CT CT - Connie Smith, 10, Salisbury, 16 July 1952

I wonder if this UID found in Tennesee could potentially be a match?

https://identifyus.org/en/cases/1577

Seems awfully far away, but they've tested her against missing people from as far away as New Hampshire. I wish the missing person information available for Connie gave more information about her shoes. This UID was found with high-top type hiking shoes that were lined with red fabric (not clear that they belonged to the UID, but could be). Connie's were leather, but there is no description of them beyond that.

The reconstruction bears a striking resemblance, in my opinion.

When I Googled "average shoe size for a 10 year old girl", I found that anything between size 4 to size 6 was average. The shoes found with this UID were size 5 or 6. The Namus entry mentions a necklace of plastic buttons - could this have been an arts and crafts project from camp??

While I don't see the resemblance as being as striking as you do, I do see some similarity. I really feel you should submit this one.
 
It is not clear to me when this girl died, Connie went missing in the 1950's could they really be the same?
 
It is not clear to me when this girl died, Connie went missing in the 1950's could they really be the same?

I don't think it's clear to anyone when the UID died, just that it was a long time ago. As to whether it could be her, seems awfully far away, but stranger things have happened.
 
When I Googled "average shoe size for a 10 year old girl", I found that anything between size 4 to size 6 was average. The shoes found with this UID were size 5 or 6. The Namus entry mentions a necklace of plastic buttons - could this have been an arts and crafts project from camp??

While I don't see the resemblance as being as striking as you do, I do see some similarity. I really feel you should submit this one.

BBM.

Really good to see some activity on Connie's thread. (<wave> Hi, talelights!)

Re the shoes: Connie was considered tall/big for her age, with many people describing her as looking older than she was. So a larger-than-average shoe size would not be surprising.

The dental fillings would be a good first step in a comparison. Talelights, do you know how many and for which teeth Connie had fillings? I didn't look for info before I started to post.
 
It is not clear to me when this girl died, Connie went missing in the 1950's could they really be the same?

The info at the link https://identifyus.org/en/cases/1577 seems to indicate that estimated death was a year prior to remains being found--unless I'm not reading correctly. Which would eliminate Connie, but with the info available for both girls, I'd love to see them check, anyway.
 
I don't have the dental information but it is on NamUs for Connie Smith, I believe. I did read someplace that Connie was taller than most girls her sge so a larger shoe size would fit. The shoe thing is interesting, I believe that in the 1950's the letter shoes would have been a sturdy tie shoe, similar to the design of a babies first walking shoe, only larger and in brown leather instead of white. I am guessing the shoe from the other girl may have been more of a hiking shoe. But I am guessing.

Hello Windrower... Glad you're here
 
I do think she left camp-too many people have seen her, but I think she was followed. I wonder-how old was Camp Sloane? Was it nationally known? Why did her parents send her there? Did Connie want to go? Had there been any other incidents reported at this camp? Also who funded this camp? Was it a private camp? Were influential citizens backers of this camp?

Belated response here, I've been in and out on this thread and just now revisited. My feeling is that something really bad was going on at that camp. There have been a lot of speculations about why she left that morning- she seemed determined to get out of the area. Could she have intended to get to the police or LE officials? She seems to have been a smart, resourceful girl and I could see her doing that. At least one of the people she encountered said she looked upset and had been crying, again odd behavior for her. I wonder if this was not a sex crime but rather a case of someone silencing her after she saw something she wasn't supposed to.

Was there ever any input on this case from a psychic? I know it was in 1952 and that sort of thing was not done but has anyone tried to focus in and get any impressions in recent times?

