The Dead Butterfly

grew up here and still live here. It's a place where people run into one another in town, at the lake, in the local grocery, we talked p t A, sleepovers, in town politics. Back then. When the abductations began, panic ensued. Literally, my parents and our neighbors locked our doors and closed the shades. We weren't allowed to play on supervised in our own yards. People looked at one another differently, you know, with that raised eyebrow. I went to school with the

families of the missing. I can remember walking down the hallway hearing the whispers, where is she? That's the missing girl's sister over there. You think her brother did it. It's been over fifty years and not one of these cases has been solved. My name is m William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist in New York Times, bestselling author

of forty three true crime books. My passion has always been rooted in the forgotten stories of the missing and murdered m After growing up around so many disappearing children, and later when a family member of mine was murdered a case still unsolved, I decided to dedicate my career to seeking justice for crime victims and their families. But these missing girls, some of whom I knew, it's personal cases. I've been investigating for the past eleven years. I've become

close to these families. I've experienced their pain, I've made promises, and I don't feel I can stop until I find answers. This is paper Ghosts for Kennan Patty Wendell. Their involvement in the missing cases began in two thousand fifteen when they relocated to my hometown, Ellington, Connecticut. Their middle aged, wholesome, good people who have been married about thirty years. They only use bookstore in town that their son runs. I've gotten to know them pretty well over the past few years.

And visit them from time to time to catch up. The windles remind me of my neighbors back in the day, growing up around here, people who do anything for you and expect nothing in return. Starts at the beginning of Window Road, where through dirty Ken is an electrician. He wears glasses and reminds me of one of those guys who can fix anything behind my house. That was his wife. Patty looks much younger than her age. She speaks with

that King of Queen's Long Island accent. There's a toughness I sense, and Patty, if nothing else, she is tenacious, unafraid to say exactly how she feels. They work. I did to move to the country. It was a dream, something that always wanted to do. Settled down in quiet country life, surrounded by woods, they spent years commuting back and forth from their hectic life in Long Island, New York to build a house on what is a massive plot of land across the street from a popular summer destination,

Crystal Lake. But that excitement turned well, very disturbing. Just after finishing the home and settling in, I moved here in October in the summer of fifteen, and in October of that year, two detectives came to the door. My son was home and they wanted to talk to the owner of the property. So it was a state police cold case detective and his partner who recently took over the cases of the missing local girls. And then he said, well,

we have a tip. We have a tip. That's how cold cases of this nature generate action and lead to breakthroughs. What is incredible to me is this, after fifty years, five decades, these cases still produced detectives knocking on doors. That alone gives me and the families of the missing hope somebody knows something and they share it. The windows allowed the detective and his partner to walk to property all forty six acres. They spent two hours, Promising they'd returned.

The detectives were back a month later, only this time they brought along a team of crime scene texts, shovels, a bacco and began excavating a water well on the edge of the windows property. They spent the entire day. The dig turned up piles of garbage, an old oven and refrigerator. But get this Inside that water well, they recovered five pairs of children's saddle shoes alarming, yes, but why five pairs? Were these at all related to the

missing girls I've been investigating or wasn't an anomaly? More junk tossed into the woods. The Wendells assumed the police would return and continue searching their land, but instead, Patty and Ken grew kind of frustrated after not hearing anything for quite some time. It's as if the state police completely gave up. It would not even answer text or emails in a timely fashion, and when they did, the response was generic and disappointing. But Ken, well, he's a

task guy. Get in there and get your hands dirty. And he refused to let this go, so he continued to search his land himself. So after the cops came by, I started to walk around, and then that's when I found a a fox that doug a debt, and I see where he was digging, and he ripped open a bag. It was a girl. The buttons. The other side, Ken is talking about finding several pieces of seventies era clothing

in a plastic bag. The bag was buried in an abandoned artesian water well in an area on his property where a set of small cabins that Crystal Leg visitors could rent for a weekend or summer vacation. During the sixties and early seventies used to be I think dirty dancing, that kind of atmosphere. This specific area, an old logging road, is overgrown with brush and trees. Now then after running across that bag of clothes, Ken discovered something else. It

