NY Joan S. Kitson, 36, Tonawanda, May 12, 1977

[victoriarobinson642]

A very sparse case from Upstate New York.
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Demographics
Missing Age - 36 Years
Current Age - 80 Years
First Name - Joan
Middle Name - S.
Last Name - Kitson

Sex - Female
Height - 5' 4" - 5' 4" (64 - 64 Inches)
Weight - 125 - 125 lbs
Race / Ethnicity - White / Caucasian

Circumstances
Date of Last Contact - May 12, 1977
NamUs Case Created - June 12, 2020
Last Known Location Map
Location - Tonawanda, New York 14150
County - Erie County
Missing From Tribal Land - Unknown
Circumstances of Disappearance
Missing.

Physical Description
Hair Color - Brown
Eye Color - Blue

Clothing and Accessories
Clothing - TAN RAINCOAT
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[victoriarobinson642]

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
Perry County Jane Doe seems like a bit of a stretch - she'd be in the very upper age range and 250 miles away.

 

[alb1on]

It is possible she was married and that Kitson is her married name. If this is the case the obvious match is that she was born Joan S Laughlin. William J Kitson married Joan S Laughlin at Niagara (right next to Tonawanda) on 2 August 1958. William James Kitson was born in Buffalo in 1937 and died in Buffalo in 1998. His obituary at William "Jim" Kitson Jr. Obituary - NY | Buffalo News (legacy.com) confirms he was married to Joan S, who predeceased him. It also identifies 3 children of the marriage. Other than this obituary the other records are from Ancestry.

 

[alb1on]

If Joan S Kitson was Laughlin before marriage I think she was born 10 November 1940 in Buffalo. Unfortunately the Ancestry record of her birth is only an index record and gives no information except date and location. If you are looking into her beware that another Joan S Laughlin was born in Buffalo in 1943. However, this later Joan was too young to have married in 1958 and there are separate residence records (with the 1943 birthdate) for her in Buffalo in the 1990s and 2000s on Ancestry. There do not seem to be any further records for the 1940 Joan.

 

[folieadeuxnola]

**NO PHOTO**

 

[EmilyHTX]

Per Tonawanda PD, Joan was married to William Kitson, so she is the Joan S Laughlin previously mentioned.

Joan worked at Sister’s Hospital in Buffalo, NY in the auditing department. She went to work one day (confirmed to have been at work that day by Buffalo PD), but never returned home. There was an issue with Buffalo PD not taking the missing person report even though she was last seen in Buffalo, which family was directed to report in the Town of Tonawanda because she resided there.

There is no photo associated with her case, but I’m looking for any that may be available elsewhere.

 

[EmilyHTX]

Among other things I've located today, here is an article from The Courier-Express out of Buffalo, NY for the 1-year anniversary of her disappearance. It gives more detail about what she was wearing and some of the circumstances (car left locked in parking garage of hospital where she worked as an auditor, no money or clothing taken)

 

[EmilyHTX]

The article is difficult to make out in spots, but here’s what I’ve gathered for an updated description of her disappearance:

She clocked out of work at 4:40pm. She was wearing a white skirt, white vest, green blouse and beige raincoat. She took no additional money or belongings. Her husband and children (all teenagers at the time) couldn’t think of any reason she would leave, place she would go, or person she may have gone with. Her paycheck was due the next day, but she never retrieved it nor did she make any withdrawals from the bank.

Her 1972 sedan was located in the hospital parking garage, locked and undisturbed. Her husband reported her missing when she didn’t return home from work that day.

 

[EmilyHTX]

It took forever, but I finally got solid info on her family and background. I think I’ve found a couple photos, but want to confirm with LE before sharing. From the looks of it, her parents, husband and half-siblings have all passed away by now, but her children are living. There’s no DNA or fingerprints on file for her, but at least the option is still there for familial DNA.

 

[EmilyHTX]

Quick update for Joan, Tonawanda PD is going to reach out to her daughter in hopes of obtaining DNA for future comparison.

I'm not comfortable sharing a family photo that was shared with me, but I'll attach two high school photos of Joan just so it gives everyone an idea of her appearance. She didn't change much in the years following, mostly just some thinning of the face and longer hair.

There was a solid person of interest in her case but its believed that he passed away between 2018-2019. I'm currently trying to follow that lead to see if he may have confided in anyone or bragged about his crimes to an associate. It was believed that he took her as she was preparing to exit the hospital that day, assaulted her (as was his typical offense) and may have killed her and disposed of her remains in the hospital's incinerator. Though Buffalo PD searched through the incinerator and found nothing (no bone fragments, jewelry, etc.), that was the most common theory. I'm still not convinced that the incinerator played any part in this case, so I'm currently looking for any UIDs that may fit.

I'm waiting for more details about any scars/birthmarks, jewelry she typically wore (she was frequently photographed wearing a necklace with a crucifix), whether she wore a slip/pantyhose, what type of shoes she wore to work, her purse, etc.

Buffalo Cold Case Squad should have the original case files and I'm waiting for a call back on that. Tonawanda PD didn't do the initial investigation so their info is limited. I don't know when/why the change of agency occurred, and it seems that neither Buffalo nor Tonawanda know the answer to that either. The original Buffalo detective has been an amazing resource for getting to know the investigation and their understanding of the disappearance.

I hope I have something more concrete and helpful to update with soon.

 

[EmilyHTX]

As much as I hate to say it, this case is an unresolved homicide that will likely never be closed. The primary person of interest (I'll call him JB), who worked in the laundry of Sisters Hospital and had a record full of assaults, rapes, etc. against women in both New York and California, died in 2012. I had hoped that I might be able to find something to shift the focus away from investigators' original opinion about what happened to her, but it seems overwhelmingly difficult now that the only logical suspect is gone and there was never any physical evidence collected that could be matched to either Joan or JB to prove their theory.

To sum up the original detective's theory, Joan was walking out of the hospital, passing the area where the incinerator is housed, and JB used some sort of ruse ("Hey, could you hold this door for me?") to get her to come closer, then he grabbed her and brought her into the large warehouse-like building. He likely assaulted her then killed her (whether intentionally or accidentally), ending with JB placing her and her belongings in the incinerator. Turns out that he wasn't authorized to use it but he got in trouble for running it the next day or something. Investigators didn't go to check it out for 4 days, then had to shut it down and wait 12-18 hours for it to cool long enough to comb through. One detective says they found nothing, but family said that they thought there were bone fragments of some sort. Assuming that the incinerator burned for at least an hour on each of those 4 days, and at a temperature that reaches or surpasses that of a crematorium incinerator, it might be possible that her remains were completely gone when they finally searched.

It broke my heart to have to accept that there's likely no different outcome for this case. JB's brother, who lived in CA when this all occurred, refuses to accept (or admit) that JB ever did anything wrong and I'm not sure about the other siblings or JB's ex-wife (who he was married to from 1973-1984. I do know that JB's sister lived nearby at the time with her husband, who the original detective was in contact with occasionally. The brother-in-law would give the detective a heads up about JB's whereabouts or what kind of trouble he'd been getting into.

The detective basically sat down with Joan's family some time in the year following her disappearance and told them that they were 99.9% sure that Joan had been murdered, who had murdered her, and where her remains were but that they'd never be able to prove it.