LA LA - Jane Rowell Clement, 22, Baton Rouge, 7 April 1963

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Never mind. I skated over & found the experts forum is just a list to keep handy, not a discussion board.
 
JWD said:
Hi, Bessie, Satch & dogperson! A belated thanks to HannahJ for posting insider info to fill in some of the many gaps in our knowledge of the case.

Satch, thanks for posting the link to the LSU Faces site. It's the only one I've seen that gives her full date of birth. However, it and NameUs list her height as 65 inches = 5'5". Other sites list her height as 63 inches = 5'3". The latter jibes with news reports.

Bessie, thanks for the welcome and correcting the date. It still bothers me the way the date was reported in the newspapers. Reporters are usually quoting whatever the family or neighbors said because they didn't witness the events themselves. But reporters did have first-hand knowledge of which Sunday Easter fell on. If all the sources I checked, including newspapers, were correct about Easter being on the 14th, why did those same newspapers repeatedly say Clement disappeared "on the 8th, the day after Easter?" The first articles were written only a couple of weeks after she vanished--not long enough for reporters to "forget". Weird.

Here's a twist in the bedspread: Although I lack the resources ($$) to check every news article, the ones I have seen don't read: "her only bedspread." It's phrased: "only a bedspread." You can see that maybe somewhere in the past 50 years the words got twisted.

Ever play that party game where one person writes down a sentence, then whispers it into the ear of the person sitting next to them? The 2nd person whispers it to somebody else. The last person says the sentence out loud, then the original person passes the written version around the room. The 2 versions are hilariously different.

Clement's story isn't funny though. Neither is tracking a false trail. Jane Clement's brother is dead so we can't ask him. We really need to see the police report. Does anyone here have an LE acquaintance in Baton Rouge, LA? Is that a question I'm allowed to ask on the experts board?
Click to expand...
I think I changed the date three times. lol First I changed it to the 15th, which was the Monday after Easter. Then I saw Namus had the date as the 8th, so I changed it to the 8th. Now I've changed it back to the 15th, and there it shall remain.
 
I know Jane's daughter. The daughter did give a swab for DNA. I did tell her about WS case regarding her mother. Jane's son and daughter were raised by the dad. She says that in spite finger pointing/questioning, that her dad was a excellent parent.
 
This year marks 50 years since Hannah "Jane" Rowell Clement went missing.

When I first posted this case on WS back in 2006, I simply repeated the information available on the Doe Network. That information is still the same as it was back in 2006.

I do not know who first contacted the Doe Network and asked them to post her case. Often it is the Law Enforcement agency, sometimes it is a family member, and sometimes just an interested person. If there is more information available about the case, contacting the Doe Network could get them to include it in the case information.

Note that the Doe Network cites the following source: The Baton Rouge Advocate. It is possible that a news article is available which would provide more information, especially since the 50 year anniversy of her disappearance has just passed.

Link:

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1373dfla.html
 
... for taking the time to post the summary for HJRC.

I've been trolling the Advocate and two other newspaper for weeks. That's where the contradictory info showed up ... sometimes one newspaper contradicting another, but usually various newspapers contradicting themselves. I'm trying another avenue now. If that doesn't work out, I'll contact the Doe Network. Thanks for that tip also.

Best,
JWD
 
Hmm. Intriguing case. Some similarities to the Joan Risch disappearance. Did Jane leave of her own accord, or did she meet with foul play?
 
I tried to look up Jane's sister, Patsy Rowell who went missing, and couldn't find anything on her. HannahJ was correct when she stated that no one bothered to look for her. Sad.

As I stated in my earlier post, this case is eerily similar to that of Joan Risch, except that the children were not present at the time their mother vanished. Not saying they are related, but there are some startling similarities to that and the case of Christen Nickel Seal, who disappeared under circumstances that were very much like that of Joan Risch. In Seal's case, her young son was found unattended and she vanished from her home leaving all of her possessions behind except for what she was wearing at the time.

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/s/seal_christene.html

I wish there was more information on these cases. So little evidence left behind and no real answers, how devastating for the families.
 
Missing bedspread... suggests something sinister. Probably used to transport a dead person... to cover the body and then it along with the body placed into the boot of a vehicle. It's a strong indicator of foul play

She's down as just a missing persons. So I'm guessing she was strangled in her home and then the bedspread was used to cover her up.
 
Richard said:
Jane Rowell Clement
Missing since April 7, 1963 from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Classification: Endangered Missing
Vital Statistics
Age at Time of Disappearance: 22 years old
Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 5'3" ; 100 lbs.
Distinguishing Characteristics:
White female.
Dark blonde hair.
Blue eyes.

