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

[Issa]

Beautifully done. Thank you, Richard. May I use your enhanced version of Connie, from time to time to keep the memory of such a lovely girl at the age of ten and gone too soon.

 

[Richard]

Beautifully done. Thank you, Richard. May I use your enhanced version of Connie, from time to time to keep the memory of such a lovely girl at the age of ten and gone too soon.

I did not personally do the enhancement of the photo and am not sure who did. I saw it during a search of photos to update this thread and liked it.

 

[strangerthanfiction1200]

Are you still interested in the Connie Smith case? What kind of questions do you have about her case?

Yes, I am. I do have some questions about the case.
l. Was the fight the night before she disappeared or the same day? If the same day, wouldn't the witnesses mention seeing a bloody nose?
2. Why did Connie not ask to use the phone to call her mom or grandma?
3. Could she hit her head the night before if the fight was then and suffered a concussion?
4. Are there photographs of the area from the 1950's?
5. Has anyone research how Connie behaved back home in Wyoming? She has school records on Ancestry. Wouldn't these former childhood classmates and friends remember her?
6. Have you seen the photo of Connie on the beach and there is a strong resemblance to her?
7. If a concussion, could she have been disoriented (besides the glasses) and picked up and brought to a hospital out of state? A Jane Doe? (Some researchers
believe this could have happened to Marjorie West and she was only 4 years old).
8. Little Miss X- I would be surprised if it was Connie. Did Little Miss X die the same year she was found? Connie would be alive for 5 years; it is possible since children who disappeared throughout the 20th century were found years later. Steven (1972 and was living with his abductor near his grandfather's place, Duggard (18 years), Elizabeth Smart, The three Cleveland Ohio Girls.
9. Last question, any update on Little Miss X remains?

 

[DD Byrd]

I think it's important to remember not only how much time has passed (in relation to classmates, or people that knew Connie or her family) but how very different times were then.

We always talk about cell phones and internet not being around. But even a camera was a bigger deal, people didn't have thousands of photos from literally birth. Let alone the 50lb "movie camera" heydays. Everyday people simply didn't exist historically the way they eventually would. Of the handful of TV channels (for those who HAD a TV) the nightly news would not only be on bigger topics, but was not tracked on a ticker within seconds nation-wide. And without LE comuinication between towns, cities and counties, and entire STATES, people just didn't know about her disappearance.

I'd certainly find an interview with her tentmates interesting. But most of their identities are likely lost to time, even if they were alive for decades afterwards. Meanwhile, children were 'seen not heard', and little girls were 'emotional not factual', so they were likely questioned briefly. Unless something major was said i.e. "I saw her walk down the road with a hooded man holding a scythe," that was that. I'm assuming it was an all male investigative team, and little girls might not elaborate on any fisticuffs (or have it deemed important, anyway). IMO, it's importance is that it may have led to Connie wanting to leave. I think someone local, either a camp employee or resident picked her up in a vehicle and her remains are still in the area. Or, less likely, she walked off managing to leave only a finite trail of scent and then had an accident or succumbed to the elements. In that case, she is somewhere not easily accessible at the time (or ever).

 

[strangerthanfiction1200]

I think it's important to remember not only how much time has passed (in relation to classmates, or people that knew Connie or her family) but how very different times were then.

We always talk about cell phones and internet not being around. But even a camera was a bigger deal, people didn't have thousands of photos from literally birth. Let alone the 50lb "movie camera" heydays. Everyday people simply didn't exist historically the way they eventually would. Of the handful of TV channels (for those who HAD a TV) the nightly news would not only be on bigger topics, but was not tracked on a ticker within seconds nation-wide. And without LE comuinication between towns, cities and counties, and entire STATES, people just didn't know about her disappearance.

