CT CT - Janice Pockett, 7, Tolland, 26 July 1973
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folieadeuxnola
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Missing Girls' Cold Cases Turn 50, 45, Respectively, This Week
his week marks 50 and 45 years since two girls were last seen in Tolland and Vernon, respectively. They are two of Tolland County's most infamous cold cases — cases the Tolland County state's attorney, Matthew Gedanski, said are difficult to talk about, but must be talked about.
They are also two days apart on the July calendar.
"They're still active cases. We're still taking tips," Gedansky said on Monday at the courthouse in Vernon. "We keep trying to find ties to these cases."
his week marks 50 and 45 years since two girls were last seen in Tolland and Vernon, respectively. They are two of Tolland County's most infamous cold cases — cases the Tolland County state's attorney, Matthew Gedanski, said are difficult to talk about, but must be talked about.
They are also two days apart on the July calendar.
"They're still active cases. We're still taking tips," Gedansky said on Monday at the courthouse in Vernon. "We keep trying to find ties to these cases."
Lavender Moon
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Bumping for Janice
Lavender Moon
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Bumping
Police appeal for leads as age progression picture shows Janice Pockett at 53
Not a day goes by that Mary Engelbrecht does not think about her sister, Janice Pockett, who went missing 46 years ago when she biked away from her Anthony Road home in search of a dead butterfly she had tucked under a rock for safekeeping days earlier.
“Every time I see a butterfly, that is my sister,” Engelbrecht said. “That is what I think of.”
Police appeal for leads as age progression picture shows Janice Pockett at 53
Unfortunately this is a subscriber only article, so the rest of the article can only be read by paying a subscription fee.
Not a day goes by that Mary Engelbrecht does not think about her sister, Janice Pockett, who went missing 46 years ago when she biked away from her Anthony Road home in search of a dead butterfly she had tucked under a rock for safekeeping days earlier.
“Every time I see a butterfly, that is my sister,” Engelbrecht said. “That is what I think of.”
Police appeal for leads as age progression picture shows Janice Pockett at 53
Unfortunately this is a subscriber only article, so the rest of the article can only be read by paying a subscription fee.
Gardener1850
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Center for missing children releases age progression photo of Janice Pockett of Tolland, missing since 1973
Jun 21, 2019
A bench in Janice Pockett’s memory, placed at the spot in Tolland where her bicycle was found in 1973, bears the inscription, “Never Stop Looking.”
Forty-six years after she was last seen, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has posted a photo that shows how Pockett may look at age 53.
“Even in the oldest, coldest cases, where it seems that all hope is lost, that’s not any reason for us to stop, to let it go,” Joe Mullins, a forensic artist with the center, said Friday. “Age progression is based on hope. We hope that Janice is still alive and that she can be reunited with her family. There’s no expiration date for these cases as far we’re were concerned.”
Center for missing children releases age progression photo of Janice Pockett of Tolland, missing since 1973
Jun 21, 2019
A bench in Janice Pockett’s memory, placed at the spot in Tolland where her bicycle was found in 1973, bears the inscription, “Never Stop Looking.”
Forty-six years after she was last seen, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has posted a photo that shows how Pockett may look at age 53.
“Even in the oldest, coldest cases, where it seems that all hope is lost, that’s not any reason for us to stop, to let it go,” Joe Mullins, a forensic artist with the center, said Friday. “Age progression is based on hope. We hope that Janice is still alive and that she can be reunited with her family. There’s no expiration date for these cases as far we’re were concerned.”
Center for missing children releases age progression photo of Janice Pockett of Tolland, missing since 1973
jaejae
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I will give these cases a bump with a video from You Tube about this case and several others in the New England Area. I think the video maker gets the year of Janice's crime wrong having it in the late sixties rather than the early seventies:
Officers find human remains in woods and locals suspect it could belong to one of three girls who went missing in the 1960s | Daily Mail Online
Janice Pockett
The Vernon-Tolland Three - Defrosting Cold Cases
UncoolNegated
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I read some news articles about this case. There were five girls that went missing in the area between 1968 and 1978. (1) Janice Pockett (2) Debra Spickler (3) Lisa White. Anyone know the names of 4 and 5. I think they were girls/young women that were found.
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jaejae
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Thanks for the post. Not sure is the cases 4 and 5 are mentioned here but I think this is the best information on the cases here with a composite sketch of a possible suspect:
Connecticut Cases
More latterly there is a Dark Minds episodes about the Janice Pockett crime and others including those of Molly Bish and Holly Piirainen.