She was apparently in her third week at that apparently dismal place. Of course she told her mother she was happy there but I don't buy it. It sounds like her mother had huge issues with the divorce, etc and sort of dumped her there probably telling herself it was for the best. Such a sad story on so many levels..
 
it seems to me she was having issues with the other campmates that escalated into her getting a bloody nose and possibly breaking her glasses. she's young and young people are impulsive. she's also reportedly resourceful so i don't think it's a stretch that she simply decided to make it to town and call her mom to get her.

to me that's the most straightforward explanation and in any case the WHY isn't necessarily as important as the WHAT. as we've seen many many times on this site, sometimes inexplicably the person is found a few hundred yards from where people have searched over and over and sometimes they've been found without anybody realizing who they are. i definitely think it's disappointing that the mrs x remains aren't able to be found although i think it's equally as likely, given the descriptions of the area, that she could be somewhere not too far from the camp.

sad story.
 
I just recently looked up exactly where the camp is located. A lot of people think of CT as a totally urban state- it's not- there are areas of it that are wild where people seldom go and this is one of those places. I was in that area a few years back, very desolate, winding roads and woods that come right up to the road. It's not hard to conclude she could have just vanished on her own without any human intervention.
 
I also agree with the statement about how many of the missing are found not too far from where they were last seen. I do believe this is the case with Connie, I don't think she is too far from the campsite. I believe she may have been trying to get to town to call her mother after having bad experiences at the camp. I'm not sure if they had phones in the offices of those camps back then but regardless, sometimes in cases like that you just want to be alone and just handle it yourself instead of facing further embarrassment or getting more upset.
I remember going on AMW forums and reading the posts there about Connie Smith. Now, I don't usually like to depend on or believe what "psychics" have to say, but there was one on there posting on the AMW threads (this was years and years ago-I dont go on the site anymore), and the talked about a trucker/traveling carnival worker with the last name Redman (first name possibly William) who may have been in the area, and may have offered Connie a ride. They said he had offenses before.
I do not know if there is any truth to this, I have tried to look up any offender from the late 40s-60s with the last name Redman or with William in the name, and have been unsuccessful, so there may be no truth to it at all. I never remembered this until I got on here today, and re-reading the posts triggered my memory:)
 
look at the terrilynn monette case in louisiana. if someone hadn't taken the initiative to do yet another search in an area that had been searched before it's likely they never would have found her. on top of that she was only found due to technology that didn't exist in the 1950s.

considering the terrain of that part of connecticut, i don't think it's unreasonable to think there is a likelihood that she is someone within half a mile or so of the path she traveled trying to reach town. no matter how much her family searched, anyone who has been on one of these searches knows it's like finding a needle in a haystack.
 
I agree that it's not unlikely that she's close by. Even if she was kidnapped/assaulted, her attacker wouldn't have had to go very far to hide her very well. There is so much remote and wooded land in that area, even today.
 
I agree that it's not unlikely that she's close by. Even if she was kidnapped/assaulted, her attacker wouldn't have had to go very far to hide her very well. There is so much remote and wooded land in that area, even today.

exactly and if the claim that she was kidnapped and taken across country (which appears to have been a hoax) hadn't taken over the case, i think everyone would have continued to focus their attentions on the area along the path where she likely walked.
 
I would not be surprised if someone in the local area abducted Connie. I wonder if there were any known pedophiles in the area and if they were checked out. It seems far more likely she was taken by someone passing by who saw the opportunity than that she was taken across country, although anything is possible.
 
AGreed, it seems like Connie was more of a victim of opportunity, unless she actually went missing at the camp or if something fishy was going on there.
 
I would not be surprised if someone in the local area abducted Connie. I wonder if there were any known pedophiles in the area and if they were checked out. It seems far more likely she was taken by someone passing by who saw the opportunity than that she was taken across country, although anything is possible.

well said. anything is possible, not much is likely. it's unlikely that she was abducted by someone traveling cross country as the area she was in has been dutifully described as backwoods, rural, etc - i.e. not a place anyone would be if they were on such a trip.

unfortunately after such a long span of time we are left to take for granted certain things, such as le verifying the story that she left the camp. from the start the whole story seems weird. she's reported to have had run ins with certain campers and possibly to have been slightly injured then she disappears with no trace. i know there was a report that someone saw her walking but if you look at other cases those promising leads have turned out false. the recent dylan redwine case included a mailperson (seemingly statistically reliable) who indicated he saw dylan and another boy walking down the road which turned out to be incorrect.
 
