For many people, the new year brings a sense of optimism and hope about things to come. The family and friends of Solomon King have one hope this January: that the person responsible for Solomon’s death will be found.
Eight weeks after the Wootton junior was killed in a hit-and-run crash as he was walking along Travilah Road in North Potomac, the vehicle and driver are still missing, leaving Solomon’s loved ones grasping for a sense of closure to the tragedy that took him from them.
A group calling itself the Friends and Neighbors of Solomon King announced at a Dec. 22 press conference that they had raised to $20,000 the amount of money they are offering for information leading to the driver’s capture. The money is in addition to $1,000 offered by Crime Solvers of Montgomery County.
AT THE SAME TIME, Solomon’s mother Mieko King pleaded for drivers to take responsibility for their own safety and the safety of others during the dangerous holiday season. The now childless widow returned Christmas Eve to her native Japan to be with her mother for several weeks.
“We were also tying it in with the holidays and the traveling and high risk traveling during that time. Basically [King] was just saying she doesn’t want anyone to answer a knock on their door during the night saying a loved one’s been killed,” said Jane Weissman, a member of the group offering the $20,000 reward.
The group has been meeting weekly at King’s house to brainstorm ideas to keep the investigation moving forward and to prevent the tragic events from fading from public consciousness. One recent meeting produced the idea of distributing the posters describing the wanted car to pizza companies, who could deliver them together with pizzas. Potomac Pizza had the flyer attached to its pizza boxes this week.
The posters have already been put up throughout the North Potomac area as well as in Potomac, Rockville and Bethesda.
“Having the posters in such a variety of places” is helpful to the investigation, said Montgomery County Police spokesperson Lucille Baur, who added that she often encounters the posters while shopping or doing errands in her neighborhood and is reminded of the tragic events. “They are just everywhere. That keeps it in the public’s eye.”
Baur could not comment on the details of the investigation while it is still ongoing but said that “tips have come in and do continue to come in” but “unfortunately none of them has produced a suspect.”
SHE CONFIRMED THAT the police had recovered a side-view mirror that was separated from the missing car in the crash that killed Solomon.
Asked whether investigators lose hope of finding the perpetrator as an event becomes more distant, Baur replied, “You never lose hope in this kind of a situation. This investigation will remain open and active as long as there are leads to follow and even past the fact that there are leads.” She said that press conferences and other events that keep the tragedy in the public’s mind do often lead to a surge in phone calls providing information.
Those calls are vital, because there are simply too many possible scenarios regarding the car’s location to find it without the public’s help. It could have been driven out of town, or simply kept in a garage and not taken out since the accident. The damaged part of the car could have been painted over or otherwise covered up.
“It’s just very depressing. We’re just nowhere closer than it was in the beginning — someone out there knows something. We just have to believe that,” Weissman said, contemplating the possibilities.
“No one has given up hope,” she said, noting that the large sum of money may be an enticement to someone who had previously been reluctant to call, and that tips can be made anonymously. “We have to believe someone will come forward.”
In Japan, the Oshogatsu, or new year’s celebration, is a joyous holiday oriented not towards partying as in the United States but toward family togetherness and hope for an auspicious new year. Children typically return, even from far away, to be with their parents during the week-long celebration. For Mieko King, that journey was no doubt a deeply painful one this year.
“She is unfortunately a widow and now a childless mother,” Weissman said. “Being a single parent with an only child, my heart goes out to her.”