I'd certainly find an interview with her tentmates interesting. But most of their identities are likely lost to time, even if they were alive for decades afterwards. Meanwhile, children were 'seen not heard', and little girls were 'emotional not factual', so they were likely questioned briefly. Unless something major was said i.e. "I saw her walk down the road with a hooded man holding a scythe," that was that. I'm assuming it was an all male investigative team, and little girls might not elaborate on any fisticuffs (or have it deemed important, anyway). IMO, it's importance is that it may have led to Connie wanting to leave. I think someone local, either a camp employee or resident picked her up in a vehicle and her remains are still in the area. Or, less likely, she walked off managing to leave only a finite trail of scent and then had an accident or succumbed to the elements. In that case, she is somewhere not easily accessible at the time (or ever).

I agree with you. That is why my post was long. I was thinking out loud. In my heart, I do not believe she is Little Miss X, she is still in the area. In that time period nothing was talked about in public and only whispered as rumors. "We do not discuss our personal problems with strangers" was one of the sayings from the 1950's. Thank you for responding. Regarding photographs, I am a visual person, so it is hard for me to imagine the area back then.

 

[DD Byrd]

I agree with you. That is why my post was long. I was thinking out loud. In my heart, I do not believe she is Little Miss X, she is still in the area. In that time period nothing was talked about in public and only whispered as rumors. "We do not discuss our personal problems with strangers" was one of the sayings from the 1950's. Thank you for responding. Regarding photographs, I am a visual person, so it is hard for me to imagine the area back then.

So here's the Intersection near where she was last seen. The camp is an hour walk back SW. It's woodsy now, even with modern development.

If the sighting is correct, she was now picking flowers after an almost 3 mile walk. Apparently with a next-day bruised hip that had needed an ice pack. Kids are resilient, but a next-dayer can hurt more than the initial impact, so I can see why she'd get in a car. Especially since stranger danger was not a thing, and we weren't even close to the hichhiking craze which was deemed acceptable for a time. She was seen by 8 or 9 people, all of whom let her continue on; it just speaks to the time.

What bothers me the most is to think that maybe after calming down, like a 3 mile walk in mid-July might do, she'd changed her mind and asked to be taken back to camp.

 

[strangerthanfiction1200]

So here's the Intersection near where she was last seen. The camp is an hour walk back SW. It's woodsy now, even with modern development.

If the sighting is correct, she was now picking flowers after an almost 3 mile walk. Apparently with a next-day bruised hip that had needed an ice pack. Kids are resilient, but a next-dayer can hurt more than the initial impact, so I can see why she'd get in a car. Especially since stranger danger was not a thing, and we weren't even close to the hichhiking craze which was deemed acceptable for a time. She was seen by 8 or 9 people, all of whom let her continue on; it just speaks to the time.

What bothers me the most is to think that maybe after calming down, like a 3 mile walk in mid-July might do, she'd changed her mind and asked to be taken back to camp.

Thank you for the photo. New York in certain places was the same and this was in the late 70's and early 80's. You are right about Kids were seen and not heard, talks about the time period. I could be wrong, but an anonymous person could have picked her up, if she started to limp and was tired. She did not apparently have water with her. If she started on her own back to camp, she could have gotten disoriented and fell. Never to be seen again. Ideas for other researchers to follow up.

 

[Issa]

Yes, I am. I do have some questions about the case.
l. Was the fight the night before she disappeared or the same day? If the same day, wouldn't the witnesses mention seeing a bloody nose?
2. Why did Connie not ask to use the phone to call her mom or grandma?
3. Could she hit her head the night before if the fight was then and suffered a concussion?
4. Are there photographs of the area from the 1950's?
5. Has anyone research how Connie behaved back home in Wyoming? She has school records on Ancestry. Wouldn't these former childhood classmates and friends remember her?
6. Have you seen the photo of Connie on the beach and there is a strong resemblance to her?
7. If a concussion, could she have been disoriented (besides the glasses) and picked up and brought to a hospital out of state? A Jane Doe? (Some researchers
believe this could have happened to Marjorie West and she was only 4 years old).
8. Little Miss X- I would be surprised if it was Connie. Did Little Miss X die the same year she was found? Connie would be alive for 5 years; it is possible since children who disappeared throughout the 20th century were found years later. Steven (1972 and was living with his abductor near his grandfather's place, Duggard (18 years), Elizabeth Smart, The three Cleveland Ohio Girls.
9. Last question, any update on Little Miss X remains?