For some reason I think the most vital bit of info on this sad case is the fact that she left without her glasses. She was apparently very near sighted. That to me opens up the possibility that she may have met with an accident, perhaps stepped in front of a car and maybe the driver panicked after realizing he'd killed her. She could also have gone off the road and fallen in an abandoned well, the possibilities are manifold.
 
For some reason I think the most vital bit of info on this sad case is the fact that she left without her glasses. She was apparently very near sighted. That to me opens up the possibility that she may have met with an accident, perhaps stepped in front of a car and maybe the driver panicked after realizing he'd killed her. She could also have gone off the road and fallen in an abandoned well, the possibilities are manifold.

The piece about her eye glasses is an interesting fact! I wonder if she usually did not have them or if she always did. I think it goes to show she was in such disarray from whatever happened at the camp site.
 
There has been a bit of activity about Connie here and I thought it would be a good time to answer some of the questions, as her birthday and date of her going missing will be in a few days.

We believe Connie's glasses where broken somehow, no clear answer to how or when. Could have happened the night she fell and hurt her hip after some rough housing in the tent the night before.

Connie was a headstrong young girl and for whatever reason she was on a mission that morning when she walked away. She wanted to use the phone to call home, but the rules were not to allow that, as it usually upset the girls more to learn they would have to stick it out until camp was over. In Connie's case, it was only a few more days before she would be returning home, so it is really odd that she would have left for something like being home sick.

As far as what the area looked like in the 1950's forest land was just beginning to recover, for more than 200 years the trees were cleared from south of New Milford, CT pass the MA border in the making of charcoal. Iron ore was discovered in NW CT in the early 1730's and the success of our country's freedom comes from that discovery. Everything made of iron came from the area, including a huge iron chain that was to be strung across the Hudson River to keep the British from sailing north. Guns, pots pans, bullets, tools, knife, everything a homeowner could use. Until iron and coal was discovered in PA in the 1900's and everything shifted west.

The whole area around is littered with old mines, deep wells, ponds and lakes from the extraction of all that iron. So while visiting the area now it's difficult to fathom the open fields and meadows which now are thick woodlands it was easy to see from farm to farm and meadow to meadow.

The highway Connie travel was a main highway from Hartford to Albany, since the 1700's. And in the fifties it was used as such. It connected to Route 22 in NY state that ran north and south to NYC, as did Route 7 a long ago trail used by the native tribes for fishing on the shore of CT and travel back to their homeland in MA. White folks adopted it as an easy way to get north.

Police reports did show interviews at three or four homes along the way from the camp's driveway to the main road of Route 44 where Connie would have turned right to head to town. There are a few cross roads that may have confused her so it makes sense that she would stop to make sure she was on the right road to town.

And yes, pedophiles were known to work at area camps and were interviewed by LE. They seemed to be hired on to these camps as cooks and such. There was no way to check their backgrounds. Many of them came from employment offices in New York City, as a lot of the kids that went to camp came from large cities and towns.

No one has been able to verify that a carnival was in the area when Connie went missing and the worker who was in prison for a similar case was interviewed but said he was never in CT. He died a few weeks after being interviewed. That was about 15 years ago.

The Smith family pulled out all the stops in their search for Connie, posters, rewards, interview with Art Linkletter's show, and even a psychic horse named Lady whose claim to fame was her discovery of a missing young boy in MA.

There have been a few confession along the way, each a hoax, one was a way to be out of jail and see the sunshine one last time before being executed or the other was to be returned to a mental hospital that had released him and he missed his friends.

Time is running out for the person, who committed this crime; he/she might already have died. But I still think someone out there has a key to the puzzle and doesn't know it. I have yet to find anyone who was in camp with Connie that year. It would be very interesting to ask what camp life was like in 1952.
 

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