GREENACRES, FL (Boca Post) (Copyright © 2026) — More than four decades after 8-year-old Christy Luna disappeared while walking to a neighborhood store in Greenacres, detectives with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office say they have identified a new person of interest in the case and are asking the public for help filling in the remaining gaps.
Christy Luna vanished on May 27, 1984, after leaving her home to walk less than two blocks to a general store to buy cat food for her two cats. Investigators say she successfully purchased the food at Belks General Store but never returned home. Despite a massive search effort at the time, no trace of the child was found.
The disappearance quickly became one of Palm Beach County’s most enduring cold cases.
The investigation initially began with the Greenacres Police Department before the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office assumed responsibility for the case in 1984. Since then, the case has remained active within PBSO’s Violent Crimes Cold Case Homicide unit.
During a press briefing Wednesday at PBSO headquarters on Gun Club Road in West Palm Beach, detectives announced that they are now seeking information about Warren Gilbert Williams Jr., a convicted child sex offender who was 46 years old at the time Christy disappeared. Williams died in prison in 2016.
Detectives released photographs and age-progressed images of Williams as part of a renewed public appeal for information.
Sgt. Chris Karpinski with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit said investigators received an anonymous tip last year suggesting Williams may have been in the area on the day Christy disappeared.
According to Karpinski, the tip indicated Williams was remodeling a home near the general store that day.
“He left that home and his remodeling efforts to go buy cigarettes at Belks General Store and he never returned,” Karpinski said during the briefing.
Karpinski said investigators have heard many reports over the years placing people near the store the day Christy vanished, but Williams drew closer attention due to his criminal history.
“That alone, interesting information, but we have a lot of that information through the years where somebody was seen in the area, and this and that,” Karpinski said.
Williams, however, had what Karpinski described as a “peculiar past of sexual activity with children.” According to investigators, Williams was convicted of sexual battery on a child under 12 and lewd and lascivious molestation. He was imprisoned in Florida from 2007 to 2013.
After completing that sentence, Williams was transferred to prison in Alabama, where authorities had sought him in connection with sexual abuse of a child, Karpinski said.
“The suspicion existed through this circle of people that Mr. Williams knew through the years, and they had discussed the possibility of him being involved with Christy’s disappearance,” Karpinski said.
Detectives also learned through the anonymous tip that Williams installed a concrete pad in the backyard of his residence in what is now Lake Worth Beach about a week after Christy disappeared.
Investigators obtained permission from the current homeowners and conducted an excavation of the property last month, digging up the yard in the area identified by the tip.
“Unfortunately, we found nothing,” Karpinski said.
The search produced what he described as mixed emotions among investigators.
“We wanted to find something, but yet, finding something meant that, you know, we had bad news, at least it was for me,” Karpinski said. “So there is still hope that Christy either is out there or somebody is out there that knows where she is, whether she is still with us on Earth or has passed.”
Karpinski emphasized that investigators currently have no physical or testimonial evidence directly linking Williams to Christy’s disappearance.
“We want to learn more about him,” Karpinski said. “I know it’s a long time ago. People, friends, neighbors, witnesses that day who think maybe they saw him, please come forward.”
Detectives say Williams was living in the Lake Worth Beach area at the time Christy vanished.
Authorities also noted that other previously identified persons of interest in the case have not been ruled out.
Detective Bill Springer, who has worked the investigation since the sheriff’s office assumed the case from Greenacres police in 1984, said detectives are still pursuing any information that could lead to answers.
“I want people to come forward. I’m not going to question why you didn’t come forward, because I don’t care,” Springer said during the briefing. “My job is to find Christy, not to judge people because they didn’t come forward.”
“So if you’ve got information and you’ve been sitting on it for 30 years, 40 years, I don’t care,” he said. “Bring it out and we’ll look at it, see what we can do with it.”
PBSO has periodically renewed public attention on the case, including through a documentary produced by the agency’s media team titled Finding Christy Luna, released May 27, 2019 — the anniversary of her disappearance — across the sheriff’s office’s social media platforms.
Crime Stoppers of Palm Beach County is offering a reward of up to $15,000 for information that leads to the resolution of the case.
Anyone with information can contact Detective Bill Springer at 561-688-4013 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-458-TIPS. Tips can also be submitted anonymously through the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office mobile app using the “See Something” feature, available for Apple and Android devices at pbsoapp.com.
More than 40 years later, investigators say the case remains open — and they believe someone still knows what happened to Christy Luna.
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