Account
May 04, 2010
Feb 21, 2024
Marjorie
West
91
4
39 inches
35 lbs
White / Caucasian
Female
On Mother's Day, May 8, 1938, a day that should have been filled with familial joy became the setting for an enduring mystery. Four-year-old Marjorie West, a little girl with red hair, was with her family for a picnic in the White Gravel area of McKean County, Pennsylvania, after attending church in their hometown of Bradford. It was a pleasant afternoon, and Marjorie was picking violets with her eleven-year-old sister, Dorothea. Dorothea left her younger sister for only a few moments to present a bouquet of the freshly picked flowers to their mother, who was resting in the car. When Dorothea turned back, Marjorie was gone. The family's calls for her echoed through the woods, but there was no response. The little girl had vanished in an instant, leaving behind only the wildflowers she had gathered. The family's initial frantic search of the area around the picnic spot and a large nearby boulder yielded nothing, prompting them to drive to a nearby town to find a telephone and alert the state police. What followed was one of the most extensive searches for a missing child at the time, rivaling the search for the Lindbergh baby six years prior. As many as 3,000 local people, including oil field workers, miners, and members of the Civilian Conservation Corps, joined 500 police officers to comb the dense Allegheny Forest. They navigated treacherous terrain, ever-watchful for the numerous abandoned oil wells and resident rattlesnakes. Police bloodhounds were brought in and followed Marjorie’s scent from the picnic area down to a nearby road, where the trail abruptly stopped. Lying near the edge of the road were the violets Marjorie had picked, a heartbreaking clue that suggested she may have been taken by someone in a vehicle. In the days and weeks that followed, numerous leads and theories emerged, but none provided a clear answer to what happened to Marjorie. A taxi driver in Thomas, West Virginia, reported a compelling sighting on the very night she disappeared. He claimed to have seen a weeping girl who matched Marjorie’s description in a dark-colored sedan with a man who said the child was his daughter. Investigators calculated that the eight-hour drive from the picnic site to Thomas aligned with the timing of the sighting, but authorities were ultimately unable to confirm the identities of the man or the child. Over the decades, speculation has ranged from the tragic possibility of her falling into one of the area's many old oil wells, to theories of abduction. One hypothesis even connected her disappearance to the infamous Tennessee Children's Home Society, which was known for kidnapping children for illegal adoptions. Despite the massive search, a reward offered for her return, and the enduring hope of her family and community, no definitive trace of Marjorie West has ever been found, and her case remains one of the oldest unsolved missing child cases in the United States.
May 08, 1938
White Gravel
Pennsylvania
McKean County
16701
No
27081
Pennsylvania State Police
Punxsutawney
Pennsylvania
Jefferson County
15767
Neil Ginther
Trooper
485 North Findley Street, Pennsylvania
8149380535
County
Law Enforcement
C05-1091880
1938-05-08
Pennsylvania State Police
Red/Auburn
Blue
Blue
05/28/2026
