This article was originally published as part of the joke issue on 12.5.2013
Todd Henry Walker is nervous. We are sitting in his dormitory, room 245 of Gregory College House, 3909 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104. He speaks calmly and deliberately, but he fidgets nervously. He is uncomfortable. He has secrets.
Todd Henry Walker witnessed a quinquagintuple homicide outside of the 40th and Walnut McDonald’s last week.
So far, he has only told close friends and family what happened—and even then he hasn’t told the full story. “I am at a loss,” Todd Henry Walker, an engineering senior, says.
Todd Henry Walker crosses his legs and asks me a question. It’s the same one he’s been asking all day. He wants my assurances that this interview will be completely anymous. He fears for his life. “Should I be talking to you?” he asks, voice quivering. He starts to cry. “I’ve seen too much. You don’t know what they’ll do to me.”
Todd Henry Walker is cooperating as a witness with the Philadelphia police’s murder investigation even though he has been violently threatened against doing so by the perpetrator and the perpetrator’s associates on three occasions. I tell him that he is a senior who lives in Gregory, that he is already completely anonymous, invisible to the naked eye. Still, I promise not to divulge any identifying details about Todd Henry Walker. I put a hand on his thigh. “I promise,” I say.
Relaxed, Todd Henry Walker and I make small talk before discussing the quinquagintuple homicide. I point out that his phone number, (973) 217–3333, is unusual because it is not a Philadelphia area code. He tells me this is because his family actually lives at 42320 Mountain Avenue, Springfield, NJ, 07081. His dad, Dr. James Terry Walker; mother, Mrs. Lynn Ashcroft Walker; and younger sister, Madison Deirdre Walker, all live at that address, and it would be devastating to Todd should harm befall any of them.
I make a joke that Ashcroft is a strange middle name. Todd Henry Walker weakly musters a laugh—something he hasn’t done in too long—and explains that Ashcroft is actually his mother’s maiden name, and she legally changed her middle name from Janice to Ashcroft shortly after getting married.
Eventually, Todd Henry Walker opens up. “It was horrible, what I saw,” he says. “It’s not safe there.”
At press time, Todd Henry Walker is at the southwest corner of Walnut and 36th Streets. His social security number is 987–65–4320.
