Roger Walker, 91, Former East Hampton Town Justice, Dies July 3

Former East Hampton Town Justice Roger Walker died on Sunday afternoon, July 3. He was 91 and died peacefully in the same Wainscott house where he was born.

A retired police officer, Walker served on the town bench for eight years, from 1995 to 2003, even though he never attended law school. He also served as deputy town supervisor and on the Town Zoning Board of Appeals. He was the Republican Party candidate for supervisor in 2005.

The youngest of nine children born and raised in Wainscott to James Henry Walker and Evelyn May Walker (nee Brown), he attended the Wainscott School and East Hampton High School.

After high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he would serve for eight years from 1948 to 1956, as a Sergeant 1st Class during the Korean War and as a special agent in the Army Counter Intelligence Corps, according to a biography he circulated when he was a candidate for supervisor.

After his service, he enrolled at Nassau Community College and the New York Institute of Criminology and joined the Nassau County Police Department, where he would ultimately become a homicide detective.

He was the lead investigator in the suspected murder of Florence Busacca and the department’s building of a case against and ultimately winning conviction of her husband, Thomas, even though her body was never found.

Walker later wrote a book about the case, “Silent Testimony.”

When he retired from the Nassau County Police Department, he returned to the South Fork, purchased his family home in 1986 and worked for the East Hampton Town Code Enforcement Department before running for a seat on the town bench.

He was an elder at the First Presbyterian Church of East Hampton and a longtime member of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Long Island advisory board.

After choosing not to run for a third term, Walker took to traveling, criss-crossing the country by Amtrak train and touring France and Italy. He loved playing cards and backgammon and hunting waterfowl from sunken pits in Wainscott corn farm fields.

“He was a wonderful man, a good person and people loved him,” said Carole Brennan, the East Hampton Town clerk and a longtime friend. “He was my best friend for 35 years. I met him playing cards. He was very kind to me and my kids and grandkids.”

Walker was married twice, but both marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by two children from his first marriage, son Todd Walker and daughter Michelle Walker Rene; his sister Florence; and two grandchildren.

He was predeceased by a son, Bruce, and his other brothers and sisters, Mattie, Clara, Henry, Esther, Adele, Mary and Louie.

Visitation will be held at Yardley & Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton on Friday, July 8, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Funeral services will be at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church on Saturday at 11 a.m. followed by burial at the Wainscott Cemetery.