Disappearance of Beverly Potts

Potts was a quiet, responsible and obedient child who was close to her parents and only sister and who enjoyed music and dancing. She was tall for her age, and affectionately nicknamed "Rosebud" by her mother. According to some accounts, by 1951, she appeared one or two years older than her ten years, although she still enjoyed playing with childhood toys such as dolls. She attended Louis Agassiz Elementary School, where she was regarded as an attentive and popular student who typically achieved B grades.[6]

Although generally shy, but friendly, Potts' best friend, 11-year-old Patricia "Patsy" Swing, would remark the child was loathe to be the recipient of prolonged or cruel jokes and could lose her temper on occasion. Nonetheless, she was described by many who knew her as markedly timid and taciturn when in the company of individuals she did not know—particularly adolescent or adult males outside of her immediate family. This wariness extended to male family members of her close friends, including Swing's own father.[7]

Shortly after her tenth birthday in April 1951, Potts began asking her mother to allow her to change her hairstyle from the distinctive foot-long blonde pigtails she had typically worn since her childhood to a fashionable banged and bobbed hairstyle popular with girls at the time. Although her mother initially refused, she relented in June 1951 and allowed her daughter to have her hair cut short. Elizabeth retained her daughter's pigtails and ribbons in crepe paper.[8]

Throughout her entire childhood, Potts' parents insisted she always observe a strict curfew, with the child being grounded if she did not return home by the time agreed with her parents. On one day in mid-August 1951, Potts and a cousin, Amber Lathan, arrived home slightly later than agreed. In response, Potts' mother forbade her daughter from attending an upcoming annual performing show to be held at nearby Halloran Park on August 24. However, as one of her daughter's greatest interests was the performing arts and Potts had been thrilled at the prospect of viewing the performance, her mother agreed to let her attend this performance event on the afternoon in question in return for a promise she would immediately return home.[9]

Potts, photographed in Hudson, Ohio, on August 19, 1951, five days prior to her disappearance

On the afternoon of August 24, Potts ate supper with her family, then assisted her mother with cleaning the dishes, for which the child was paid a nickel. By agreement, she and her best friend and neighbor, Patricia Swing[10] then rode to West Cleveland's Halloran Park to attend the annual summer city-sponsored children's performance event, scheduled to commence at eight o'clock.[11] This location was less than a quarter of a mile from the Potts' Linnet Avenue household and an estimated three-minute walk from her home.[2] The two rode to the park together on their bicycles, leaving the Potts household at around 6:55 p.m. Potts was dressed in a reddish-pink turtleneck shirt, blue denim jeans, a navy blue jacket, and brown Kerrybrooke shoes.[12]

The performance in question at Halloran Park on that date was the Showagon; an annual jamboree-like event jointly sponsored by the City Recreation Department and the Cleveland Press predominantly showcasing the talents of local youngsters with acts including singers, dancing troupes, amateur magicians, and acrobatics who performed upon a long flatbed truck converted into a stage.[n 1] Potts and Swing are believed to have arrived at the park at approximately 6:58 p.m.[13]

Halloran Park was the only large playground close to Potts' home. The 11.5 acre park had opened to the public in 1945, and was a popular recreational location for local children, young couples and families.[n 2] Attending the park unsupervised in the late afternoon was a rare instance for neighborhood children, as locals generally considered the park unsafe for children after dark, when large trees dimmed the surrounding streetlights and visibility was thus limited. The park was also frequented by the local vagrant population.[14]

According to Swing, beyond exchanging brief greetings with two thirteen-year-old girls whom both knew at Halloran Park, neither conversed with any individual during their time together at this location,[n 3] although the sheer size of the crowd made navigating upon their bicycles awkward for both. At 8:10 p.m., deciding it would be easier to maneuver on foot through the increasingly large crowds in attendance, the two returned to their homes to drop off their bikes, arriving back at the park sometime before 8:30 p.m.[15]

At approximately 8:45 p.m., Swing, who had promised her parents to be home before dark, turned toward her friend and suggested the two return home "before dark"; Potts—enthralled by the performances—refused, saying that she had been given permission to stay for the entirety of the show, which was not scheduled to end until after 9 p.m. Swing left the park and returned to her home, arriving at approximately 8:50 p.m. She later informed investigators she had last seen Potts in the crowd, avidly watching an onstage dancing performance.[14][16]

Police immediately launched an intense effort to locate Potts; their efforts began by searching the local vicinity and questioning friends, acquaintances, and individuals known to have been at Halloran Park.[24] By daylight on August 25, a large-scale, statewide manhunt to locate the child was implemented, and numerous suspects were detained and interrogated over the following weeks. The individuals to assume overall charge of the investigation were Detective Chief James McArthur—appointed to head the investigation on the morning of August 25—and, later, officer David Kerr.[25][n 6] McArthur assigned 45 officers full-time to search for the child. Their physical searches were bolstered by numerous auxiliary police and civilian volunteers.[27]

Potts' family members were soon cleared as suspects as investigators rapidly determined that her home life had been stable and by all accounts happy, and there appeared to be no reason for her to have run away.[14] Furthermore, all three agreed to undergo—and passed—polygraph tests. Investigators also learned from Potts' mother that on August 24, her daughter was eagerly anticipating a family trip to Euclid Beach Park, which the family had been scheduled to embark upon the morning after her disappearance.[22]

With assistance from over 1,000 volunteers, police implemented a large-scale search for the child. The search included door-to-door canvassing of nearby neighborhoods, tracing suspicious cars, searching nearby vacant lots, sewers, and wasteland, and the usage of two Civil Air Patrol planes to survey open railway cars and other potential areas of interest as far afield as Edgewater Park and reservations alongside the Rocky River.[28][n 7] Creeks and swimming pools were also dragged, divers also searched Lake Erie, and members of the public outside the designated search radius were encouraged to search vacant lots and empty buildings. All these avenues of investigation failed to yield results.[6]

An off duty Cleveland Police patrolman at Halloran Park, George Vorell, informed police he had observed two young men aged between seventeen and twenty openly leering at young girls watching the Showagon performances. These two individuals had walked behind the stage and out of Vorell's sight shortly before the conclusion of the performances. Another individual to report lewd behavior at the park was a classmate of Potts, Patricia Nagg, who informed police a young man had thrusted his hips back and forth in a manner simulating intercourse as he had stared at her. These three individuals were never traced.[29]

On August 29, the Cleveland News reported police had arrested a strong suspect in the case: William Slates. Slates was a 25-year-old, unemployed former serviceman who lived with his widowed mother on West 116th Street. He had previously been arrested in 1949 for making sexual advances toward an eight-year-old girl in a local movie theater. As such, he was known to police and locals alike for his unhealthy interest in underage girls.

Slates's name was given to authorities by a neighbor who reported he had abruptly boarded up his home the day after Potts' disappearance and left the neighborhood, having first borrowed a friend's car.[n 8] A police search of his home revealed a loaded .25 caliber in a bureau drawer. He was quickly traced to a hotel in Columbus and returned to Cleveland. Although two of Slates's friends gave conflicting accounts of his movements on the evening of Potts' disappearance and a polygraph test indicated deception when Slates was questioned about the child, he was released from custody when his 17-year-old girlfriend provided an alibi in which she claimed Slates had been "making out" with her in a car at Edgewater Park on the evening in question.[30]

Media interest in the child's disappearance was intense. All three statewide television stations and all editorials devoted intense publicity to Potts' disappearance and the ongoing ordeal of her family, who granted several interviews in which they stated their belief their daughter had been abducted and was being held against her will, emphasizing in one interview: "She's being held by someone. Beverly is too shy to go along willingly; she was so shy nothing could have enticed her to go with anyone ... she'd been earnestly warned about talking with strange persons."[31]

Most news broadcasts and newspaper articles were accompanied by images of Potts, a description of the child and her clothing, the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, updates regarding the investigation and—by the Tuesday following her disappearance[31]—a police artist's sketch of the child wearing the clothing she wore on the evening of her disappearance. All media broadcasts and literature were accompanied by public appeals for information, with investigators regularly providing updates as to the progress of their investigation.[27]

By the week following Potts' abduction, numerous potential suspects had been eliminated from the inquiry. The FBI had also distributed 22,000 circulars nationwide,[32][n 9] and a $1,500 reward (equivalent to $16,912 in 2022) had also been offered by her father's labor union, AFL-Stagehands, for any information successfully leading to the whereabouts of his daughter and the identity of her kidnapper(s).[27][33][n 10]

As a result of police and media appeals, investigators assigned to the case received several thousands of telephone tips—some obvious hoaxes; others considered worthy of investigation. All credible tips were pursued; however, all failed to bear fruition.[27][33]

One theory pursued the months and, particularly, years following Potts' disappearance was that the child had been killed by a neighbor and her body buried within or upon the grounds of one of the properties either on or near to Linnet Avenue which the child had passed as she returned home from Halloran Park.[39] The fact that house-to-house searches of all homes upon and close to the street where Potts had lived were not conducted until September 14—and then only in instances in which owners gave police their consent—has been viewed by more recent investigators as a major flaw in the original investigation, which had viewed such an invasion of homeowners' privacy without any hard evidence or strong suspicion as unorthodox.[26]

On September 4, 1951, a warehouse worker named Henry Palmer observed a human-shaped, cloth-wrapped form measuring approximately 5 feet (1.5 m) floating in the Cuyahoga River current behind the building where he worked. Palmer observed what he believed to be human hands and feet protruding from the edges of this bundle; his observations were corroborated by a Mrs. Ada Skrovan, who also observed a similarly-wrapped package—which she remained adamant had been bound with rope—in the vicinity. Both individuals separately informed police of their sightings. Although the river bed was dragged, the bundle sighted by both was never located.[40]

By mid-September, press attention to Potts' disappearance began to decrease, although all developments in the case continued to be publicized. The number of officers assigned full-time to the search for Potts began to gradually decrease in 1952. Nonetheless, the case remained active, with investigators remaining determined to locate the child or her body. By the following year, Inspector McArthur publicly remarked there was virtually no hope of locating the child alive, although he continued to search for the child until his retirement in 1957.[6]

The police card filing system implemented to cross-check information relating to Potts' disappearance had expanded to contain 2,800 entries relating to potential public sightings, suspects, and tips by April 1952. Over 1,200 of these records detailed potential suspects—some of whom resided in states as afar as Washington. Each had been questioned and eliminated. Over 500 vehicles either sighted in the vicinity of Potts' abduction or linked to potential suspects had also been traced and their owner's alibi verified.[6]

In 1954, police arrested a middle-aged man, a 20-year-old woman, and a 24-year-old man on charges of peddling pornographic photographs. One individual depicted in the cache of seized images was a prepubescent girl bearing a resemblance to Potts. Although the individuals insisted the child was not Potts, her parents initially believed otherwise, before changing their minds.[6]

A anonymous tip to authorities from an unnamed Chardon woman who claimed to have known Potts as a child was received in early 1973. This individual claimed her friend's body was buried in the "grease pit" of a former auto repair shop, leading to an April 1973 search of what had once been the inspection pit of an auto body shop on West 52nd Street; however, this search proved negative.[16][6]

In 1980, two retired Cleveland police detectives, James Fuerst and Robert Shankland, revealed that in 1974 they had received a tip from a local attorney with a client whose brother had supposedly confessed to abducting Potts. The detectives subsequently found and questioned the brother, who, they said, had readily admitted to having lived near Halloran Park in 1951 and making a habit of picking up and molesting young girls there. The man did not remember abducting Potts in particular, but said he had "flashes" of memory involving a girl named Beverly. Fuerst and Shankland were convinced the man was guilty, but the county prosecutors' office refused to pursue the case, citing a lack of evidence.[41]

In February 1994, a couple renovating a house on Midvale Avenue, Cleveland, discovered several pieces of yellowing notebook paper alongside a man's shirt beneath old carpeting upon the stairs. The author of this note, Anna Haynik, recorded in detail what she insisted were the "true facts" surrounding the abduction and murder of Beverly Potts, which she insisted had been committed by her husband, Steve (aged 40 at the time of the crime). Haynik further alleged her husband was the Potts' milkman.[42]

According to the author, her husband had previously raped Potts' mother and was therefore likely Beverly's biological father; Potts herself had died of an accidental drug overdose before her husband had dismembered the child's body. The note further alleged Haynik had caught her husband in the act of incinerating her remains in the basement furnace.[43] Upon being traced and questioned by police, Haynik (then aged 83) admitted penning and concealing the notes, but insisted all the allegations were false; she had written and hidden the letter in 1953 solely as a revenge fantasy against her abusive husband. Furthermore, by the time of his death in 1981, she had completely forgotten about the document.[43]

Beginning in July 2000, a series of handwritten letters were sent to the editorial offices of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, purporting to be from an elderly man who claimed that as he was terminally ill and "in the twilight of [his] life", he wished to confess to molesting and murdering Potts before his death.

According to the author, Potts' murder was unplanned, as he had "only wanted to (sexually) fondle" the child upon luring her into his vehicle, although when Potts had begun screaming, he had struck her into unconsciousness before proceeding to sexually fondle her. Upon realizing the blows he had inflicted had proven fatal, he had then thrown her body into the Cuyahoga River—from where, the author speculated, her body had drifted to Lake Erie.[44]

Investigators strongly questioned the authenticity of these claims; this skepticism increased as several sentences and claims contained in successive letters to follow had evidently been copied from previous hoax letters and false claims made by previous suspects—leading to speculation the author may be a retired police officer. The anonymous author pledged to turn himself in on the fiftieth anniversary of Potts' disappearance, but shortly beforehand, wrote to say he had to enter a nursing home and would be unable to honor his promise or otherwise reveal himself. An extensive investigation failed to turn up any clues to the author's identity, and investigators believe the letters to have been a distasteful hoax.[45] Other letters sent by a separate individual and received by Cleveland Police in July 2002 are also viewed as hoaxes.[46]

Slates was a 25-year-old former serviceman who had lived with his widowed mother on West 116th Street, close to Halloran Park, since 1950. He had previously been arrested in March 1949 for making sexual advances toward an eight-year-old girl in a local movie theater, resulting in his being placed on a year's probation and his dishonorable discharge from the armed forces.

Slates is known to have fraudulently borrowed a friend's car the day after Potts' disappearance and abruptly left the neighborhood. Via police tracing phone calls made to his 17-year-old girlfriend's home, he was quickly traced to a hotel in Columbus and returned to Cleveland. Two of Slates's friends—Dale Smallwood and Fraser Jenkins—provided varying and conflicting accounts of his movements on the evening of Potts' disappearance and Slates himself was unable to offer a plausible explanation for his abrupt decision to leave Cleveland. Police interest in his potential culpability was further heightened when a polygraph test indicated deception when Slates faced questions pertaining to Potts' abduction. Nonetheless, no physical evidence could be found linking Slates to the child. He was released from custody when his girlfriend provided an unverifiable alibi—contradicting Slates's own claims as to his whereabouts on the evening of August 24—that she had been "making out" with him in a car on the evening in question.[30]

No surviving documentation exists to indicate whether investigations into Slates continued after he was released from custody. He died in 1978.[30]

Davis was a 52-year-old ex-convict arrested in the early hours of November 15, 1951, while attempting to extort a ransom payment from Potts' family having falsely claimed to have kidnapped their daughter and sister. He had begun contacting the Potts family on November 9, claiming to be holding Beverly captive and demanding a $25,000 ransom for her release as opposed to cutting the "very sick" child's throat. Robert Potts successfully bartered the anonymous caller's ransom sum to $5,000 and agreed to hand over the money upon the promise his daughter would be released to her mother outside the Terminal Tower "within three hours." Against the caller's instructions, Potts informed Inspector McArthur of these developments.[47]

Davis insisted in his calls to Robert that his wife, Elizabeth, should deliver the ransom sum alone to 750 Prospect Avenue at the prearranged time of 5:30 a.m., although an undercover detective named Bernard Conley dressed as Elizabeth to apprehend the caller in a sting operation approved by Potts' parents and in which several armed officers were deployed at discreet locations.

By prearrangement, Conley took a Yellow Cab to the caller's instructed destination in the early hours of November 15; Davis was arrested at gunpoint minutes later when—as the caller had promised—he waved a handkerchief from afar instructing Elizabeth to approach and hand the ransom package to him, then leave the scene.

After seven hours of interrogation, Davis admitted the attempted extortion, claiming he had been "strapped for money." He denied any knowledge of the abduction, and was formally cleared of any involvement by police. Davis later pleaded guilty to charges of blackmail and extortion, for which he was sent to the Ohio State Penitentiary. He was paroled on July 1, 1957.[47]

Rush was an impoverished 47-year-old drifter and Cleveland native who had relocated from his home city to Los Angeles in the spring of 1951, where he sporadically worked as a hospital attendant. He briefly became a suspect in Potts' abduction in December 1955 following his arrest for public intoxication in Los Angeles. According to his official three-page confession, Rush admitted to murdering a girl in his home city whom he claimed to have met at a "puppet event". He claimed to have buried the girl in a shallow grave beneath a bridge spanning the Rocky River.

The discrepancies in Rush's confession were immediately apparent to Cleveland Police; he incorrectly described his victim as being 12-years-old, bespectacled, with shoulder-length brown hair—also insisting he had committed this murder in July 1952, whereas Potts was ten years old, with dark blonde, bobbed hair, had never worn glasses, and was last seen in August 1951. Moreover, he could not give the girl's name or a consistent description of her facial features or her clothing. However, Rush had previously lived close to the Potts household in the 1940s. Despite severe skepticism from senior investigators, Rush was extradited to Cleveland on December 15.

Rush recanted his entire story almost immediately after his extradition to Cleveland, saying he had confessed merely as a way to ensure his return to his hometown. Upon disproving Rush's confession, investigators were legally unable to detain him.[48][n 12]

In January 1988, William Henry Redmond (b. January 22, 1922), an Ohio native and former carnival truck driver and Ferris wheel operator with an extensive record of child molestation convictions relating to young girls dating back to 1935, was indicted for the April 25, 1951 murder of eight-year-old Jane Marie Althoff in Trainer, Pennsylvania.[50] Althoff's body was discovered in Redmond's carnival vehicle, and his fingerprints were discovered at the crime scene; however, he had fled the state by the time of the discovery of her body and assumed an alias. He was only located in Grand Island, Nebraska, in 1988.[50]

By the time of his questioning about the Potts case in March 1988, Redmond was terminally ill; he was informed no further charges would be brought against him if he confessed to Potts' murder and revealed the location of her body. Redmond refused to make a statement admitting or denying his culpability in the case.

Although investigators were unable to prove his whereabouts on the date of Potts' disappearance, the circumstances surrounding her abduction are dissimilar to other confirmed and suspected victims of Redmond, who simply abandoned his victims' bludgeoned bodies with little or no attempt at concealment. He died in 1992.[14][51]

This unnamed individual first became known to investigators as a suspect in Potts' abduction in 1974 following a letter sent to a Cleveland lawyer by a client who named his own brother as the individual likely responsible for the child's murder.

According to the author, his brother had an extensive history of sexually molesting female children and had fled Cleveland in 1966 after being indicted for abducting two young girls, but had recently returned to Maple Heights. He had also recently confessed to his sibling to having kidnapped and murdered a young girl close to Halloran Park in the early 1950s.[52]

An investigation into this suspect's background revealed numerous arrests for child molestation, including time served at the Ohio Penitentiary for the sexual abuse of a young girl in 1951. He was arrested approximately three weeks after his brother had sent the letter to authorities, and freely admitted to having resided close to Halloran Park in the early 1950s and to have frequently "prowled" the district in search of underage girls to molest.[n 13] One of the detectives to question this individual, Robert Shankland, would later recollect the suspect had divulged details of the crime only "someone who had been there could have known" and the records of the vehicle he had owned in 1951 matched eyewitness descriptions of one of the cars sighted in the vicinity of Halloran Park at the estimated time of Potts' abduction; however, investigators were unable to find sufficient evidence to charge this individual.[52]

The vast majority of contemporary records pertaining to the actual investigations relating to this subject have been lost—likely haven been taken from case files by investigators in their inquiries into the June 1980 abduction and murder of eight-year-old Maple Heights schoolgirl Tiffany Papesh and never returned to their appropriate archives. Beyond his age being "in his fifties" by 1980, no further details as to this individual's actual identity are known.[53][54]

• Badal, James Jessen (2005). Twilight of Innocence: The Disappearance of Beverly Potts. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN 0-873-38836-4.
• Pettem, Silvia (2017). The Long Term Missing: Hope and Help for Families. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-442-25680-4.
• Sprague, Donald F. (2013). Investigating Missing Children Cases: A Guide for First Responders and Investigators. New York: Taylor & LFrancis Group. ISBN 978-1-439-86063-2.

• The 2004 documentary Dusk & Shadow: The Mystery of Beverly Potts draws direct inspiration from Potts' disappearance. Directed by Mark Wade Stone, this 53-minute documentary was first broadcast on December 14, 2004. Potts' sister, Anita, is among those interviewed by the director.[58][12]