was sneakers that can have the ground. I think it over here and find out what you are. I mean all that the sneakers that can out. So I stopped digging. At that point, Ken called the state police, thinking he might have just found a body. One of those missing girls. Janis Pockets certainly has not been forgotten in this tight knit community. Check how this bench that has been dedicated in her memory. You can see forty years ago today she went missing and it happened just around the corner

while she was riding her bike. Janice Pocket was only seven years old when she went missing in nineteen seventy three. She's the youngest of the missing girls I'm focused on. The Pocket family lived in the town of Talland, Connecticut, about twenty miles east of capital City, Hartford and just a few miles from Crystal Lake. At the time, talland Vernon and Ellington, where my cases originate, were very rural

woodsie the country totally Mayberry, USA. The road where Janice was last seen was dirt and gravel, surrounded by woods and a Christmas tree farm. Well, it was a three bedroom ranch that we lived in, wooded on behind us and on one side of course where the school was now that was all woods. There. That's Mary angele Breck, who has become a good friend and close confidant over the past ten years of my investigation. We met online

after she realized I was looking into Janice's case. Mary was six when her older sister went missing in She has shoulder length brown hair and wears glasses. Her cheerful demeanor and kindness are indications she has not allowed Janice's disappearance to destroy her. Today, I see a drive in Mary to find her older sibling. We're sitting on a large rock beside her sister's memorial, near the last location

Janice was seen. It's a hot summer morning. Mary has always seemed anxious to me whenever we meet, but on this day, within this space, she is different, as if in her element, more relaxed, and of course nostalgia. There was a lot of kids in that, a lot of kids in the neighborhood. Oh yeah, are you know my sister's age and my age. We were always out in the you know, in the yards, playing together. And tell me, you know what you remember about James, Well, you know,

we were both We loved to play outside. Our big thing was out in the yard or we had a big backyard. We would love to go looking for bugs, butterflies. We were all into that, the nature stuff. Picking flowers for mom all the time. Um, you know, she was older than me. She was definitely my fossy older sister. She would tell me what to do all the time, and I, you know, pretty much would do anything she told me, you know, because she was in charge for sure, and it was that was okay with me most of

the time. You know, we used to fight a lot. I asked Mary about her mother. She was just a h My mom was a sweetheart. Everything we did was with my mom. Like if my dad worked a lot, you know, my mom was a stay at home mom. We were. My sister was a year and a half older than me, so we were very close in age. You know, we did everything together and my mom was very you know, we were not allowed out of her sight. I mean, we would play outside all the time, but

my mom was always there. You know, we weren't allowed to do go out on our own in the neighborhood at that age. The day she disappeared, do you remember, as clear as day. Certain things stick out in my mind, like we had um we had gone grocery shop. I remember the grocery shopping trip, not so much the actual trip, but when we got home. And I think it's because my sister and I had a huge fight when we got back from and I can I can still picture

it in my head. My mom was down at the bottom of our basement stairs and she was putting stuff away in a pantry like cabinet we had there. And I when we had been shopping, I said, and I both picked out new toothbrushes, and we got back in. Somehow we were fighting over which who's was who's, like, which color was mine, which color was hers. It seems so silly and ridiculous, but I remember I was crying because I was out upset about it, and I'm just thinking,

my poor mom. I think it must have driven her crazy. We were fighting over something so silly when you think about it as a mom now I know it's like here they're going again, you know. That was July seventy three, mid afternoon, near three pm, sonny perfect seventy three degrees. Janice decided she needed to do something, and she pleaded with her mother to go alone. The next thing I remember is my sister she had asked if she could go on her bike up the road to get the butterfly.

And and I can tell you what that means, because it was year in that week, probably a couple of days before. We were out for a walk with my mom and the dog. I was walking, my sister was riding your bike, and my mom had the dog, and my sister found and it was right around the corner. Here she found on the side of the road, just butterfly. It was dead, but it was perfect, and it was one of the yellow and black ones. It was perfect. Mary and Janice's mother used to take them for walks

down that dirt road. They'd recently gotten a new puppy, so there was a good reason to be out a lot during the summer of nineteen three. On that day, Janice wore navy blue shorts with an American flag emblem, a striped pull over shirt and blue sneakers. She had unmistakable strawberry blonde hair shoulder length with those seventies eero banks covering her forehead. I can recall her gap tooth smile from her second grade class photo and image that is stuck with me since growing up in this area.

