John Clay Walker (October 5, 1948 – January 30, 1985) was an American journalist and aspiring novelist who was abducted, tortured and murdered in Mexico by members of the Guadalajara Cartel under orders of their leader Rafael Caro Quintero. Caro Quintero suspected Walker of working as an undercover U.S. Drug Enforcement Agent (DEA) while he lived in Guadalajara, Jalisco. John Clay Walker was born in Washington D.C. at Walter Reed Hospital. In 1968, Walker enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was honorably discharged after being wounded twice in Vietnam and receiving two Purple Hearts. Using benefits of the G.I. Bill, Walker attended the University of Minnesota and earned a B.A. in Journalism in 1976. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s Walker worked as a reporter and photographer at small papers in Minnesota and Iowa. In 1983, Walker and his family relocated to Guadalajara, Mexico for a sabbatical year so that Walker could pursue novel-writing full-time.

On January 30, 1985, John Walker and his friend Albert Radelat were dining in a Guadalajara restaurant when they encountered Rafael Caro Quintero and his men. The drug lord ordered his men to seize the Americans and take them to a store room. They tortured the men with ice picks and interrogated them. John Walker died on the scene from blunt force trauma to the head. Albert Radelat was still living when the men were wrapped in table cloths and taken to a park near the city and buried. The bodies of the men were found six months later buried at the San Isidro Mazatepec Park in Zapopan. The authorities believe that Caro Quintero had mistaken Walker and Radelat for U.S. undercover agents. Walker is survived by his wife and two daughters. He is buried at Ft. Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis, MN.