The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts. All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages. Listener discretion is advised. I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski. And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases. Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing.
I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And it will just be me coming to you this week. If you've been a listener for a while now, or maybe you're new here, Eli, his mother passed away just a few months ago. And this week is her birthday. And then his family dog, who they've loved for the past 16 years, is going to cross the rainbow bridge this week as well. So just kind of a tough week overall. So he's taking time to take care of himself mentally and emotionally, which is always supported.
So if you're out there and you're someone who likes to pray, think positive thoughts, meditate, send good energy and love, like if you want to send some Eli's way, I know he will appreciate it. I did want to go ahead and bring you an episode this week. We are on a missing person case. And just as a bit of a content warning, this case does involve a young person, and there are brief mentions of sexual assault. Today we are talking about Beverly Ann Ward.
She's been missing since July of 1978 from Junction City, Kansas. But first a little bit about Beverly. Beverly is 13 years old in 1978. She would be 58 years old today. Beverly was the youngest of all her siblings. She had four sisters and three brothers. However, by the time she's 13, a lot of her siblings are out of the house and making their own way in the world. Beverly did have a noticeable feature on her hand.
She was born with an extra bone that resulted in what looked like an extra finger near her middle finger. So this would have been noticeable on her. Beverly was a good friend. She was an excitable little girl, but also really organized and liked to work towards her goals. Her family is part of a local church called Faith Tabernacle United Pentecostal Church.
I just want to note on the church that the United Pentecostal Church is a larger network of churches where people have come forward with sexual assault allegations against people in power. But we'll talk a little bit more about this later. And now a timeline of events. On Monday, July 3, 1978. It's summertime and Beverly is having a sleepover. Her friend is staying the night, and with the next day being the 4th of July, it was turning into a pretty fun summer night.
Nothing really out of the ordinary happened that day. When it was time to go to sleep, Beverly and her friend went to sleep in the same room. Her friend was sleeping in a spare bed. Beverly planned on attending summer camp the next day. Her bags were packed and she had saved $12 for the occasion, which I used an inflation calculator and that would be almost $60 today, so that's some substantial summer camp money, in my opinion.
In the early morning hours of July 4, everyone in the house was woken up because of a disturbance that was happening across the street. Years later, in 2014, the friend who spent the night with Beverly will come forward anonymously in the local paper to talk about what happened that night, so that's where a lot of these details are going to come from. The friend was only 9 years old when Beverly was abducted.
According to the friend, sometime before 5am, a brick was thrown through a neighbor's window. As the chaos around that ensued, neighbors began standing on their front porches and opening their front doors to watch what was happening, and the same was true in the ward home. Most of the family, and Beverly's friend, went to the front door to watch what was going on. Everyone assumed that Beverly was with them, watching the chaos that was happening.
As things started to calm down, Beverly's mom, Bernia Mae, realized that Beverly wasn't with the rest of the family, and she wasn't sleeping in her bed. In the bedroom, nothing was missing except for Beverly and her green nightgown. In the bedroom where Beverly had been sleeping, the window screen had been cut and removed and was laying about 10 feet from the home. The window to the bedroom faced the large, fenceless backyard.
There was enough of a tree line around the home that neighbors wouldn't have been able to see much outside of their windows when looking at the ward home. Authorities are called at either 5.30 a.m. or 5.30 p.m. Both times have been reported in papers, but personally I think they're called at 5.30 a.m. based on how much is kind of done in that first day. Police arrive, and quickly the case is treated like an abduction. Beverly couldn't be painted as a runaway.
None of her clothes were missing, with the exception of her nightgown. Her bags had been neatly packed for summer camp, and all of that had been left behind, including her $12. Police do try to process the scene for evidence. They attempt to lift fingerprints in the bedroom, but no unaccounted for prints were found.
Police theorize that someone cut the window screen out between 3 and 5 a.m. and entered the home and took Beverly out of the same window without anyone hearing or seeing anything, including her sleeping friend. Beverly's case was covered by the local media, but unfortunately those original articles have not been archived online, so I wasn't able to access them, but I was able to access other papers from around that time.