That photo on a missing person flyer was everywhere, So she tucked it behind a rock that was on the side of the road, and I think, thinking I'll come back, we'll get it the next time we walk or whatever. Walking it, Mary and I figured out the distance was about a third of a mile from her childhood home. This was far first seven year old on a bike. You left the pocket home, took it right out of the driveway, went down the road, and came to a

stop sign at the beginning of the dirt road. Heading straight the dirt road took a sharp right hand and then a sharp left hand turn. Janice had placed the dead butterfly just after the second turn on the side of the road behind a rock. I know it was a Thursday, just only because of knowing that now. But and I my sister asking could she go get the butterfly, and normally my mother would have said no, just wait

and let's go take a walk. But I think, you know, she was trying to but stuff away and was probably sick of us fighting. That's what I'm just thinking in my head, and I remember her saying go quick and come right back. Janice was given permission to go to Loone for the first time. Her mother gave her a blank envelope to put the butterfly in. She then hopped on her bike and rode down the driveway, hit the street, and headed back to the dirt road to get the butterfly.

Oh my god, what an image, a seven year old in July on her bike going to get a butterfly. This image is something no one in this area to this day has forgotten. You bring up Janice's name and they talk about that butterfly. As she hit the dirt road and took that first corner, Janice Pocket vanished. The last time anybody ever saw her picture this On the day Janice disappeared, one of the Pockets neighbors, Nancy McDonald, was at home down the road, approximately a quarter mile away.

On that July afternoon. There three pm. Nancy left her house to run to the store. She drove up her street, turned left, then headed down the road, passing the Pocket home before coming to that stop sign where the dirt road began. After introducing myself, Nancy invited me inside for a chat. Sitting down in your kitchen, Nancy told me a story about the day Janice went missing. That quite honestly, it was difficult to hear. Is the only one that saw anything, and I decided all I was doing was

going for a gallon a mill. When she arrived at the intersection just past the Pocket house, Nancy saw something that grabbed her attention. It was a blue four door station wagon parked blocking the road, the actual route she was planning to take to the store. The car was positioned sideways east to west, not north to south as the dirt road ran back then. This entire area was secluded woods on both sides, no homes. I couldn't get through because roads road goes this way. His car was

like that. I thought, when I come back, if that car was still, they are blocking the road, I'm gonna get out and get his license. Nancy could not continue straight. That vehicle forced her to take a hard left and drive around taking the longer back way to the store, and no sooner did she begin to take that left. Nancy saw something else. It was a guy. Nobody was in the car. He was walking. I'll show you how. That's what made me wonder to him. Nancy stood and

began mimicking a slow walk. The only way I saw his face was side to He didn't completely turn around, but I think he heard my car and he was walking the broken ahead very quietly. Major wonder what the heck like? He was peering looking for something. Yes, he turned sideways and where you're starting a little bit right here, Nancy pointed to my hairline. That's how his head was. And he had brown hair, and he had a gold watch on his left wrist or you remember that vividly.

Plus the outfit he had on was those green shirts and pants that work is wear A did back then. That's what he was wearing. Yes, because it haunted me all this time, I can see it as if it just happened. I looked for years to find out what kind of a car that was, and I think it was a plymouth. Nancy described the man as six ft six to, brown hair, skinny, wearing green khaki pants and a green khaki shirt, walking stealthily as if lurking or

perhaps stalking someone. Remember this was just after Jane's pocket left her driveway and peddled her bike down that same road in the same direction the man was now walking. She definitely described a guy in a uniform that car place. It too is interesting to me. But why was he unafraid of being seen and Nancy's description of him? For years up to this point during my investigation, I had been hearing about a local guy who fit the same description, a guy who, within it all, was becoming from me

much more than a person of interest. Something about the scene didn't feel right to Nancy. She had kids at home waiting for her with a teenage babysitter, so she was in kind of a hurry. Nancy hesitated for a moment, thinking she should write down the license plate number, but because of the direction the station wagon was parked, she would have to stop, get out, and walk around the vehicle. So she turned left and headed to the store. Still that image of the station wagon blocking the road nod

at her. Her gut was speaking something was wrong. So you come back from the store, the car's gone. You go home. What happens next? What happens nextus we find out that she's been taken, and the police and everybody is all over the neighborhood. It just made me sick. Hundreds of volunteers descended upon the neighborhood, with the focus on the dirt road and surrounding woods in lines holding hands.

