Hello. This is my first message on this forum, and it is directed to anyone interested in the Charlotte Loomis case, especially to her family.
In September, 1972, I was living in north New Jersey. On a Friday afternoon at about 4PM - my best guess was it was either the 8th or the 15th - a man tried to lure me from my backyard where I was playing in my sandbox. He called out to me from the road and asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. I ignored him but when I looked up, he was walking down the driveway towards me. I ran into my house, slammed and locked the door, and that was that. He didn't get me and I wasn't physically hurt, but I was traumatized with fear. I was four years old. I was so traumatized I couldn't talk about it. I never told an adult about it at the time, and so it wasn't reported to law enforcement.
For years I was afraid of this man, afraid he was going to come back and get me, and for years it was just too upsetting for me to talk about. By the time I could talk about it, I was in my twenties, and it was something that had happened a long time ago. It seemed pointless by that time to report it to the police. This was also before the internet was a thing, so I couldn't imagine any way what little bit of information I had could be useful to anyone else. I put it to the back of my mind.
I'm now 54 years old. About four months ago, I came across a solved-cold-case video on youtube which, long story, shorter, brought up old memories - the perpetrator in the youtube video seemed very much like he could be the guy who tried to kidnap me - and I begin thinking about this man who had tried to kidnap me, and about other things that I witnessed in 1972. For the first time ever, I began thinking about my own experience analytically, forming theories, and connecting dots. I then began to wonder if there were any other cases similar to mine around the same time and the same place. I went online and learned about Charlotte's case. She went missing on September 1st, which same as my attempted abduction, was on a Friday. The Newark airport, which is one possible place she went missing from, is only 30 miles from where I lived. She, like me, had blond hair and blue eyes.
I chewed and chewed on everything I could remember, like: I remember vaguely what the man looked like, I remember an unfamiliar car with out-of-state plates - I'm pretty sure they were New York plates - that was parked in an unusual location that same weekend, and I remember the smell of decomposing flesh in the same location where that car was parked, along a wooded stretch of a back road. I put everything together and sent out a statement of my account to the FBI, the New Jersey State Police Missing Person's Unit, two local police departments that could possibly have interest in or jurisdiction over this case, if my suspicion of a body dumped at a specific location is correct, and also to one other local police department, the town where the possible suspect - the perpetrator in the youtube video - was living at the time.
I haven't heard back from any of them, and I don't know if they will even take seriously a report that is 49 years old from someone who was four years old at the time. I did mention Charlotte's name in my account to bring their attention to the possibility my case is connected to hers. I am hoping it will catch the eye and heart of someone and they will go out to the wooded location I mentioned and have a serious look around. If I wasn't now disabled, I would do it myself. But whether they do or do not take it seriously, I know what I know, and I want to make every effort to share what I know with anyone who might want to know it.
I realize there are different theories about Charlotte, like maybe she ran away. Maybe she's living well somewhere and doesn't want to be found. But in case her case is in any way connected to mine, I wanted to make myself available for questions. I'll respond to any posted here.