UncoolNegated
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My thoughts on Janice have a lot to do with the bicycle. She leaves her home on bike, drops it near a wooded area, and then goes into the woods to get the butterfly. I'm thinking the bicycle by the road is a major contributor to what I assume would be her abduction. A little girl's bicycle near a wooded area....that's going to be something a pedophile or kidnapper would have trouble ignoring. I think she was pursued into the wooded area as opposed to her stumbling on someone. I also would think that the abductor would be someone that used the road routinely and acted on impulse when presented with an opportunity.
Janice Kathryn Pockett
Janice was last seen leaving her family's home on Anthony Road in Tolland, Connecticut on July 26, 1973. She planned to ride her metallic green Murray bicycle, which had a bell and a banana seat, through the neighborhood to search for a butterfly she'd caught and left on a rock a few days earlier. She was carrying an envelope to carry the butterfly in.
It was the first time she'd been allowed to go out by herself. She never arrived home and has never been seen again. Janice's mother found her bike half an hour later, on Rhoades Road near a wooded area less than a mile from her residence.
The butterfly and envelope were never found. Authorities believe something happened to Janice after she had picked up the butterfly and was on her way home.
Janice was one of five people to disappear in the general area during a ten-year time period; another was Lisa White. All of the missing were female; they ranged in age from 7 to 20 years old. Two of them were found deceased years after their disappearances but the other three, including Lisa, remain missing. It is not clear whether the cases are related.
The late Charles Pierce, a pedophile who was suspected in many child disappearance cases in New England throughout the 1950s - 1970s, confessed to Janice's murder. A photo of Pierce is posted with this case summary.
He claimed to have buried her in the Lawrence, Massachusetts area near an unidentified boy who was another victim. The boy was thought to be Angelo Puglisi, a Massachusetts child who vanished three years after Janice in 1976. Neither of the supposed graves has been discovered.
Another twist in the Janice case came in 2000, when the bone fragments of a child were discovered in the garage of Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, a man charged with the 1996 abduction and presumed murder of Zachary Ramsay in Great Falls, Montana (the charges were later dismissed due to lack of evidence).
Janice's name surfaced in connection with Bar-Jonah when his criminal past came to light; he had served a prison sentence for the abduction and attempted murder of two boys in Massachusetts in 1977.
Putting the possible scenario together, investigators learned that Bar-Jonah lived in Webster, Massachusetts in 1973 when Janice disappeared. Webster is only 20 miles away from Tolland, Connecticut, which is Janice's hometown. He would have been only fourteen years old when Janice vanished, but Bar-Jonah had already allegedly strangled a playmate by that time.
There have been additional accusations that Bar-Jonah practiced cannibalism in recent years. He was found guilty of two unrelated counts of child molestation in Montana in February 2002. Bar-Jonah, whose given name was David P. Brown, claimed he was innocent of all charges against him.
Authorities also investigated the possibility that he was involved in the 1997 Wyoming disappearance of Amanda Gallion. Amanda is classified as a runaway, but her Social Security number has not been used since 1997 and there is suspicion that she met with foul play.
A handwritten list of names entitled "Lake Webster" was discovered in Bar-Jonah's possession in December 2001. Some news reports stated that Andrew Amato was among the children featured in the list, but this is untrue. Andrew disappeared from Webster, Massachusetts in 1978. No one has been able to tie him to Bar-Jonah.
DNA testing conducted in 2001 on a bone located in Bar-Jonah's Montana garage proved that it was not part of Zachary's Janice's, or Amanda's remains. Andrew's DNA was not compared with the bone. Bar-Jonah was never charged in connection with any of the other disappearances. He died of a blood clot in a Montana prison in April 2008, at age 51.
Charges have not been filed against any person regarding Janice's disappearance. Her case remains unsolved.
Investigating Agency
- Missing Since 07/26/1973
- Missing From Tolland, Connecticut
- Classification Non-Family Abduction
- Sex Female
- Race White
- Date of Birth 10/15/1965 (54)
- Age 7 years old
- Height and Weight 4'0, 65 pounds
- Clothing/Jewelry Description Navy blue shorts with an imprinted American flag and star design, a blue and white-striped pullover shirt, white socks and blue sneakers.
- Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Janice has a gap between her front teeth.
Janice was last seen leaving her family's home on Anthony Road in Tolland, Connecticut on July 26, 1973. She planned to ride her metallic green Murray bicycle, which had a bell and a banana seat, through the neighborhood to search for a butterfly she'd caught and left on a rock a few days earlier. She was carrying an envelope to carry the butterfly in.