Dozens of people conducted grid searches. They combed the land slowly, dogs, men, women, children, people on horseback, even helicopters flying overhead, all looking for a seven year old girl who could have been anyone's child. They put up paper fly fires on telephone poles, hand them out at the grocery. The town's mayor delivered more than a hundred thousand signatures to President Richard Nixon, urging

him to get the FBI involved. The town's reaction was already on high alert because this wasn't the first child to go missing in the community. Some years before, the first of the girls I've been investigating had also disappeared. Early belief, which would actually give Janice as abductor a major head start, was that Janice Pocket had wandered off

into the woods and gotten lost. To double check, I asked Nancy if Janice had left her home on her bicycle that afternoon, which we know she did, is this the direction she would have gone? Okay, so she comes out into the road and goes down and this terms not too far and they didn't find her. Bite to over here. That photo of Janice's green bike lying on its side on the dirt road is chilling and the only piece of evidence in any of the abduction cases.

The Connecticut State Police still have the bike. They found no DNA or blood. The butterfly and or the envelope were never found. Seeing Janice's bike with its stripe bananacy, old school fenders, and missing middle support bar without her on it powerfully displays how heart wrenching this tragedy and those like it are. Here's Janice's sister Mary talking about

that day. I just remember seeing the bike and then my mom calling for Janice, like she probably thought, oh, she's in the woods or something, you know, or whatever. Just remember her obviously getting more panicked. I asked Nancy McDonald, the pocket neighbor going off to the store, what small town country living turned into after Janice disappeared. Oh, everybody was just vigilant. They really were everybody was how could you not be I mean some of the family said,

fortified kids. It wasn't like there was a lot of traffic ever, except when people came home from work. I mean, we kind of tucked away. Indeed, that old cliche rang true. Everybody knew everybody, with all of those kids in the neighborhood, a neighborhood off the beaten path. If you did not live there, there was no reason to be there, unless, that is, you had other, maybe nefarious intentions. The search for Janice Pocket and information about her abduction continued for decades.

Investigators dug in, including the FBI, but came up with nothing substant Chill. It was not until recently, after ten years of looking into Janice's case myself, that I began to piece together some answers and develop new leads. And wouldn't you know it, that new information sends me right back to where I started. Crystal Lake. Crystal Lake has always been a popular summer retreat for area residents in the towns of Ellington, Vernon and talent boating, swimming, fishing,

water skiing, lake house barbecues. It's a small lake, just under two hundred total acres, but very deep in some parts. At the time of the disappearances late sixties early seventies, this area was thriving. It was the major middle point, stopped for people traveling between Hartford and Boston, gas up, grab a hot dog. Lemon Ice used the restroom. Janison, Mary's mother often took the kids to the lake during

the summer. Living so close to Ellington, my work on the missing girl cases over the past decade has been a slow climb. I followed false leads, chased the wrong suspects, had sources stop answering my calls, and door slammed in my face. But I stuck with it. Then, in early two thousand nineteen, I received a call that set my investigation on the move. It was from Ken and Patty Wendell, the couple I mentioned in the beginning of this episode.

They built their dream home across the street from Crystal Lake and all that land they owned where a dozen or more water wells are scattered about. They initially reached out to me several years ago after googling the missing girls names and running into all the work I've done investigating the disappearances. Every one of these cases. Debbie Spickler

N sixty eight. Janice Pocket nineteen seventy three Lisa Joy White nineteen seventy four got a jolt of adrenaline after I wrote an article for Connecticut Magazine and produced an episode of my former cold case television series Dark Minds on Investigation Discovery. The article dropped in the episode aired the same week. In two thousand thirteen, people were interested again.

