IN IN - Billy Earl Martin, 7, Brazil, 10 Aug 1957

[MadMcGoo]

Billy Earl Martin – The Charley Project

Billy Earl Martin (1950-unknown) - Find a Grave...

Seven year old Billy Martin disappeared from his home in Brazil, Indiana on 10 August 1957.

www.findagrave.com

Billy, circa 1957

Missing Since: August 10, 1957
Missing From: Brazil, Clay County, Indiana
Classification: Endangered Missing
Sex: Male
Race / Ethnicity: White / Caucasian
Date of Birth: June 11, 1950
Age: 7 years old
Height: 3’0”
Weight: 55 pounds
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Brown
Clothing/Jewelry Description: An orange and brown striped t-shirt, blue jeans and brown sandals.

Details of Disappearance: Billy was last seen at his residence in the 300 block of North Colfax Street in Brazil, Indiana on August 10, 1957. At 2:00 p.m. he came home with a dirty shirt and his mother, who was cleaning the house, asked Harry A. "Tex" Higgins, a lodger, to change his shirt on the front porch so he wouldn't bring dirt into the house. Afterwards, Higgins sat outside and Billy and his four-year-old brother played on tricycles in the yard while the boys' mother cleaned.

At 3:30 p.m., Billy's brother came home crying due to an argument with Billy. When Billy's mother went outside, she noticed both Billy and Higgins were gone. She wasn't concerned about it and continued to work in the house until 6:00 p.m., when Higgins came back without Billy.
He said the last time he'd seen Billy, the child had been playing in the road a few blocks away on Depot Street and Higgins had nearly hit him with his car, and had scolded him and told him to go home. This was at 4:00 p.m. Billy has never been heard from again.

The authorities focused their investigation on Billy's parents and on Higgins, a family friend who had moved into the Martin home just two weeks before Billy's disappearance when he lost his job. All three of them were polygraphed, as was Billy's aunt. The results of the polygraphs suggested Higgins and Billy's parents knew more about the disappearance than they were saying.
The Martins said Higgins had spent a lot of time around their children and they did not believe he would have harmed Billy. Higgins was held in custody for two weeks, then released without charge. His only prior criminal history had been for wife desertion. Billy's father could not have been involved in his son's disappearance, as he had been away in Wisconsin at the time training with the National Guard.

Billy's parents both died in the 1990s. His case has never been solved. Foul play is suspected.

Investigating Agency: Brazil Police Department

Source Information:
The Brazil Times
The Waterloo Daily Courier

 

[Quoththeraven]

This article stated that Higgins last saw the boy standing on a street corner two blocks from home. Another article states he walked the boy down an alley to look at some dogs. Another article in the Evening Independent 13 Aug 1957, states Higgins told police Billy nearly ran into into the path of his car at about 4pm Saturday and he warned the youngster to go home.

IMO, Higgins needs to get his stories straight.

The Journal Herald​

Dayton, Ohio · Thursday, August 15, 1957

Dayton Daily News​

Dayton, Ohio · Wednesday, August 14, 1957

 

[StarrChance]

Harry Allen Higgins died 1976 ,Montana, age 73 from lung cancer. He had deserted his wife and five children in 1939, Iowa.

 

[StarrChance]

It sure how much he “loved children” after abandoning 5. Also he went to a “haunted house farm” to wash his car…

 

[John/Jane Doe]

Billy Earl Martin – The Charley Project

 

[Quoththeraven]

It sure how much he “loved children” after abandoning 5. Also he went to a “haunted house farm” to wash his car…

"A neighbor testified she had seen Higgins and the boy together Saturday. Higgins returned alone from an alley they entered, she said. Higgins said he saw the missing boy about mid-afternoon when he nearly ran him down in his car. He told the boy to go home, he said, and then drove to a haunted house farm to wash his car."

Newspapers.com Quad-City Times Davenport, Iowa · Tuesday, August 13, 1957 page 1

We know he didn't like children since he had abandoned his own five children and had spent time in prison for abandonment.

The sheriff said lie detector tests showed both Higgins and his girlfriend (Mrs. Martin's sister) knew more about Billy's disappearance than they were saying.

