Lyrian Wyvonne Barry-Stallings was a young Black woman, listed by The Charley Project as a 23-year-old female, missing since June 1, 1960, from St. Louis, Missouri. She was about 5 feet tall and 150 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes, and her maiden name was Barry. Public records about the case contain some discrepancies: The Charley Project places her disappearance in St.
Louis on June 1, 1960, while Mississippi-based records describe her as 22 and say she boarded a Greyhound bus in Columbus, Mississippi, headed for St. Louis during the summer of 1960. What remains consistent across the sources is that Lyrian left Mississippi seeking a new start and then vanished from the life of the family who loved her.
Before she disappeared, Lyrian had roots in Columbus, Mississippi, and had graduated from R.E. Hunt High School in 1956. She later moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, with Eulice “Eddie” Stallings, then returned home to Columbus with a baby girl. According to The Charley Project, the relationship was troubled; Eddie was described as controlling and involved with drugs. It is unclear from the available public reporting whether Lyrian and Eddie were legally married. During this period, Eddie reportedly began seeing other women and married a woman who said she was pregnant with his child, while Lyrian was reportedly seeing Sonny Lucas, described as a distant relative.
In the summer of 1960, Lyrian decided to leave Columbus and go to St. Louis, where she planned to stay with her aunt, find work, and build a safer and more stable future for herself and her daughter. Her baby, Gloria, was only about eight months old, and Lyrian left her in the care of her sister. This decision appears to have been made with hope rather than abandonment: Lyrian reportedly planned to return in August, when her pregnant sister’s baby was due, and then she, her sister, and her daughter would go to St. Louis together. But Lyrian never came back to Columbus, and the separation that may have seemed temporary became permanent for her family.
What happened after Lyrian left Mississippi is uncertain. Her aunt said Lyrian did arrive in St. Louis and stayed with her briefly. According to the same account, Lyrian then left for a possible job as a live-in maid, believed to have been either in Needham, Massachusetts, or Bridgeport, Connecticut. The details are vague, and the exact date of this alleged departure is unknown. Her aunt also said Sonny Lucas had moved to St. Louis and that he and Lyrian had a severe fight on the night she left. After that point, there is no confirmed public account showing where Lyrian went, whether she reached Massachusetts or Connecticut, or whether the job opportunity was real.
Lyrian never contacted her family again. As the years passed with no letters, calls, visits, or confirmed sightings, her relatives’ concern deepened, but a missing persons report was not filed at the time. The Charley Project states that there is no evidence anyone ever used her Social Security number, and her family came to believe she was deceased, though public missing-person records do not state that she has been found. Her daughter, her parents, and one brother have since died, while surviving siblings have continued to want answers about what became of her. Columbus police are listed as the investigating agency, and the Mississippi Repository for Missing and Unidentified Persons lists the case status as open with NamUs number MP57576.
Lyrian’s case is the story of a young mother who appears to have been trying to escape a painful chapter and create a better life, only to disappear into a chain of uncertainty that stretched from Columbus to St. Louis and possibly beyond. The known facts are spare but painful: she was a Black woman in her early twenties, the mother of an infant daughter, last publicly associated with a move toward St. Louis in the summer of 1960; she had hoped for work, family support, and a fresh beginning; she never returned as promised; and decades later, her case remains an open missing-person investigation centered on what happened to Lyrian Wyvonne Barry-Stallings after she left home and lost contact with everyone who was waiting for her.Last Seen: Jun 1, 1960
