She Vanished While Secretly Pregnant In 1973, And A Newborn Baby Was Later Found Abandoned In The Mailbox Of Her Friend’s Horse Farm, But The Child Was Not Hers, And Her Whereabouts Remain Unknown
Jan Cotta was raised on a horse farm in Wall Township, New Jersey, as one of eight siblings. According to her brother, Jay, it was the “purest” upbringing anyone could get.
“We fought like normal kids. We grew up very happy, and we didn’t have much,” recalled Jan’s sister, Robin Wilson.
Throughout her life, Jan relished being surrounded by horses. She became an accomplished equestrian, winning numerous awards and even acting as a substitute for the U.S. equestrian team.
She had attended the Princeton Riding Academy and gave riding lessons on her family’s property. Jan also did not drink or use drugs, and she was known to be a smart young woman.
Yet, on the evening of June 26, 1973, everything changed for the Cotta family when 19-year-old Jan mysteriously disappeared.
That night, one of her brothers, Brian, was hanging out with a friend when they heard strange noises coming from their family’s barn. To him, it sounded like a horse had been kicking something. This led Brian and his friend to walk to the barn, and they found the tack room’s light was on.
Upon entering the room, Brian saw his sister just sitting there.
“I went back up to where my sister was, and she asked me to leave because the guy she was seeing at the time pulled in. And we left,” he remembered.
Afterward, Jan allegedly entered the man’s vehicle and drove away sometime between 11:30 p.m. and midnight, and she was never seen or heard again.
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children – pictured above is Jan
Within 24 hours of her disappearance, Jan’s mother, Dorothy Cotta, contacted the Wall Township Police Department and reported her missing.
Authorities arrived on the scene, questioned Jan’s family, and conducted extensive searches of the property, nearby areas, Jan’s friends’ homes, and other places she’d frequented. Additionally, police looked into the friends Jan knew in her equestrian circle.
Eventually, investigators determined that Jan may have left on her own based on a letter reportedly addressed to God that she left behind in the tack room on the night she went missing.
From the letter, Jan’s family discovered a secret she’d been keeping: she was actually pregnant.
She hadn’t told any friends or family members that she was expecting as, back then, there was a stigma associated with getting pregnant while unmarried. Inside the letter, she also spoke about her unborn baby’s father, even though she never mentioned him by name.
To this day, his identity remains unknown.
“There are two theories: One, either she was too embarrassed to say anything and decided to run away,” Jay explained.
“[Or] we believe the father-to-be was from a very affluent family up in Homedale, and therefore they were embarrassed.”
Jay thinks that the father of Jan’s child was her boyfriend, the same guy who she was waiting for in the tack room before she went missing.
However, Lieutenant Michael Seitz detailed how police spoke to Jan’s boyfriend at the time, and it did not lead anywhere.
“During the initial case, it was believed to be an acquaintance, a boyfriend of hers,” Lt. Seitz stated, referring to the individual who picked Jan up the evening she vanished.
“He was interviewed and denied being there, denied picking her up that night.”
Lt. Seitz claimed that investigators “heavily exhausted” the lead that Jan was pregnant, and no evidence of foul play was ever found.
In August 1973, it was thought that there might’ve been a break in Jan’s case. That month, a newborn baby was abandoned and left in a mailbox on a Jefferson Township, New Jersey, horse farm. Coincidentally, that farm belonged to a friend of Jan’s, to whom she’d previously given three horses.
The baby’s birth date was around the same time Jan’s baby should have been due, which led to speculation that the abandoned child was hers. Nonetheless, DNA tests ultimately showed that the baby was not Jan’s.
“All signs do kind of lead towards she left willingly,” said Detective John Spinapont.
Despite that, authorities have not given up searching for her.
From 2004 to 2006, investigators conducted around 250 interviews with individuals across five states. They’re reportedly looking for a man named Eric Shore, whose last name may be spelled differently, as a person of interest.
He is believed to be from Long Island or Staten Island and would have been about 40 years old and dating a hairdresser from Deal, New Jersey when Jan vanished. He hasn’t been named a suspect, but authorities think he may have helpful information.
More recently, Detective Spinapont stated that police have been combing through past data to determine whether Jan is still alive.
“If other people would cooperate and speak to us and just see if there’s anything they didn’t remember at the time or remember and forgot to tell us,” he said.
Jan’s parents, Andrew and Dorothy, have since passed away, and her siblings are continuing the fight for answers.
“We’re not letting it go,” Jay said.
Jan was five foot four, weighed 118 pounds, and had brown hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing a white shirt with a blue design, blue jeans, and brown loafers. She wore two rings: a gold one with the initials “JAC,” as well as a gold ring with two diamonds and a blue topaz birthstone.
If you have any information regarding her case, you are urged to contact the Wall Township Police Department at (732) 449-4500.
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