1) We don't know about any kind of fight the night before Connie disappeared. It was reported that Connie fell on the wooden steps leading into her tent, hurt her hip, and was escorted to the camp nurse, who provided her with an ice bag to apply to the hip.

2) The camp rules discouraged campers from using the phone; the camp personnel said it made the kids more homesick if they called their parents.

3) There was no report of her hitting her head or suffering any symptoms of a concussion when she saw the nurse.

4) Yes there are some photographs of the camp that can be found online as postcards, but I have not found any others.

5) I was in Wyoming last summer and visited where Connie went to school. Since Helen Smith's ranch was out of town, there was no bus to school. Her mother rented a room across from the grammar school, where both she and her brother Nels attended.

6) I have not searched for her school record. But I have had many discussions with her brother, Nels, who has fond memories of his little sister. It has been reported that Connie was comfortable being around adults, which makes sense since her grandparents were well-known, having served as the governor of Wyoming. And her Connecticut grandparents entertained often in their home.

6) I am not sure which photo you are referring to. If it is the one that was in a New York magazine, which some thought was of Connie, it was thoroughly checked out by Pinkerton Security, who were hired by Connie's Grandfather.

7) Again, there was no head injury reported, and she was not taken to any hospital. She simply hurt her hip. Now, whether there was an altercation and she was pushed, that has not been established. Her brother said she had lost her flashlight, tripped over the bedpost, and fallen against a part of the tent platform.

8) Little Miss X's story is one that includes the possibility of both she and her boyfriend being killed; there has never been any trace of the boyfriend's body, but his car was located abandoned in Williams, AZ. Which is near the Grand Canyon. LMX remains were laying in the woods for nine to 14 months when she was found in 1958.

Law enforcement calls the area a body dump because of its vast area. I believe she might be Donnis Redman, from CA, who left San Jose to go to Las Vegas to get married. Until we find her remains, we just don't know. The primary reason LMX has been linked to Connie is due to a false confession given to law enforcement in Ohio, in which Connie was allegedly picked up in Connecticut with the intention of taking her home to Wyoming to collect the reward. There is no way Connie is LMX. Connie would not have allowed herself to be kept captive for so long. She was a knowledgeable girl who often would go out camping alone on her mother's ranch.

9) There are no updates on the location of Little Miss X's remains.

10) A fellow researcher and I believe that George Davies, a serial killer from Connecticut, killed Connie right after picking her up. He left his workplace to hunt for a victim. He killed at least two other girls we know of. And he was very familiar with the area where Connie was last seen walking toward Lakeville.

I hope I've answered your questions, but please feel free to ask more as they occur to you. We never know if any might trigger something we haven't thought of yet, giving us a different way to look at things.

We don't know who may have killed LMX; it could be a trucker or someone they met along the way looking for a ride.

Thanks for caring about both Connie Smith and Little Miss X.

Her case is a 73-year-old Connecticut Cold Case. And LMX, on October 31, 1958, was found on a dirt road off Skinner Ridge south of the Grand Canyon. Her remains had been there for nine to 14 months before being discovered by a father and son hunters.

 

[Issa]

So here's the Intersection near where she was last seen. The camp is an hour walk back SW. It's woodsy now, even with modern development.

If the sighting is correct, she was now picking flowers after an almost 3 mile walk. Apparently with a next-day bruised hip that had needed an ice pack. Kids are resilient, but a next-dayer can hurt more than the initial impact, so I can see why she'd get in a car. Especially since stranger danger was not a thing, and we weren't even close to the hichhiking craze which was deemed acceptable for a time. She was seen by 8 or 9 people, all of whom let her continue on; it just speaks to the time.

What bothers me the most is to think that maybe after calming down, like a 3-mile walk in mid-July might do, she'd changed her mind and asked to be taken back to camp.

Back in Wyoming, it was a common practice to stop and ask if someone needed a ride when seeing them walking on the highway, because houses were miles apart and it could be a long walk or a long time before you might see another person, if you needed a ride.

