VA VA - Elsie Roane, 16, West Point, 20 May 1957

[theshadow45]

Bumping, today is Elsie’s birthday.

 

[theshadow45]

Elsie has been missing for 67 years today.

 

[longthymelurker]

Or the boy may have lied.

That’s exactly what I wondered too. Maybe he was the father of the baby and his lie about her saying she was going to a friend’s house helped his alibi if needed?

 

[Vee97]

Wondering if this Jane Doe is her, I think the years are a typo and it may actually be 1940’s to 1950’s. Richmond City is 40 minutes from West Point, VA.

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

By bringing people, information, forensic science and technology together, NamUs helps resolve cases.

www.namus.gov

 

[theshadow45]

Today is Elsie’s birthday.

 

[teo4all]

Behind a paywall, but maybe someone can look at it - What happened to Elsie Mae? Decades after she disappeared from West Point, ex-police chief continues search for answers.

 

[teo4all]

Update with non-paywall version of the site above - https://archive.is/t26E7

 

[StarrChance]

Update with non-paywall version of the site above - https://archive.is/t26E7

Wow, a very detailed article. The former West Point Police Chief Bobby Mawyer is like a dog with a bone!
A couple of snippets :

Interviews with former students turned up a person of interest, another student named Lloyd Hodges.
Classmates said Elsie had been dating Hodges at the time of her disappearance. They were both on the school rifle team. There was even talk of a pending engagement.
Mawyer tracked down Hodges to a home in Hertford, North Carolina. He immediately became suspicious about the former boyfriend who denied knowledge of Elsie Mae at the outset and routinely answered the door with a gun in his hand.

Mawyer considered other possibilities. From the outset, the initial police report bothered him.
“One of the things that always bugged me was one of the last people to see her in town that night was the town police officer,” he said. He could not understand why the officer did not confront the girl.
“I then started looking at Billy Haigler. Who better to undermine an investigation than somebody within? I started thinking ‘Did he say she had two suitcases to look like she was leaving town?’”
Haigler quit his job in West Point three months after Roane’s disappearance.

Digging around ancestry I found when Elsie Mae mother died her father remarried in 1955. It was a small town but interesting that this wife had a daughter that was married to (the police officer) Billy Haigler in 1953, unsure when they divorced but she remarried in 1965. If this is the correct information it’s seems even more strange he wouldn’t stop and question a family member? Although the suspects are deceased it’s good to know she has not been forgotten.

 

[theshadow45]

Elsie has been missing for 68 years today.

 

[strangerthanfiction1200]

I found something. http://www.ancestry.com/1940-census/usa/West-Virginia/Elsie-M-Roane_55cw08

Age 4, born abt 1936
Birthplace West Virginia
Gender Female
Race White
Home in 1940
Fudger Creek
Grant,
Cabell, West Virginia
Household Members Age
Head Charles Roane 23
Wife Ruth Roane 22
Daughter Joan Roane 7
Daughter Elsie M Roane 4
Son Charles E Roane 3
Daughter Mary A Roane 1
Son David Lee Roane 8/12

http://articles.dailypress.com/2003-03-04/news/0303040146_1_washington-funeral-home-charles-cemetery
Here is something else: Elsie Mae Roane 76 Tappahannock, VA

I am confused about this information. According to other comments, Elsie's adopted father was named Harry Roane. Is he related to Charles? Also, this is the 1940 census and Elsie was four years old, she would have been born in 1936. This Elsie would have been 21 years old in 1957 and an adult. But the Elsie who is missing is 16 years old in 1957 and she would have been born in 1941 after this census. There is a difference between a 16-year-old and a 21-year-old. Am I missing something, the age difference could be a thorn. Anyone check the 1950 census?

 

[strangerthanfiction1200]

I answered my own question. There is an Elsie Marie Roane who was born in 1936 and 14 years old in the 1950 census. She got married in 1951. Also, Elsie Mae Roane who was born in 1941 is 9 years old in the 1950 census and 7 years later she is 16 years old in 1957 and the one who is missing. Elsie, who is missing, mother, died in 1955.