesy of the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office