It was the first time she'd been allowed to go out by herself. She never arrived home and has never been seen again. Janice's mother found her bike half an hour later, on Rhoades Road near a wooded area less than a mile from her residence.
The butterfly and envelope were never found. Authorities believe something happened to Janice after she had picked up the butterfly and was on her way home.
Janice was one of five people to disappear in the general area during a ten-year time period; another was Lisa White. All of the missing were female; they ranged in age from 7 to 20 years old. Two of them were found deceased years after their disappearances but the other three, including Lisa, remain missing. It is not clear whether the cases are related.
The late Charles Pierce, a pedophile who was suspected in many child disappearance cases in New England throughout the 1950s - 1970s, confessed to Janice's murder. A photo of Pierce is posted with this case summary.
He claimed to have buried her in the Lawrence, Massachusetts area near an unidentified boy who was another victim. The boy was thought to be Angelo Puglisi, a Massachusetts child who vanished three years after Janice in 1976. Neither of the supposed graves has been discovered.
Another twist in the Janice case came in 2000, when the bone fragments of a child were discovered in the garage of Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, a man charged with the 1996 abduction and presumed murder of Zachary Ramsay in Great Falls, Montana (the charges were later dismissed due to lack of evidence).
Janice's name surfaced in connection with Bar-Jonah when his criminal past came to light; he had served a prison sentence for the abduction and attempted murder of two boys in Massachusetts in 1977.
Putting the possible scenario together, investigators learned that Bar-Jonah lived in Webster, Massachusetts in 1973 when Janice disappeared. Webster is only 20 miles away from Tolland, Connecticut, which is Janice's hometown. He would have been only fourteen years old when Janice vanished, but Bar-Jonah had already allegedly strangled a playmate by that time.
There have been additional accusations that Bar-Jonah practiced cannibalism in recent years. He was found guilty of two unrelated counts of child molestation in Montana in February 2002. Bar-Jonah, whose given name was David P. Brown, claimed he was innocent of all charges against him.
Authorities also investigated the possibility that he was involved in the 1997 Wyoming disappearance of Amanda Gallion. Amanda is classified as a runaway, but her Social Security number has not been used since 1997 and there is suspicion that she met with foul play.
A handwritten list of names entitled "Lake Webster" was discovered in Bar-Jonah's possession in December 2001. Some news reports stated that Andrew Amato was among the children featured in the list, but this is untrue. Andrew disappeared from Webster, Massachusetts in 1978. No one has been able to tie him to Bar-Jonah.
DNA testing conducted in 2001 on a bone located in Bar-Jonah's Montana garage proved that it was not part of Zachary's Janice's, or Amanda's remains. Andrew's DNA was not compared with the bone. Bar-Jonah was never charged in connection with any of the other disappearances. He died of a blood clot in a Montana prison in April 2008, at age 51.
Charges have not been filed against any person regarding Janice's disappearance. Her case remains unsolved.
Investigating Agency
- Connecticut State Police 860-685-8000
- Connecticut State Police
- The Boston Globe
- The Great Falls Tribune
- APB News
- Court TV
- CrimeNews 2000
- The Billings Gazette
- The Worcester Telegram and Gazette
- The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
- Connecticut's Unsolved Mysteries
- The Hartford Courant
- NamUs
- CNN
- Unsolved in the News
- Facebook Page for Janice Pockett
- Janice Kathryn Pockett – The Charley Project
Crazyjster
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Hi there, I just spent several hours reading twenty years of posts and wanted to give this thread a bump. Hopefully I can review documents and video over the ext few days. I was only a baby when this happened, but I stumbled across an article on the cold cases of Janice and the other 2 girls and felt like everyone had hid something from me my entire life. I grew up in Ellington, but when I was little, lived very close to where Janice was abducted I found out, and lived in Vernon as well. I'm sure my family never told me and I never heard about it because I was so young. As an adult I ended up working with people effected by crimes such as missing family members. I admire all of the work people have done over the years and hopefully will have something of my own to contribute.
Laughing
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Possibly Mary Mount of New Canaan, Connecticut
Wilton Death of Girl Remains Unsolved for Decades
Article mentions Dawn Cave, Diane Toney, and Jennifer Noon.
Thefacelessman
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Im very cynical about 'theories' on any thread past the most likely scenario......it was pointed out by Janices sister that they were not allowed out of their mothers sight, and this was the first time Janice was allowed out on her own, which imo makes any theory about her 'being watched' 99% unlikely as anybody who had noticed her would quickly realise the chances of her being alone were slim to zero (unless they had only noticed her within a day or 2)....same with a family member which seems even less likely.
Chances of someone not local, just happening to be passing in a small rural town, on a dirt track.....one in a billion chance imo.
IMO....someone who lived locally, that would regularly use the track, had done something similar before, and couldn't believe the opportunity had arisen....having read this thread,i think it narrows it down to about 2 suspects??
Chances of someone not local, just happening to be passing in a small rural town, on a dirt track.....one in a billion chance imo.
IMO....someone who lived locally, that would regularly use the track, had done something similar before, and couldn't believe the opportunity had arisen....having read this thread,i think it narrows it down to about 2 suspects??
The problem with putting any theory regarding these very old, cold cases to the test of "randomness, chance, and probability" or statistical study is that they just have not been solved in a quick way by going to the "most likely scenario" or by rounding up "the usual suspects".
By their very nature of being "cold cases" they are in a more unusual class of crime.
This case probably does involve a pedophile. Whether he was someone carefully watching a specific victim and making complicated plans, or whether he simply saw a sudden and random opportunity and took advantage of it is the main conjecture today.
By their very nature of being "cold cases" they are in a more unusual class of crime.
This case probably does involve a pedophile. Whether he was someone carefully watching a specific victim and making complicated plans, or whether he simply saw a sudden and random opportunity and took advantage of it is the main conjecture today.
Thefacelessman
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There is no 'test of randomness,chance and probability' and i'm certainly not using statistics!
It's basic logic that someone who has never been out alone, (i'll take that as a fact...since it is stated in this thread by her own sister).....is UNLIKELY to have been watched and had complicated plans laid to have been abducted,since the learnt behaviour would be that she is never out alone. Likewise it is most likely a family member would not expect her to be left alone to give them the opportunity.
A lack of or no evidence/witness etc makes any crime hard to solve full stop, there is still a likely scenario, it doesn't make it an 'unusual class of crime' (there are plenty of crimes that LE have answers/high probability to, but can't prove to prosecute).....and in this case, an unmade track which was most likely, little used , except by locals in a small village, lends itself to a 'local person' being on the track at that time. Unless i'm wrong about the track,and it was a regularly used through route for locals and non local people?
A case not being solved always leads people to come up with fanciful theories....it doesn't mean that the more obvious logical theories are incorrect, just that they cant be proved, though still much more likely.
It's basic logic that someone who has never been out alone, (i'll take that as a fact...since it is stated in this thread by her own sister).....is UNLIKELY to have been watched and had complicated plans laid to have been abducted,since the learnt behaviour would be that she is never out alone. Likewise it is most likely a family member would not expect her to be left alone to give them the opportunity.
A lack of or no evidence/witness etc makes any crime hard to solve full stop, there is still a likely scenario, it doesn't make it an 'unusual class of crime' (there are plenty of crimes that LE have answers/high probability to, but can't prove to prosecute).....and in this case, an unmade track which was most likely, little used , except by locals in a small village, lends itself to a 'local person' being on the track at that time. Unless i'm wrong about the track,and it was a regularly used through route for locals and non local people?
A case not being solved always leads people to come up with fanciful theories....it doesn't mean that the more obvious logical theories are incorrect, just that they cant be proved, though still much more likely.
Crazyjster
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I have not read much about the other cases, but what I can say about this one is, is that I recall the area more from what it looked like back in the 70s than now. I lived near where it happened about 4 or 5 years later. My neighbors probably went to school with her, I was still little, but there were older kids on my street and next door and we all played together. As a mom of an 8 year old, I CAN imagine letting my daughter finally go down the street and look for a butterfly even now. Back then, although at 7 I was living a couple towns over, I was roaming everywhere without my mom in wooded areas and cow pastures...I just needed to stay off the main road (which was the same main road that went through Vernon, Rockville, and Tolland). It could have been very easy for anyone to have been in the area doing construction in Tolland and it be a stranger case, and due to her size, a quick abduction, do the locations proximity to I-84 be very easy to get on/off the highway and get out of state. I think it is probably someone unknown to LE but might be in the system for other crimes. Everyone is quick to tie this to MA, but RI is just as close and NY is another possibility. When looking to tie these to other MA crimes, instead of looking at cases in Merrimack County, another area to possibly look at is there were crimes involving young girls in New Bedford, Fall River area back then and that may be something to look into and see if anyone charged in those crimes might have ties to these. I don't necessarily think all of these crimes are related, more coincidental. I do believe they were not a first time offense and would be interested to see if they tie in somewhere.
could be.
there was a suspect or should i say person of interest who was looked at by law enforcement but he quickly got a lawyer and the police were unable to question him further i also believe he was a volunteer with the local fire department or was one of the many people out searching for her.