The information about Connie picking flowers is inaccurate; it was reported in an interview with the camp maintenance man, who saw Connie walking out of the entrance onto Indian School Road. He thought she was a camp counselor because she was so tall. He did not report that she looked upset or was crying, nor did he observe that she stopped to pick daisies.

When Connie's mother was asked by the state police what Connie liked to do, she said Connie liked to make and wear daisy necklaces from the flowers she picked. There was no indication that that was the case. No one remembered seeing her with a necklace or a handful of daisies. The newspaper picked it up because they wanted to feature a story about a little girl who got lost. No one thought she was abducted. They thought she had run away from camp and headed home. But home was thousands of miles from camp, and even her grandparents' home was two or three hours away. Was she headed to find a telephone to call from? Was she headed to find a "Sheriff" to report the trouble with the tent mates, or was she calling her mother because she wanted to stay longer? She was scheduled to leave to return to Wyoming with her mother, because her school was opening soon. They were driving back from Connecticut to Wyoming. Not flying.

 

[Issa]

Back in Wyoming, it was a common practice to stop and ask if someone needed a ride when seeing them walking on the highway, because houses were miles apart and it could be a long walk or a long time before you might see another person, if you needed a ride.

The information about Connie picking flowers is inaccurate; it was reported in an interview with the camp maintenance man, who saw Connie walking out of the entrance onto Indian School Road. He thought she was a camp counselor because she was so tall. He did not report that she looked upset or was crying, nor did he observe that she stopped to pick daisies.

When Connie's mother was asked by the state police what Connie liked to do, she said Connie liked to make and wear daisy necklaces from the flowers she picked. There was no indication that that was the case. No one remembered seeing her with a necklace or a handful of daisies. The newspaper picked it up because they wanted to feature a story about a little girl who got lost. No one thought she was abducted. They thought she had run away from camp and headed home. But home was thousands of miles from camp, and even her grandparents' home was two or three hours away. Was she headed to find a telephone to call from? Was she headed to find a "Sheriff" to report the trouble with the tent mates, or was she calling her mother because she wanted to stay longer? She was scheduled to leave to return to Wyoming with her mother, because her school was opening soon. They were driving back from Connecticut to Wyoming. Not flying.

Yes, she could have asked that, but I doubt it. It seems she was either extremely angry at her tentmates. Maybe they tripped her and she fell and hurt her hip. In the morning, either there was a fist fight or someone from a top bunk, climbing down, hit her in the face, either on purpose or by accident. We don't know if her glasses were broken then or had been broken before.

It had been only two days since she had seen her mother and grandmother at camp, and they brought a birthday cake to celebrate Connie's birthday. If she wanted to go home, that would have been the time to say so. But what she asked her mother was if she could stay another week, because a horse show was coming up in town, and she wanted to attend. But her mother had plans to leave for Wyoming because school was about to start and they were driving across country to get back.

 

[DD Byrd]

Back in Wyoming, it was a common practice to stop and ask if someone needed a ride when seeing them walking on the highway, because houses were miles apart and it could be a long walk or a long time before you might see another person, if you needed a ride.

The information about Connie picking flowers is inaccurate; it was reported in an interview with the camp maintenance man, who saw Connie walking out of the entrance onto Indian School Road. He thought she was a camp counselor because she was so tall. He did not report that she looked upset or was crying, nor did he observe that she stopped to pick daisies.

When Connie's mother was asked by the state police what Connie liked to do, she said Connie liked to make and wear daisy necklaces from the flowers she picked. There was no indication that that was the case. No one remembered seeing her with a necklace or a handful of daisies. The newspaper picked it up because they wanted to feature a story about a little girl who got lost. No one thought she was abducted. They thought she had run away from camp and headed home. But home was thousands of miles from camp, and even her grandparents' home was two or three hours away. Was she headed to find a telephone to call from? Was she headed to find a "Sheriff" to report the trouble with the tent mates, or was she calling her mother because she wanted to stay longer? She was scheduled to leave to return to Wyoming with her mother, because her school was opening soon. They were driving back from Connecticut to Wyoming. Not flying.

I don't think it was exclusive to Wyoming to stop and ask if someone needed a ride. Especially if that someone was a young female walking alone.

