During a distinguished 20-year career as a Nassau County police detective, Roger Walker was commended twice by the County Legislature for his work on the homicide squad. In 1989, after his retirement from the Nassau force, he published the true-crime book “Silent Testimony,” described by reviewers as “a startling account” of the gory but elusive murder of Florence Busacca, whose body was never found. Mr. Walker’s work on the case led to her husband’s conviction.
At the time, it was only “the second case in the country where they had a conviction without a body,” Mr. Walker told The Star in 2005.
Mr. Walker, a lifelong resident of Wainscott, died on July 3. He was 91.
Local lore says that Roger William Walker, who was born to James Henry Walker and the former Evelyn May Brown on March 11, 1931, at the very house on Sayre’s Path where he later died, could be considered a “Wainscott Dumpling” for that reason. He attended the hamlet’s one-room schoolhouse and graduated from East Hampton High School.
An Army veteran who served in the Korean conflict and served three years with the Army Counter Intelligence Corps in France, he spent six years in the military, during which he attained the rank of sergeant. He then graduated with honors from the New York Institute of Criminology. But despite the serious nature of the work he undertook professionally, “he was always an easygoing, happy-go-lucky guy — a friend to everybody,” said Carole Brennan, the East Hampton town clerk, with whom he was close friends for 34 years.
Even before his election as an East Hampton Town Justice in 1996, Mr. Walker had a long history of service to East Hampton Town, having been on its zoning board of appeals and later working as the only code enforcement officer in the 1980s.
The New York Times profiled him in 1993, saying that he was a fine code enforcement officer who got “nothing but high marks,” according to then-Town Supervisor Tony Bullock. “We developed secret means of inspecting unfenced pools without trespassing,” the town attorney told The Times. But the point of the story was that Mr. Walker was resigning with regrets from the office because of the town board’s “repeated refusal to hire even a part-time assistant.”
“That’s all I asked,” Mr. Walker told The Times, which had described him as “a serious, patient man who once spent three days waiting for the moment to photograph a hummingbird.”
Mr. Walker was first elected town justice on the Democratic ticket. Before that, he had run unsuccessfully for a seat on the town board. After his second term on the bench, which ended in 2004, he ran unsuccessfully for town supervisor on the Republican ticket, though he was unaffiliated with a particular party at that time.
He was twice married and divorced, enjoyed goose hunting, and served as an elder at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church. He also liked playing cards and traveling.
Mr. Walker is survived by two children, Michele Rene of Locust Grove, Ga., and Todd Walker of Wainscott, and two stepchildren, Chris Schubert of San Diego and Liz Burns of Scituate, Mass. He also leaves a sister, Florence Thompson of Glen Burnie, Md., and two grandchildren. A son, Bruce Walker, and seven siblings died before him.
A funeral was held on July 10. Mr. Walker is buried in the family plot at the Wainscott Cemetery.