Law enforcements stepped up. A task force was created and a hundred and fifty thousand dollars allocated for information leading to an arrest and conviction. A new missing person's flyer featuring the three youngest victims was created, posted all around town and spread on the internet. Hundreds of tips came a man. I received emails, phone calls, social media messages. Through that I was able to develop multiple news sources. The Wendells included, it's April two thousand nineteen and I'm

paying them another visit. It's one of those dreary New England days. Grace gies a cold rain coming down. Yeah, Hi Patty, Yeah, this is Mary. This is Janice Pockets sister. How you but to see you guys on this day? Marius come with me to meet Ken and Patty Wendell. For the past few years, I've been telling Mary about the Crystal Lake connection I've developed and the Wendells. I thought it was time she meet them, and we walked the property, all of us together. I can tell Mary

is nervous. She has this funny way of hugging herself as if she's cold when she's anxious. As Patty and Mary are busy chit chatting, Ken tells me about a recent discovery. My neighbor found the woods off that road. When you come in a memorial with flowers nailed to a tree, that was it, says an all I p and uh A recent one. Yeah, this is the weird part. It was. It looks like it was put in within

the least ten years. Flowers tacked to a tree with an inscription carved in the bark, like young lovers might do with a pocket knife. It cannot be a roadside cross memorial, same as you'd see on the shoulder of the street after a deadly accident. This tree is in the middle of a wooded area, not far from where several of those water wells are located. Ken continues, making a great point. Who would have put this in the middle of the woods. Later at a later date, it's

like somebody who came back and a memorial. It was just weird finding it. No that you know, that's that's that's something people like to come back. People love to come back to places where they've done stuff. Let's see what's going on. Standing at that flower memorial with Crystal Lake directly in front of you, about two yards away. You can see the water glistening the lake houses along the water's edge. In front of this memorial, however, there is a large divot in the ground about the size

of three compact cars. It's as if something underneath the ground had given and caved in. Before leaving the Wendells. I asked Ken if he could find out if there were any water wells right there where the divot is. Mary has never been to this particular location. Just across the street from the lake on the east side, there's an area of land where it's been thought throughout the years, her sister Janis's body is buried on the Wendell's property.

Ken's discovery of the fly our memorial isn't the only reason we're here. There's been some activity up here again recently by the Connecticut State Police. They've been digging. The State Police were finally digging, but they were focused on a well at the edge of the Wendell property in an area about two yards across the street from Crystal Lake. It was on Pine Street. Just after you make the

corner from Wendell Road. You embark down a slight slope into the edge of the woods, and you arrive at the well about twenty to thirty yards in four State Police detectives excavating equipment, crime scene text, all sifting through more than fifty years of earth and garbage and buried secrets. The State Police are acting on a recent tip they'd received stating that a body is buried in one of

the water well across the street from Crystal Lake. That immediately makes me think who left the tip, If it's connected to the Janis Pocket case, what kind of person would wait almost five decades before telling the police, And is it even credible If the state police have been digging, this tip means something. There has always been the suggestion that Janie Pockets body is either in the lake or

buried somewhere nearby. But not long after Mary and I arrive at the Wendows to look into her sister, Janie's abduction. I'm giving information that turns all these cases upside down and forces me to look in an entirely new direction. It turns out the state police weren't there looking for Janis pockets body. They had come out to search for someone else. A new name, A name I have not heard connected to any of my cases in the decade

I've been at it. A young woman who lived just miles from janice pockets home, directly across the street from Crystal Lake. A young woman I'll soon find out who

could be related to the mysterious man. Janice's neighbor, Nancy McDonald allegedly saw the day she disappeared and kept this She was reported missing in two thousand sixteen, and yet, incredibly, the last time anyone had seen her forty five years before in nine and as I continued to investigate Janie Pockets case, I stumbled onto something that could change the entire game from me. Information telling me that this new

missing girl might not actually be missing at all. In fact, I think she could will be alive, and if she is well, I'm gonna find her. In the next episode of Paper Ghosts. I remember that, and I didn't want to be, especially right after it happened when you would see posters. I almost felt embarrassed because I didn't want people thinking that my mother was a bad mother. We always had that cold, never by ourselves to so if we're one of us is alone too bad you walk

it however far it is. That was the cold hind We had a cold now. So I don't know though, because you know, she was upset. We were all upset over what happened and getting in trouble and thinking we can never be friends again. She had, you know, a couple of girlfriends her age. The males that she was hanging with five, six, even seven years older, young men

not the best influences. Paper Oakes has written an executive produced by me and William Phelps, with help from producer Christina Everett and sound editing by Pete Cardi from back Room Audio special thanks to Lauren Paccio along with Abu Safar and Will Pearson from My Heart Radio. The series theme four four two is written and performed by Tom

Mooney and Thomas Phelps. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows