Missing
Janice Kathryn Pockett
Janice, approximately 1973; Age when reported missing: 53 (approximately 2018); Charles Pierce; Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, approximately 2000
Date and time person was reported missing : 07/26/1973
Missing location (approx) :
Tolland, Connecticut
Missing classification : Non-Family Abduction
Gender : Female
Ethnicity :
White
DOB : 10/15/1965 (55)
Age at the time of disappearance: 7 years old
Height / Weight : 4'0, 65 pounds
Description, clothing, jewerly and more : Navy blue shorts with an imprinted American flag and star design, a blue and white-striped pullover shirt, white socks and blue sneakers.
Distinguishing characteristics, birthmarks, tattoos
: Caucasian female. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Janice has a gap between her front teeth.
Information on the case from local sources, may or may not be correct : Janice was last seen leaving her family's home on Anthony Road in Tolland, Connecticut on July 26, 1973. She planned to ride her metallic green Murray bicycle, which had a bell and a banana seat, through the neighborhood to search for a butterfly she'd caught and left on a rock a few days earlier. She was carrying an envelope to carry the butterfly in.
It was the first time she'd been allowed to go out by herself. She never arrived home and has never been seen again. Janice's mother found her bike half an hour later, on Rhoades Road near a wooded area less than a mile from her residence.
The butterfly and envelope were never found. Authorities believe something happened to Janice after she had picked up the butterfly and was on her way home.
Janice was one of five people to disappear in the general area during a ten-year time period; another was Lisa White. All of the missing were female; they ranged in Age at the time of disappearance: from 7 to 20 years old. Two of them were found deceased years after their disappearances but the other three, including Lisa, remain missing. It is not clear whether the cases are related.
The late Charles Pierce, a pedophile who was suspected in many child disappearance cases in New England throughout the 1950s - 1970s, confessed to Janice's murder. A photo of Pierce is posted with this case summary.
He claimed to have buried her in the Lawrence, Massachusetts area near an unidentified boy who was another victim. The boy was thought to be Angelo Puglisi, a Massachusetts child who vanished three years after Janice in 1976. Neither of the supposed graves has been discovered.
Another twist in the Janice case came in 2000, when the bone fragments of a child were discovered in the garAge at the time of disappearance: of Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, a man charged with the 1996 abduction and presumed murder of Zachary Ramsay in Great Falls, Montana (the charges were later dismissed due to lack of evidence).
Janice's name surfaced in connection with Bar-Jonah when his criminal past came to light; he had served a prison sentence for the abduction and attempted murder of two boys in Massachusetts in 1977.
Putting the possible scenario together, investigators learned that Bar-Jonah lived in Webster, Massachusetts in 1973 when Janice disappeared. Webster is only 20 miles away from Tolland, Connecticut, which is Janice's hometown. He would have been only fourteen years old when Janice vanished, but Bar-Jonah had already allegedly strangled a playmate by that time.
There have been additional accusations that Bar-Jonah practiced cannibalism in recent years. He was found guilty of two unrelated counts of child molestation in Montana in February 2002. Bar-Jonah, whose given name was David P. Brown, claimed he was innocent of all charges against him.
Interactive Missing Person Search Map