However, we do know that police in the days following the abduction canvassed the neighborhood looking for clues and suspects. A neighbor of the Ward's mentioned that they had seen a car that belonged to other folks in the neighborhood near the home around midnight. This was earlier than when the police believed that Beverly was taken, so ultimately these two people are eliminated. Another person of interest comes to light. This was someone who lived near the Ward's.
The person was seen near the home in the days or weeks leading up to the abduction. I thought that that wording was interesting, days or weeks, and I kept seeing that phrase repeated over and over again, days or weeks, so I assume this is what police said and not just a typo in the paper. The next firm date that I could find as far as a timeline goes comes on July 21st, so it's been 17 days since Beverly disappeared. The FBI have joined local law enforcement to investigate the case.
Another working theory of the police was that since Junction City was a bit of a transient community in 1978, that someone passing through the town could have taken her and continued out of state, hence the FBI involvement. The police chief tells local media that despite the FBI's involvement, no new leads have developed. Altogether, the Junction City police, the FBI, and the sheriff's department are all working on the case.
After this update, Beverly's case appears to fall out of the media cycle. There were some brief mentions of her over the years, but the next real big update comes from 2014, so it's been over 30 years since Beverly disappeared. A journalist does a write-up on Beverly's case, and it's published locally and does get a little national traction via the Associated Press.
This gets local papers writing about Beverly's abduction again, and as mentioned before, Beverly's friend who was spending the night when she was abducted comes forward in 2014 to tell more details. When the police are asked about where the case stands, they confirm that the family was never under suspicion. Sergeant Cory O'Dell says, quote, the family was never considered to be suspects. They were forthcoming with information, helpful, and extremely appropriate in terms of the situation.
Sergeant O'Dell had been assigned to Beverly's case since he joined the department in 2009, so he had been working it for some time. When he looks back on the three people of interest that investigators in 1978 rounded up, that's the two people that owned the car that was seen around midnight and then the person that was seen near the home. Sergeant Cory O'Dell says, quote, there's not enough evidence to say either way whether they could be ruled out as suspects.
From looking through the file, I can say I think the three people they focused on and interviewed at the time were the best people to interview at that time. I was very impressed with the interview they conducted considering the time this happened. End quote. Police have very little to go on as far as physical evidence. Outside of the damaged window, there was nothing else found at the scene.
The house where the abduction took place has since been torn down and as of 2024, a new home has been built where it once stood. In 2018, the Junction City Police Captain Trish Giordano asked the FBI to look at the case again. Police tell media that there is no real reason they are asking the FBI. They just need help. Police Captain Giordano says, quote, several detectives over the years have looked at the case.
When I took over investigations, I made it one of my goals to see if anything more could be done to try and solve the case. End quote. The police in 2018 were waiting for a response from the FBI and I never found an update saying that the FBI agreed or disagreed to take the case. So I'm not sure if the FBI ever got involved again, but it doesn't seem like they did. I mentioned before that there are allegations against the church that Beverly and her family were a part of.
A website devoted to sharing these stories talked with members of Beverly's church. They were parishioners at the time when Beverly went missing in 1978. They said that the church was really hush-hush about it. No one could recall the church joining in any searches or holding a prayer meeting for Beverly. Even in later years, no one would really talk about the case within the church.
And several church members would even cast doubt on Bernia Mae, Dorothy's mother, saying that she practiced witchcraft. Again, the police never suspected Beverly's family. No trace of Beverly has ever been found. If you know anything about the abduction of Beverly Ward in July of 1978 or her whereabouts today, please call the Junction City Police at 785-762-5912.
And the sources for the timeline today come from the Junction City Union, the Washington Times, the Charlie Project, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. So that is the case of Beverly Ward. And when I found this case, when I was researching cases to cover, this is one that just shocked me with the circumstances that surrounded the case. And it really kind of leads me into the questions that I have around this case.
One of the things that felt shocking to me was just like this chaos that kind of surrounded her abduction. One of the first questions I have is, you know, on the night that she's abducted, was that distraction across the street, you know, that commotion that kind of woke everybody up, was that part of the abduction plan? That's the first question I have.