Circumstances of Disappearance

Jane Rowell Clement, an aspiring writer and mother of two young children has been missing since April 7, 1963. She was last seen at her residence at 2776 Sorrel Ave in Baton Rouge,LA. Clement called her estranged husband the day after Easter 1963 and asked him to watch their children while she went job-hunting.
The husband picked the children up but got no answer when he phoned his wife's home later that day. A week later, a worried neighbor called Clements brother in New Orleans to tell him she hadn't seen Clement in days.

The brother had to break into his sister's locked Sorrel Avenue home. In the laundry room, he found a basket of washed clothes that had mildewed. The only things missing from the house were Clement's Easter clothes and her only bedspread.

Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:

Baton Rouge City Police Department
Sgt. Candy Graham
225-389-8617 OR 225-389-3844

Agency Number: 5501-63
NCIC Number: N/A
Please refer to this number when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.

Source Information:
The Baton Rouge Advocate
The Doe Network: Case File 1373DFLA

Link:
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1373dfla.html
Click to expand...

The story about easter costume and the bedspread. Really hits off like a abduction. The story says she was going to a job interview, maybe she had arranged a ride with someone to come pick her up. Or even possible been stalked.
The was abduction in a park not far away said it seemed that a couple was doing photos, one gale was wearing a Easter outfit

Havent seemed to peace together

Prayers
 
Hello,
I have been reading this forum for years. This is my first post. This case has always haunted me and i wish their was more information. I could not locate anything on ancestry regarding census records or marriage. And a missing sibling? terrible. I wish her children would shed a little light on Jane. More pictures of her etc.. She was so beautiful. Are there any living family members? A single mother of 2 in 1963 very ahead of her time. Also it appears that her home at 2776 Sorrel Ave Baton Rouge has been torn down. Im sure i saw it before on google maps, but now it is no longer there. very interesting. LA Bumping for Jane.
 
Morbid_love said:
Hello,
I have been reading this forum for years. This is my first post. This case has always haunted me and i wish their was more information. I could not locate anything on ancestry regarding census records or marriage. And a missing sibling? terrible. I wish her children would shed a little light on Jane. More pictures of her etc.. She was so beautiful. Are there any living family members? A single mother of 2 in 1963 very ahead of her time. Also it appears that her home at 2776 Sorrel Ave Baton Rouge has been torn down. Im sure i saw it before on google maps, but now it is no longer there. very interesting. LA Bumping for Jane.
Click to expand...

I agree. So little information, and while I would like to hope that this case could be solved, but the more time that goes by the more unlikely that seems.
 
I really don’t think it’s related based on time frames being so far off and being so far away geographically - but if Jane’s real name is Hannah Jane Rowell Clement, what are the chances of another Hannah Jane Rowell missing?

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/8370
 
JRClement.jpg


Jane Rowell Clement
Missing since April 7, 1963 from Baton Rouge, East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana
Classification: Endangered Missing

Vital Statistics
    • Date Of Birth: January 1, 1941
    • Age at Time of Disappearance: 22 years old
    • Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 5'3-5'5" ; 100-105 lbs.
    • Distinguishing Characteristics: White female. Dark blonde hair; blue eyes.
    • Clothing: Possibly wearing pink / red and white, gingham dress.
    • Dentals: Available
    • DNA: Available
Circumstances of Disappearance
Jane Rowell Clement, an aspiring writer and mother of two young children has been missing since April 7, 1963. She was last seen at her residence at 2776 Sorrel Avenue in Baton Rouge, LA. Clement called her estranged husband the day after Easter 1963 and asked him to watch their children while she went job-hunting.

The husband picked the children up but got no answer when he phoned his wife's home later that day. A week later, a worried neighbor called Clements brother in New Orleans to tell him she hadn't seen Clement in days.

The brother had to break into his sister's locked Sorrel Avenue home. In the laundry room, he found a basket of washed clothes that had mildewed. The only things missing from the house were Clement's Easter clothes and her only bedspread.

Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:

Baton Rouge City Police Department
225-389-8617
225-389-3844

Agency Number: 5501-63

Source Information:
The Baton Rouge Advocate
The Doe Network: Case File 1373DFLA
 
There is no question that Easter Day in 1963 fell on Sunday, April 14. My Catholic New Marian Missal printed in 1952, and my Episcopalian Book of Common Prayer printed in 1953 both confirm April 14 as the correct date for that year. Plus, there are extant photos and video of President JFK and his family celebrating what would be his last Easter on that date.

Easter Day may seem unpredictable, but calculating its date is really no secret. Easter is a full moon holiday, and the Church uses a repeating series of 19 dates to approximate the full moon, the Sunday after which is Easter. In 1963, the full moon date was Monday, April 8—hence Sunday, April 14 was Easter.