It was the gatekeeper who saw Connie leave the camp. There are accounts of her picking flowers at different times, neither proven nor disproven. She was also allegedly seen with her thumb out hitching a ride, and that made have ended badly.

I never mentioned the return to Wyoming, let alone flying.

 

[strangerthanfiction1200]

1) We don't know about any kind of fight the night before Connie disappeared. It was reported that Connie fell on the wooden steps leading into her tent, hurt her hip, and was escorted to the camp nurse, who provided her with an ice bag to apply to the hip.

2) The camp rules discouraged campers from using the phone; the camp personnel said it made the kids more homesick if they called their parents.

3) There was no report of her hitting her head or suffering any symptoms of a concussion when she saw the nurse.

4) Yes there are some photographs of the camp that can be found online as postcards, but I have not found any others.

5) I was in Wyoming last summer and visited where Connie went to school. Since Helen Smith's ranch was out of town, there was no bus to school. Her mother rented a room across from the grammar school, where both she and her brother Nels attended.

6) I have not searched for her school record. But I have had many discussions with her brother, Nels, who has fond memories of his little sister. It has been reported that Connie was comfortable being around adults, which makes sense since her grandparents were well-known, having served as the governor of Wyoming. And her Connecticut grandparents entertained often in their home.

6) I am not sure which photo you are referring to. If it is the one that was in a New York magazine, which some thought was of Connie, it was thoroughly checked out by Pinkerton Security, who were hired by Connie's Grandfather.

7) Again, there was no head injury reported, and she was not taken to any hospital. She simply hurt her hip. Now, whether there was an altercation and she was pushed, that has not been established. Her brother said she had lost her flashlight, tripped over the bedpost, and fallen against a part of the tent platform.

8) Little Miss X's story is one that includes the possibility of both she and her boyfriend being killed; there has never been any trace of the boyfriend's body, but his car was located abandoned in Williams, AZ. Which is near the Grand Canyon. LMX remains were laying in the woods for nine to 14 months when she was found in 1958.

Law enforcement calls the area a body dump because of its vast area. I believe she might be Donnis Redman, from CA, who left San Jose to go to Las Vegas to get married. Until we find her remains, we just don't know. The primary reason LMX has been linked to Connie is due to a false confession given to law enforcement in Ohio, in which Connie was allegedly picked up in Connecticut with the intention of taking her home to Wyoming to collect the reward. There is no way Connie is LMX. Connie would not have allowed herself to be kept captive for so long. She was a knowledgeable girl who often would go out camping alone on her mother's ranch.

9) There are no updates on the location of Little Miss X's remains.

10) A fellow researcher and I believe that George Davies, a serial killer from Connecticut, killed Connie right after picking her up. He left his workplace to hunt for a victim. He killed at least two other girls we know of. And he was very familiar with the area where Connie was last seen walking toward Lakeville.

I hope I've answered your questions, but please feel free to ask more as they occur to you. We never know if any might trigger something we haven't thought of yet, giving us a different way to look at things.

We don't know who may have killed LMX; it could be a trucker or someone they met along the way looking for a ride.

Thanks for caring about both Connie Smith and Little Miss X.

Her case is a 73-year-old Connecticut Cold Case. And LMX, on October 31, 1958, was found on a dirt road off Skinner Ridge south of the Grand Canyon. Her remains had been there for nine to 14 months before being discovered by a father and son hunters.

l. Thank you for your long and useful information.
2. The Phone (my mistake), I was thinking when Connie was walking, that she did not ask to use the phone.
3. I also believe that it is Donnis Redman as Little Miss X. or someone who was taken near that time frame, that has not been mentioned yet. Nobody knows that this person is missing.
4. George Davies, what did he do for a living? Was he around for Paula Whelen (spelled wrong), who was from Connecticut and missing from Vermont? Although it was five-year difference.
5. Did the witnesses mention that she was limping at any time?
6. Since we do not know names, does LE have names and reinterview the children and adults who are still alive? I know the children are adults now, but time and space would maybe trigger memories.
If you need any help, let me know. I have time and energy. I have been on Ancestry since it began in 1999 and when it was free.