Or was this just like kind of all a coincidence that this thing happened across the street sort of around the same time that Beverly is being taken out of her window? That's the first question I have, because just the coordination of it and the timing of it, at least as it's presented, you know, as I presented it in the timeline. And if police believe that she was taken between 3 and 5 a.m., then that doesn't leave like a lot of time for it to like not be connected.
I don't know if that makes sense, but it is a possibility that she was abducted at 3 a.m. And then this completely unrelated thing happened, you know, between like 4 and 5 a.m. across the street. Like that is a possibility, but I think it's also a possibility that these were like coordinated events. This goes draws everyone attention to the front of the house and in the back of the house, the window is cut and Beverly is abducted out of her window and they slip out of the back.
I should mention that at the Ward's home behind their house kind of ran an alleyway where today like there's garages up against it for people to pull in and park. I'm not sure if there were garages in 1978. From my understanding, everything that I've read, it would have been possible to walk up to the Ward's house and up to Beverly's window. She wasn't on a second floor. She was on the ground floor.
So someone would have been able to walk up from the back of the house and potentially not be seen. There wasn't a fence up at the time. I do know that, but there was a bit of a tree line kind of surrounding the house where nobody really had a clear view of the back of their home. So if somebody looked out the window, they might not have seen anything even if they looked out right kind of as this event was taking place, this abduction was taking place.
I also don't know for sure if it was Beverly's room that she was sleeping in, that her and her friend were sleeping in that night. I'm assuming it is Beverly's room, but nobody ever mentioned it as Beverly's room, which I thought was kind of interesting. They just kept referring it to like the bedroom that she was sleeping in. So that kind of raises a question to me, like, did she normally sleep in that room? Like, was that consistent for her?
Was it her bedroom or, you know, maybe a sister's room where she slept all the time anyway? But if it's not the room she consistently slept in, then I think that raises like all these other questions. There's just so many unknowns in this case. Like there's known things like we know this really chaotic thing happens. We know the screen if the window is cut. We know or police believe that somebody came in through the window, got Beverly and went out the window.
Like those are the things that we kind of know in this case. But there's so many unknowns that are just like huge that would give so much information. I'm really hopeful in this case that we're going to be able to generate more information. Even though this case happened over 40 years ago, I'm still hopeful that people will be able to think back to that time and remember Beverly, remember what she looked like.
We're going to be posting pictures of her on our Instagram, of course, as we do every week. But I hope that because I mentioned at the top of the show, she had that extra bone on her hand. And so since that's something that's noticeable in like another human, I hope that people will think back on that time and remember like, yes, I did see a girl like that at X, Y, and Z or under this circumstance or I met somebody like that.
You know, like, I'm hopeful that that will jog somebody's memory, that detail of what she looked like and that kind of like unique feature about her, that someone will come forward with information and they'll be able to give her siblings some answers. Her siblings are still searching for what happened to her.
And you know, it's always my hope that a family gets answers that they're looking for and always, you know, a happy reunion is like the deepest wish that I have and that I'm sure all of you share as well. If you know anything about the abduction of Beverly in July of 1978 or her whereabouts today, please call the Junction City Police at 785-762-5912. Like I just mentioned, we will be sharing pictures of Beverly on our Instagram. You can follow us there at Cold and Missing.
They also created a age progressed photo of her that we'll be sharing this week as well. So be sure to look at that and maybe she looks like somebody in your life or somebody you knew or somebody you worked with. So just take a look at it, share it if that feels good to you. Another way that you can support this podcast is by rating and reviewing whatever podcast player you're in. If you can follow along to our show, give it a thumbs up, a five stars.
If you're an Apple podcast, a written review really helps the show get in front of other people and ultimately gets these cases out for others to hear. So if you could take a minute to do that, that would be great. And I would appreciate it so much. I already appreciate you being here though. So if you don't have time, that's okay too. You can also head over to our website, Coldandmissing.com where all of our other episodes are. You can search for episodes.
There are transcripts in case you or someone you love is hard of hearing. You can follow along there, but that is all that I have. Thank you so much for listening to Cold and Missing. It's such an honor to be a part of your week and to be a part of your routine. And I know everybody's time is precious and none of us have enough of it, but I really appreciate your time and spending some time with the podcast. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Cold and Missing. I'm your host, Allie.
Have a good week and stay safe, y'all.