Palmyra killer’s parole status unclear

Answer: The convicted Palmyra thief and murderer commonly known as Buck Duane Walker is serving a life sentence at the new Federal Correctional Complex at Victorville, Calif., under the name Wesley G. Walker, according to Erwin Meinberg, spokesman for the federal prison at Lompoc, Calif.

Walker had been serving time at Lompoc, but some of the prisoners there were transferred to Victorville, near Los Angeles, after the new prison opened in 2004 on an old Air Force base.

Walker will be 69 on Sept. 18.

Meinberg would not comment on whether Walker is eligible for a parole hearing this year. He said an inmate's parole status is not public information, but if an inmate is released, that fact becomes public.

Interest in Walker has been kept alive for more than three decades by the book "And the Sea Will Tell," written by attorney Vincent Bugliosi, who successfully defended Walker's girlfriend Stephanie Stearns from a murder charge in the same case.

In 1974, Walker and Sterns sailed a leaky boat to Palmyra, 1,100 miles south of Hawaii, then returned in the stolen yacht Sea Wind. They were convicted of theft, but with no evidence of what happened to Sea Wind owners Malcolm "Mac" and Eleanor "Muff" Graham, additional charges waited until 1981.

That year, Muff Graham's bones were found on Palmyra, where they apparently been concealed in a metal box. Mac Graham's remains were never found.