This week’s Flashback Friday is William Christopher Delk, a young man who disappeared from the Bronx in New York City. He had recently turned eighteen and went by the nickname Chris. He had plans for the future and had enrolled in a Job Corps program.
The last time Chris’s mom heard from him was on July 23, 1982, when he called her and asked her to come pick him up from the South Bronx Job Corps Center. Chris’s mother lived in the town of Huntington on Long Island. By the time she arrived at the Job Corps office, he was gone and he’d left his street clothes behind. No one saw him leave.
July 23 is given as the date of Chris’s disappearance, but he may have actually vanished some time after that. Chris’s mom was apparently unconcerned by his absence at first. He was eighteen, after all. She went on vacation out of state and called home several times while she was gone, hoping to reach her son. No one ever picked up the phone, but once the line was busy and she assumed Chris had returned home. When Chris’s mother returned from her vacation she found evidence that he’d done just that: the couch looked like it had been slept on, and Chris’s wallet and favorite hat, which he’d had when he vanished, had reappeared in the house. But there was no sign of him. His mother never saw him again.
There were no confirmed sightings of Chris Delk after July 23, and his Social Security number hasn’t been used in the three decades from that day to this. His NamUs profile says the police have dental records but no DNA sample, which makes me wonder if he has any family still alive and looking for him. The police believe he’s deceased.
What happened to William Christopher Delk in the summer of 1982?
The Charley Project Blog 
I don’t know but I think if my son asked me to come pick him up and I traveled into the city from Long Island and he wasn’t there to be picked up I’d be concerned right away. Also plenty mad.
Yeah my Mom got mad at me for not showing up in time for her to pick me up after school and she drove back home. Then when I called her again she went off on me about not being there. lol! Those were the good ‘ol days! lol! lol!
He’s most likely deceased – but its also another one of those “vanished off the face of the earth” kind of stories a-la Jason Jolkowski where someone clearly knows something, but they just won’t say it for whatever reason.
Cases like Jason’s make me half-wonder if alien abductions are real.
People in Huntinton talked in the streets…I searched for my son for over 30 years. I did more then the police…OK…vacation. NO. To family NOT to lose my MIND. I wrote a book exposing the killer…
What is the book? I would like to read it.
Could this be him? http://www.meetup.com/TRAVEL-FOR-FREE/members/33179272/
I highly doubt it.
That’s strange…
I doubt that it’s him as well, but damn…so many similarities.
The guy on the photo looks tad too old, I think…
I always thought that this story was weird. Why would his street clothes be there without him in it? And he eventually made it home and got comfortable (sleeping on the couch, using her phone) and then walked away??? Its just so mysterious to me.
My guess would be that he was wearing some kind of work uniform when he disappeared, and was going to change into street clothes when he left. But I dunno.
“he was wearing some kind of work uniform when he disappeared”…okay that makes sense.
Students at Job-Corps wear uniforms, so I’m assuming that’s what they are probably referring to.
I looked for over 30 years for my son. He was murdered. I was never asked for my DNA
That is his father. The young man who disappeared.
That is his father.