Here's how I make sense of the seven-day discrepancy from the info on the Doe Network:

I think Sunday, April 7 is when the neighbor last saw Jane Clement. Then "a week later [i.e, Easter Week, April 14-20], a worried neighbor [said] she hadn't seen Clement in days." The police began to investigate shortly thereafter. When they questioned the husband, he said he had seen her just the other day—Easter Monday, April 15—when she asked him to watch the children.

Maybe because the police suspected the husband, they list April 7th as date of last contact since this comes from an independent and impartial source. I think the newspapers simply confused the two accounts, and produced the erroneous "Easter Monday, April 8th."

Note that the details about Jane's call to her husband and the Easter dress come only from him, so they can't be independently verified, especially since the dress conveniently disappeared. Maybe there was no Easter dress, and he contrived that detail to add weight to his own story and play down the neighbor's concerns that Jane hadn't been seen in a week, that is, from April 7th.

I think another clue comes from the washed but mildewed clothes which Jane's brother found when he broke into her house. If the neighbor called the brother "one week later," and this refers to Easter Week, April 14-20, then this backs up the neighbor's story because one week is enough time for mildew to form. I doubt a worried brother would've waited a week after the call to go to the house, so the clothes were left unattended from around April 7.

How young were the children? If they were old enough, surely they'd remember spending a whole week with their dad and not their mom. Then again, if they were young enough and not as aware of time, he could've simply convinced them that he had picked them up on Easter Monday, April 15th when in reality it had been one week prior.

ETA: I found a Reddit thread that describes the children as "babies." I know Reddit isn't the most reliable source, but given that Jane went missing at 22, it makes sense.
 
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I've always thought she wore her Easter dress to go job-hunting the day her husband picked up the children. It was probably her newest and nicest dress.

The way this case is written up on the Charley Project makes it sound like it was the husband who noted that the Easter dress and the bedspread were missing. But it doesn't specifically state he was the one who told LE that. Unless he saw her on Easter Sunday I'm not sure how he'd know which dress was her Easter dress. Since they didn't live together he might not have been super familiar with her dresses anymore. The account on Charley Project says she called her husband the day after Easter, so I'm thinking she probably didn't see him on Easter. To me, the missing Easter dress sounds more like a detail that would be noted by her mother or another close female relative who would have seen her wearing the dress on Easter Sunday or who might have been shopping with her on the day she originally bought the dress.

The missing bedspread would have been obvious to anyone who was familiar with the fact that she only owned one bedspread. It makes sense that the husband or someone checked the laundry room for it, which was where the basket of previously washed but mildewed clothes were found. This makes it seem like she was interrupted doing laundry, before she could either hang the clothes to dry or put them in the dryer if she had one. Then again, would she have put her Easter dress on before doing laundry? Maybe she washed the clothes before getting ready to go out and intended to deal with the wet clothes when she returned from job-hunting. Back then people ironed almost everything, so having the wet clothes get a little wrinkled while she was gone might not have bothered her.

I tend to think she was killed in her house and carried out of it while wrapped in the bedspread. Another theory, though, is that she took the bedspread with her for some reason. The only reasons that come to mind off the top of my head would be 1) to protect the seat cover in her car from something she planned to haul in the car, 2) to spread on the ground to have a picnic lunch with someone, or 3) to spread on the ground for sexual purposes if she was meeting a man later that day.

I tend to think she really did go job-hunting and wasn't just using that as an excuse to have a day free from the kids because if she had plans to meet someone instead it seems like she'd have worn something more casual than her Easter dress.
 
Jane Rowell Clement
jane_rowell_clement_1.jpg

Clement, circa 1963

  • Missing Since 04/07/1963
  • Missing From Baton Rouge, Louisiana
  • Classification Endangered Missing
  • Sex Female
  • Race White
  • Age 22 years old
  • Height and Weight 5'3, 100 pounds
  • Clothing/Jewelry Description A pink/red and white gingham dress.
  • Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Blonde/brown hair, blue eyes.
Details of Disappearance

Clement was last seen at her residence in the 2700 block of Sorrel Avenue in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on April 7, 1963, the day after Easter. She called her estranged husband and asked him to baby-sit their two young children while she went to look for a job. Her husband picked the children up, and never saw or heard from his wife again.

A neighbor called Clement's brother a week later to tell him she had vanished. Clement's brother broke into her house, which was locked, and found a mildewed basket of washed clothes in the laundry room. Nothing was missing from the house except Clement's Easter clothes and the bedspread in her room.

She was a writer at the time of her disappearance; she had written several short stories and was working on a novel. Clement's case remains unsolved.

Investigating Agency
  • Baton Rouge Police Department
  • 225-389-8617
  • 225-389-3844
Source Information
 
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