Family seeks answers about how 26-year-old man went missing, was found in bayou
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and the family of Delano Burkes are pleading for more information, nearly a month after the 26-year-old mysteriously disappeared and was later found dead in the Houston Ship Channel.
“(Burkes’) father and mother know him as a good man,” Jackson Lee said Friday during a news conference at the Mickey Leland Federal Building. “All families have challenges. All family members deserve to be found.”
Burkes vanished Nov. 12 after leaving McIntyre’s bar in the 1200 block of 20th Street, Houston police said. The real estate investor and former Texas A&M University-Commerce football player became separated from friends at the bar. Once those friends left the bar around 1 a.m., Burkes was last seen walking west toward White Oak Bayou.
The Houston police dive team recovered Burkes’ body Nov. 25 after a tugboat crew found it floating in the Houston Ship Channel. Karen Jeffley, Burkes’ mother, said the Department of Public Safety identified her son by his fingerprints.
“We do believe that people know about it,” Jeffley said. “Hopefully someone can help us (and) give us tips as to where and what could have happened.”
The family believes Burkes was drugged the day he disappeared.
“I believe he did not have control of his legs. He would not have lasted long enough to run far enough to make it to a body of water,” Jeffley said.
Houston TV station ABC13 obtained security camera footage Friday, appearing to show Burkes in distress and walking away from McIntyre’s. Police have shown Burkes’ family surveillance footage of him leaving McIntyre’s but have not shown them any videos taken inside the bar, Jeffley said.
“We just need closure,” Autumn Burkes, Delano Burkes’ wife, said during the news conference. “We need answers and we need somebody to speak up. Delano was a kind, sweet and generous person. Somebody like that doesn’t just end up in the Ship Channel.”
Police have not ruled Burkes’
case as a homicide, and it could take three to six months for a toxicology report to shed some light on his manner of death, according to Jeffley.
Jeffley asked anyone who biked along the Buffalo Bayou or visited McIntyre’s, Moonshine Deck, Austin’s Backyard, RA Sushi or Roostar Vietnamese Grill on Nov. 12 and Nov. 13 to call
Crime Stoppers if they have information or saw Burkes on those days. She also said knowing all that Burkes ingested on those days could help with the police’s investigation.
“We’re asking for any facts that might be helpful to this grieving family,” Jackson said.