Wallace Guidroz

• Missing Since 01/10/1983
• Missing From Tacoma, Washington
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Male
• Race Asian, Biracial, Black
• Date of Birth 03/24/1980 (44)
• Age 2 years old
• Height and Weight 3'0, 35 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry Description Purple corduroy overalls, a dark blue vest, a dark blue down jacket with a red collar, a gray knitted skullcap and cowboy boots.
• Distinguishing Characteristics Biracial (African-American/Asian) male. Black hair, brown eyes. Wallace is of Korean descent.

Details of Disappearance

Wallace was last seen playing at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, Washington on January 10, 1983. He was accompanied by his father, Stanley Lee Guidroz, at the time. According to his father, Wallace began to play with a girl about his own age, as well as the girl's mother, near a duck pond.

Stanley stated he left them and went for a walk around the pond with a man whom he assumed was the girl's father. The two men shared a beer. When Stanley returned twenty-five to forty minutes later, his son was gone, as were the woman and child.

Stanley and the man agreed to split up and search for them. They went in opposite directions and the man never came back. Stanley searched for his son for two hours before alerting police at 7:42 p.m. Wallace has never been heard from again.

Authorities made composite sketches of the man and woman; the sketches are posted with this case summary. The man, woman and child were never identified. Investigators were not sure if they were involved in Wallace's disappearance, but they were sought as witnesses.

The man is described as Caucasian, in his late twenties to early thirties, and about six feet tall with a medium build. He had shoulder-length, sandy brown hair and a mustache and a beard, and he wore a baseball cap. The woman was also Caucasian, 5'2 and 115 to 120 pounds, with light blonde hair that fell below her shoulders and long eyelashes. She was in her early to mid-twenties. The girl is described as Caucasian with long blonde hair; she was about two or three years old.

After Wallace's disappearance became public, a woman called police to say she and her children had been at Point Defiance Park the day the child disappeared and had seen a man and woman, and the man matched the description of the man Stanley saw. The woman stated the couple had tried to abduct her children twice. Her account has never been verified.

Stanley and Wallace's mother, Chom Guidroz, divorced two years after Wallace's disappearance. Chom moved to Illinois, where she died in 1995 at the age of 37. Stanley moved back to his native Louisiana in 1986. In 2011, he was charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his wife, Pepettra Guidroz.

A photo of Stanley at the time of his arrest is posted below with case summary. He killed Pepettra during an argument, then drove her car, with her body inside, to a city a hundred miles away and turned himself in to the police there and confessed. They had been married for eight years. According to Pepettra's relatives, they often argued and he was abusive towards her. In August 2012, Stanley pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Pepettra's death.

Wallace's case got renewed media attention after Stanley's murder arrest. Authorities stated he'd never been ruled out as a suspect in his son's disappearance. In June 2011, they dug for Wallace's body in a waterfront area along Ruston Way in Tacoma. Police said they'd been directed to the site by Stanley. Nothing was located, however.

The medical examiner's office issued a death certificate for Wallace, listing the cause of death as blunt force injury to the head and the manner of death as a homicide.

Stanley was charged with manslaughter in his son's presumed death in 2011, but not extradited from Louisiana until 2014. According to his statements to police, he and Wallace did in fact go to Point Defiance Park that day, and after they got home, Stanley angrily lashed out at Wallace because the toddler was "fussing" in his high chair. He said Wallace accidentally fell from the chair, hit his head on the floor and died.

In July 2015, a judge suppressed Stanley's confession and dismissed the manslaughter charge, stating there was no evidence besides Stanley's statements to support the prosecution's case.

Wallace's body has never been found and investigators believe it may not be recoverable. Foul play is suspected in his case due to the circumstances involved.