Debbie Spickler, Janice Pockett, and Lisa White, three girls who disappeared from Vernon and Tolland in Connecticut between 1968 and 1974, are followed by the Crime Junkie Podcast as they interview people related to the investigation and investigate what might have happened all those years ago.
Deborah Spickler: What Was She's Ever Been Known For?
Deborah "Debbie" Lee Spickler was born in Groton and Stonington, Connecticut, at the age of 13 when she visited her aunt's house in Vernon, Connecticut, on July 24. The family visited Henry Park on 120 South Street, in Vernon, on July 24. The young girl was last seen walking from Foxhill Drive toward the park's swimming pool.
According to rumors, one of the adults had returned to the house where Debbie was supposed to wait before she was seen. Her family claimed she had no prior history of running away or delinquent behavior. On the same day she disappeared, her mother received a postcard from Debbie, saying she was doing well and helped her relatives a lot.
Debbie, 13, was wearing a white sleeveless blouse, homemade dark green pattern shorts with no pockets, and white low-top tennis shoes at the time of her disappearance. Although there is little evidence in the public domain, authorities believe the disappearance of two girls occurred four and five years later in the same place, at the same time, and under the same circumstances.
What Has Happened To Janice Pockett?
Janice Kathryn Pockett was born in Tolland, eastern Connecticut, a quiet neighborhood that she grew up in when she asked her mother to retrieve a butterfly she'd discovered and left on a rock nearby a couple of days earlier. Her younger sister, Mary Engelbrecht, was equally surprised by the experience.
Mary said, "We were driving my mom crazy. We had been arguing about something stupid, a toothbrush, I think." Janice's mother had given Janice an envelope to bring the butterfly back for the first time.
They discovered her bicycle abandoned on a dirt road close to the woods less than a mile from her house, and would do everything they could to find it — from looking for fingerprints to looking every inch of the woods on foot, horseback, and with cadaver dogs. A pedophile, Charles Pierce, was admitted to killing Janice and three-year-old Angelo Puglisi in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
When the authorities saw the corpses of a youngster in Great Falls, Montana, they dismissed him as a probable suspect. In 2000, the authorities discovered a child's bone fragments in the garage of Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, a convicted child abductor. He lived just 20 miles from Janice's house in 1973, and had been accused of strangling another child.
Janice was wearing navy blue shorts with an American flag emblem, a striped pull-over shirt, and blue sneakers at the time of her disappearance. She was 5 feet tall, 5 feet wide, and weighed 65 pounds.
Lisa White: What Happened?
When Debbie went missing on November 1, 1974, the town of Vernon was confronted with yet another tragedy. According to rumors, her mother had recently resigned due to underage drinking. Lisa snuck out to meet a friend on Prospect Street in Rockville, Connecticut, two miles from her residence.
Lisa's friend confirmed to authorities that she saw Lisa leave at 7:30 pm. She was last seen walking along Prospect Street in Vernon, Connecticut, at 8:00 pm. Her disappearance has remained a mystery till today.
Are the girls still alive?
The Vernon-Tolland Three went missing between 1968 and 1974. Although the respective authorities did their best to solve each case — from investigating leads to interrogating potential suspects — the cases remain unsolved to this day.
All three cases were evaluated by the officers, who claimed to have discovered an alleged connection between them. Age-progressed photographs of the three victims have been circulated for the public to assist in the identification of the victims, which are updated every few years. Governor Dannel P. Malloy had also approved rewards in both cases, culminating in a total of $150,000 for revealing any relevant information regarding the girls' whereabouts or assisting in the arrest of the perpetrators.
