Joan Gay Croft

[Babydollz24]

The other day, they aired an unsolved mystery about a little girl named Joan Gay Kroft who was injured in a tornado in 1947. She was carried off by two men and was never seen again. Does anyone know what happened with this case? I wonder what happened to her?

[Mr. Fuji]

There have been no updates, so my guess is that she probably died. The whole case seems pretty strange to me.

[crystaldawn]

Here is an article on the story. From reading it, it sounds like there's a good chance that Joan Gay Croft could be alive.


http://www.ardmoreite.com/stories/04...ws/news06.html

[Mijada]

I saw a story on the news a few years ago that she was found alive after all these years. I don't understand why UM didn't do an update on it though.

[Bluejay]

Joan Gay is still around:

Relatives of Joan Gay Croft try to trace her

Exhibition on the tornado and what really happened that day

Now, from what I understand, the reason Joan Gay could not be found after she was taken to the farther-away hospital was that her speech was not easy to understand, and when she said her name it was written down wrong. The story about the adopted lady in Canada with a very similar name, which was posted by someone in this thread, is still the most promising.

I don't believe for a minute that any of the three little unidentified girls is Joan Gay.

The way to find out what's going on with Joan Gay is probably to write to the Woodward, OK historical society.

[CanadianUMFan]

Let's bring this one back to the forefront. Does anyone know if Joan Gay Croft has finally been found???

[Kane]

Originally Posted by CanadianUMFan

Let's bring this one back to the forefront. Does anyone know if Joan Gay Croft has finally been found???

In response to that question, I googled her name and came across an article that was published in the April 2007 issue of the magazine American History. Sadly, the answer to your question is no.

http://www.historynet.com/magazines/...?showAll=y&c=y

[Cori aka ChrisSCrush]

This was one of the most intriguing cases ever, and, sadly, due to its age, probably one of the most unsolvable. I did hear that a woman of similar looks with a murky background came forward, but nothing materialized from that. Now, I can see two perverts taking the chance to seize a child in the aftermath of a tornado, but why ask for the Croft children specifically and then only take Joan? And these men were unrecognized by any of the locals? Did Joan seem to know them? How did they know to ask for Joan, and why? The unidentified bod(ies) were, it seems, killed in the tornado, which Joan was definitely not, yet she has never turned up, alive or dead.

[crystaldawn]

Found an article on her from a few months ago. Apparently she has never been found but its nice to know people still remember her. This article says something UM never mentioned, that Joan Gay was screaming as the two men took her away on the stretcher. Gives it a more sinister feel now imo.

http://www.enidnews.com/opinion/loca...085234551.html

[radar1979]

I would need to know the first names of Joan's parents and any other full names mentioned in the case to begin any kind of a background search.

[Cori aka ChrisSCrush]

According to an article, H. Olen Croft and Cleta Croft. Grandfather Raymond Goble. Half-sister, Jerri, was apparently Olen's child and not Cleta's. Joan was Cleta's child and, I think, Olen's as well. As I recall, Jerri was not interviewed on the program. Am I wrong, or had she passed away or declined to be interviewed? I only remember the aunt.

[Tarnished Angel]

"Since the child could not talk plainly it is feared she has been unable to give her name correctly, thereby been miss-listed at some hospital in the state or in a home to which relief workers may have taken her"

This is from one of the links above. I guess it's possible that she died (maybe from an infection due to the injury) in a hospital, and her listed name was not correct, and her family could never be verified. Assuming the two men were honest about being relief workers who were taking her to Oklahoma City, you'd think that police (or the family) would have been able to eventually find out about a 4 year old girl that died at a Oklahoma City hospital but was never claimed by any parents. It seems strange that she would've been admitted to the hospital and treated, but never reunited with her relatives and instead put into foster care (presumably). Even if she didn't know her full name, the doctors would've at least known where the girl came from, and could have pieced it together since Joy had been declared missing. Both of these scenarios are assuming that the rescue workers just dropped her off and didn't help much (or at all) in terms of providing information about Joy to the doctors.

The other scenario, that the two men used the tornado as an opportunity to kidnap a child, seems unlikely to me. I guess her dying in a hospital and not being identified seems the most likely scenario out of the three (for me, anyway), but it still seems far fetched. I guess that's why this one is so intriguing.

P.S. For trivia buffs, when Stack says something to the effect of "there were two big events that day: the opening of the new Ingrid Bergman movie, and the tornado", he must be referring to Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious.

[soilentgreen]

From the history.net link that Kane posted:

Joan's protests drew the attention of the hospital staff, who challenged the men. One of them said they were friends of the family and were simply taking Joan to another hospital where her family was waiting.

I don't think these guys were motivated by altruism, as they made no attempt to contact Joan's father or aunt, nor did they return for Joan's sister as they had claimed they would. They didn't provide Joan's name to hospital workers if they did check her into any of the regional hospitals, nor did they apparently take Joan to the hospital where her father was.

While Joan's family were more financially affluent than some of their neighbors, these two individuals never made a ransom demand. While there are cases of children being stolen in order to raise them, those cases generally involve women perpetrators. Sad as it is to think, something more sinister likely happened to her.

[crochetbuff]

Fascinating, one commenter to this article http://www.historynet.com/oklahomas-...st-tornado.htm had met the woman who thought she might be Joan. Says the resemblance to a photo of the 4 year old Joan was very similar. She wonders if the DNA test back then was flawed.

The woman from Phoenix that believed she was the missing child passed away on 03/21/09 in Springerville, AZ. She still maintained that she was Joan Croft. Although DNA didn't match(especially in the early 90's when it was still considered experimental), there were so many uncanny simularities. I knew this woman and can't help believe she was who she believed she was. In seeing the picture of the child, it only confirmed my belief, as there were so many facial resemblances. What a sad, sad situation. Even sadder is that we may now never know the extent of the truth.

[paul.austin]

I know that some have suggested that Joan couldn't have been taken to be a child for a childless couple as it was two men that abducted her and stealing a very young child to raise as your own was usually done by women... but why couldn't a woman have hired these men? Men "rescue workers" would raise less suspicion than a strange woman.