Ancestry.com: The Iowa Registers of Convicts at the Men's Penitentiary at Ft. Madison, IA (Book 8) shows he escaped from prison and was returned to prison which is why his registration card shows his release was much later in 1942 than his original sentence of one year for desertion.

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Wow, such a sad case. I don't think his mother knows what happened to him, and I think the last person to see him knew what happened.

 

[Quoththeraven]

I thought I'd add a little more background to this case.

The Indianapolis Star Indianapolis, Indiana · Tuesday, August 13, 1957 at Newspapers.com, stated that detectives examined Higgins’ copper-colored 1949 Pontiac coach and found no bloodstains or other evidence that the car was involved in the disappearance.
The police also visited the 100 acre farm three miles south of Brazil (Jackson Township), IN near Hoosierville, IN owned by 69 year old Miss (Freida) Lorene Evans, who also owned an antique store in Brazil, IN. The farm is located about five miles south of Brazil. I wasn't able to get the exact address of the farm from online records. Deputy Sheriff Glen Van Horn said they have only Higgins’ word that he washed his car at the farm of the partly deaf and blind woman, Lorene Evans, who lives in one of two cabins on the farm and who believes the main house on the farm, which is filled with antiques, is haunted. The large two story house walled mostly by glass is painted pink and all the furnishings inside are pink, red or white. The house is filled with mirrors, curios, empty bird cages and antiques. The house was also known by the name 'Pink House'.

Higgins would have one believe that he drove five miles to a farm on dusty gravel roads just to wash his car and then drove back on those same roads which again covered his vehicle with dust. Investigators found damp rags in a pan near a water faucet at one of the farm buildings. He was at the farm for about 2 hours or gone for two hours, I'm not sure which, according to the article. Higgins’ ties to the farm were that he had worked there last summer as a farm hand.

Page six of the above article gives a fairly detailed account by Florence Martin of what happened that day. She also stated that Higgins came in (after leaving Billy standing by the dogs down the alley where a witness said he had gone with Billy but came back alone) and told her he was going out to the farm to wash his car.

352 North Colfax St., where Billy lived, is now just an empty lot. North Depot St, (a block and a half from his home) where Higgins said he almost hit Billy with his car, can also be seen in the photo below. The article also states that a woman who was outside at the time on North Depot St., where Higgins says he almost hit Billy, did not see any such incident take place. Either he left Billy by the dogs down the alley or he almost hit him on Depot St. Take your pick of which story to believe.

The Princeton Daily Clarion Princeton, Indiana · Wednesday, August 14, 1957 at Newspapers.com stated "Police said Higgins has stayed at the Martin home on two occasions, both times while the boy's father, William Martin, 39, was undergoing training with the National Guard at Camp McCoy, WI."​

 

[Ciriii57]

Might this Higgins have sold Billy, handing him over in the alley?

 

[lightofmine99]

He is now on the Doe Network.

https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/software/mp-main.html?id=6387DMIN

 

[nancy_drew_coldcases]

My news station just did a story on Billy's disappearance this year. I had the opportunity to speak with his brother, Robert, who is still hoping for answers. I have a good amount of background information that may or may not have already been stated in this thread. Here are some of the bullet points.

• Billy Earl Martin was 7 years old when he went missing from his home in Brazil on August 10, 1957.
• There were several suspects and theories about what happened to him, but unfortunately, he has never been found.
• Living in the Martin Home were William, 39, Florence, 35, Linda-Lou, 10, Billy Earl, 7, and Bobby, 4. In addition, a 53-year-old man named Harry Allen “Tex” Higgins had been boarding with them for two weeks.
  • Tex was the boyfriend (fiance) of William Martin’s ‘maiden’ sister Elizabeth Martin, 41, who lived on a farm north of town in Carbon.
• The day Billy went missing,
  • His mom Florence was cleaning the house in anticipation of his father’s return from National Guard training in Wisconsin.
  • His sister Linda-Lou had been given permission to attend a carnival being held nearby in Forest Park. / was with her grandparents
  • Billy and Bobby were playing on tricycles in the yard. ***(Around 2:30(?) they returned from a friend’s house, covered in sand, Florence asked Tex to change Billy’s shirt outside.)
  • Tex Higgins was on the porch reading while the boys played.
  • Around 3:30 pm Bobby ran into the house crying because Billy had crashed into him too hard. Florence went outside to resolve the situation but Billy and Tex were both gone.
  • Tex Higgins was at the Martin home from 2:00 to 3:30/3:45, then reports that he went with Billy into an alley to look at some dogs, then left him and went to wash his car at his ‘friend’, 69-year-old Frances Lorine Evans.
    • Some neighbors report seeing Tex go into an alley with the boy but return alone
    • The Evans farm is located 3 miles south and 2 miles west(?) of Brazil, near Hoosierville.
  • Tex also reported almost ‘running down’ Billy on Depot Street nearly two blocks from the house, and told the boy to go home.
  • Tex returned from washing his car at 6:00 pm to find Florence frantic in search of Billy.
  • William Martin returns home around 1:00 am and reports Billy missing
• A search ensues and by Monday, August 12, there are investigators from the Brazil police department, Clay County Sheriff and the Indiana State Police involved as well as hundreds of civilian volunteers, civil defense police officers, civil air patrol men and national guardsmen.
  • The FBI became involved a short time later.
  • ‘Largest scale search in the history of Clay County’
• The search spanned several miles and more than a week investigating the hundreds of tips that came in. The story made national headlines for a week.
• There were several farms, ponds, abandoned buildings, and strip mines searched.
  • They searched the home and property of Lorine Evans
• A few clues were found, a knife was found in a silo by a national guardsman (Ronald Wright, Brazil National Guard and State Trooper Bill Rodgers, ISP) during the initial searches the week of August 12. *Another knife was found by a child on the school construction site on August 24, 1957 by a nine-year-old boy. No details were released about what resulted from those clues.
  • There have been several bones found and tested to see if they were a match for Billy.
    • Some bones were found in the basement of Lorine Evans’ home after she died in 1967, but were determined to be animal bones.
    • There was a child’s skull found in Rockville in 1961 that was determined to be unrelated.
• Tex was a suspect almost immediately and was in police custody by Sunday, August 11.
  • He took two lie detector tests both of which indicated that he was hiding something.
    • Elizabeth Martin also took two lie detector tests with ultimately the same result
    • Tex refused to take “Truth Serum”
    • He was in custody for two weeks
    • When released he returned to Chicago.
• An escaped mental patient and former Carnival worker was discovered to have a clipping of Billy Earl’s story in his pocket when he was arrested for burglary in Colorado in December of 1957.
  • John Smith aka Billy Earl Stevens made a confession but later recanted and his alibi was confirmed so he was released.
  • He was schizophrenic.
• Another carnie in Colorado was suspected in Billy’s death after he promised an eleven-year-old boy an elephant ride then strangled and buried him at a fair in Colorado, nothing was ever discovered to tie him to Billy’s case.
• There are several rumors around Brazil about what happened to Billy; people have speculated that he ran off with the carnival, that he was kidnapped and killed when the kidnapper realized they couldn’t get any money, that Tex killed him and disposed of the body, that he decided to swim in a nearby pond and drowned, or even that he died at the hands of a ‘sex maniac’.
• The Martin home was located on Colfax, across the street from the Meridian Elementary School, which was under construction at the time.
  • One rumor/theory is that Billy was murdered and his body was buried on the elementary school construction site.
• His parents have both passed away, but his two siblings, Bobby and Linda-Lou, are in their seventies now and still looking for answers and some closure about what happened to their brother that day.

• Clay County Sheriff’s Office:
  • Sheriff William Downing
  • Deputy Glen Van Horn
• Brazil Police Department:
  • Chief Joseph Russell
• ISP Investigators named:
  • Indiana State Detective Sgt. Harold Roseberry
  • Indiana State Police Captain Robert F. Borkenstein
  • Indiana State Trooper Bill Rodgers

 

[nancy_drew_coldcases]

I have a long write up that I can share as well.

 

[Richard]

Bumping this thread up.