OK OK - Carol Batterman, 19, Oklahoma City, 31 May 1958

Carol Ann Batterman

Endangered Missing from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma since May 31, 1958

Age: 19 -- Height: 5'5" -- Weight: 115 lbs -- Hair Color: Brown -- Eye Color: Brown

Carol has an oval-shaped scar on her wrist.



Carol was last seen waiting for a bus outside the Crown Motel in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma at 3:35 pm on May 31, 1958. She was going to take the bus to her husband's work at the nearby naval air technical training center. They had gotten married just two weeks prior. They were then going to go to Norman, Oklahoma together to look for an apartment. Carol never got on the bus and she has never been heard from again.

Witnesses reported seeing a gray pickup truck, possibly a 1953 Ford, stop at the curb near Carol shortly before she disappeared. The driver was a male in a large Western type hat. It's unknown if the man had anything to do with her disappearance. Authorities do believe Carol was taken against her will.


Charley Project - http://charleyproject.org/cases/b/batterman_carol.html

NamUs - https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/21701/0

How did they determined she never got in the bus?

She went missing on Memorial day. Her parents were from Chicago (Mr. and Mrs. Rudolf Hlavac). She married Dennis Batterman on May 17, 1958 and they left immediately for Norman, Oklahoma where Dennis was stationed at the Naval Air Training Center. Three years later, Dennis was living in Tennessee.

St. Petersberg Newspaper article here:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...D9SAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LXkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7194,4976293

Another missing person listing for her can be found here:

http://www.missingin.org/reg9092/carol_ann_batterman.htm

ETA - In one of the articles I've read (I don't know how to link it) it states that Dennis and Carol were staying at the Crown Motel.

Archangel85 said:

How did they determined she never got in the bus?

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"She was seen by several persons waiting for a bus near the motel. Police said she never got on the bus."

http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/26807996/

The above newspaper article had the incorrect day for their marriage. Ancestry records show the following:

Cook County, Illinois Marriage Index, 1930-1960 about Dennis Batterman

Name: Dennis Batterman
Marriage Date: 14 May 1958
Spouse: Carol Hlavac
Marriage Location: Cook County, IL
Marriage license: {FFA2A995-3B07-4062-AC0E-3B64AB45A8DF}
File Number: 2483119
Archive Collection Name: Cook County Genealogy Records (Marriages)
Archive repository location: Chicago, IL
Archive repository name: Cook County Clerk

Archangel85 said:

How did they determined she never got in the bus?

Click to expand...

I assume they spoke with the driver and other people on the bus and none of them had seen her. :twocents:

Did the husband have a car or truck or did they not have an automobile at all? My only thought is she had to have gotten in someone's car and they did her harm. Would she get in a stranger's car or would it have to be someone she trusted? Could've been someone from the base or the motel that she thought she could trust.

Here's an interesting article published around the time of her disappearance:

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/...ticle/key-to-brides-room-mystery-clew-in-hunt

People working in the motel where she was staying reported that they saw her talking to someone in a car that stopped next to her while she was waiting for a bus. They reported that they heard tires screaching and that the car sped away and that when they looked, Batterman was gone.

The key to her room was anonymously mailed back a shortly after she disappeared.

Also, footage of the search for her:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ybXazoE8Ck ~10:45

1 news article says that carol and her husband Dennis were childhood sweethearts http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/26807996/
then this article says that their romance was short in duration and she had been engaged to another man prior to this so it gets confusing http://archives.chicagotribune.com/...ticle/key-to-brides-room-mystery-clew-in-hunt

Another article in a post above shows Dennis living in Tennessee 3 years later and wanting to " forget about it" and was with another girl so if they were childhood sweethearts would he want to forget about her like that? Maybe he thought or figured out that she had left him to go back to Joseph?

maybe her parents didn't approve of Joseph ( the possible first bf) and she married dennis to appease them then realized she couldn't do this and arranged to run off with Joseph who also was in the navy?

I was just about to ask if perhaps there was another man...but alas, you just answered that! Perhaps he was jealous of Carol's marriage; or, perhaps she had second thoughts. Getting divorced in the fifties would have been a huge scandal. Perhaps she just panicked and WENT.

crystal72 said:

1 news article says that carol and her husband Dennis were childhood sweethearts http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/26807996/
then this article says that their romance was short in duration and she had been engaged to another man prior to this so it gets confusing http://archives.chicagotribune.com/...ticle/key-to-brides-room-mystery-clew-in-hunt

Another article in a post above shows Dennis living in Tennessee 3 years later and wanting to " forget about it" and was with another girl so if they were childhood sweethearts would he want to forget about her like that? Maybe he thought or figured out that she had left him to go back to Joseph?

maybe her parents didn't approve of Joseph ( the possible first bf) and she married dennis to appease them then realized she couldn't do this and arranged to run off with Joseph who also was in the navy?

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In 1958 people were kind of expected to move on with life, even if grieving on the inside. Especially men. He was probably pretty typical for a young man in the late 1950s. My mom and dad got married in their hometown in Kansas in 1959 & moved to Austin, Texas, the next day so my dad could finish school. Common at that time for young people.

Kind of a confusing case - especially after 57 years. Based on the report that this woman had been previously engaged to someone else and her marriage was of short duration, you wonder if this was a planned disappearance. With the follow-up information that her husband was living in Tennessee and with someone else three years later and reportedly indicating he wanted to forget about it, sounds as though he felt (and maybe had knowledge) she was with someone else.

From Skigirls link to Youtube

''Footage of sailors and civilian volunteers searching for a missing young woman. Nineteen year old Carol Ann Batterman had disappeared and was believed to have been kidnapped and brought to Reynolds Lake. (9/5-6/1958) "Lake Search and Tulsa Killer." More footage of sailors and civilian volunteers searching for Carol Ann Batterman at Reynolds Lake''

Interesting they were searching Reynolds lake.

Edited to add
http://mystorical.blogspot.co.uk/2014_12_01_archive.html

More info halfway down page.

There is quite a lot more information in the linked article below;

http://www.hawkshawresearch.com/current-cases.html

This includes the fact that the husband is still alive (or was recently), that the 'High School sweetheart' was the boy to whom she was previously engaged (not the husband) - and it gives his name (Joseph Pohl jnr), and that there were reports implying doubts about the husband at the time.

The following link contains a contemporaneous newspaper article which casts doubt on the relevance of the return of the motel key, suggesting it was a key returned by another former tenant/guest;

http://gradyent.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/kuyk-logan-rip.html

I am not sure what to believe, murder or runaway.

Pink Panther said:

The above newspaper article had the incorrect day for their marriage. Ancestry records show the following:

Cook County, Illinois Marriage Index, 1930-1960 about Dennis Batterman

Name: Dennis Batterman
Marriage Date: 14 May 1958
Spouse: Carol Hlavac
Marriage Location: Cook County, IL
Marriage license: {FFA2A995-3B07-4062-AC0E-3B64AB45A8DF}
File Number: 2483119
Archive Collection Name: Cook County Genealogy Records (Marriages)
Archive repository location: Chicago, IL
Archive repository name: Cook County Clerk

Click to expand...

I saw that too and was confused, but if you plug the dates into timeanddate.com, you'll find that the 14th was a Wednesday and the 17th was a Saturday. It makes sense that they would get their official marriage license that Wednesday, but hold the actual wedding event on Saturday, when friends/relatives are more likely to be free.

The key to her room was anonymously mailed back a shortly after she disappeared.

Click to expand...

something is hokey to me here.:thinking: if it was a stranger who abducted her, why send the key back? that doesn't make sense. and where was the husband at the time? :thinking:

This is interesting. Im a local I'll have to look into this


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This article has a bit more...mods forgive if I have done this wrong :newbie:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/andthe...rol-batterman-from-bus-stop-to-obscurity/amp/


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jpo74 said:

something is hokey to me here.:thinking: if it was a stranger who abducted her, why send the key back? that doesn't make sense. and where was the husband at the time? :thinking:

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The husband is apparently not considered a suspect. Presumably he has an alibi.

This feels like a planned disappearance to me, especially after the article ab1on posted which mentioned that her current husband wasn't her childhood sweetheart. That might not be relevant, but I would imagine being engaged to someone you've been in love with for a long time, breaking off said engagement for some reason, and marrying a new man that she didn't know as well would be a whirlwind of emotions for a young girl. Perhaps she had to break off the first engagement due to family disapproval (though if they had been together in high school, I'd imagine both sets of parents were on board?) Maybe the man started doing something later on that her family disapproved of. And of course, it is entirely possible that they simply weren't on the same path in life anymore, and calling off an engagement was likely much less of a scandal than getting a divorce.

I'm positing all those scenarios because I think what happened with her first fiance and how she got along with her current husband would tell us a lot about what's more likely - an abduction or a voluntary disappearance. If she was unhappy, it's totally possible that she got someone to help her get away (western hat man at the bus stop?) If things were going well and she was happy, abduction/murder becomes way more likely in my mind. The hotel key could've been found on the street, in a public bathroom, etc. and a stranger found it and mailed it back just to be nice, so I'm not sure how much relevance that has to the case.

IMO, it's more likely that this 19 year old woman was overwhelmed by life in whatever way, for whatever reason, and found someone to help her stage an abduction so she could leave her husband and that life behind without a huge scandal. I hope she found a life she wanted and that she left that bus stop safely and willingly.