She Went Missing From Summer Camp, And She Was Last Seen Picking Wildflowers On The Side Of The Road
Constance “Connie” Smith, a 10-year-old from Wyoming, was supposed to spend four weeks of the summer of 1952 at YMCA’s Camp Sloane in Salisbury, Connecticut. Yet, about three weeks into her stay, she vanished without a trace.
Leading up to her disappearance, her mother, Helen Smith, had visited Camp Sloane around July 13 for her birthday, and Connie was supposedly in good spirits.
She reportedly asked to stay at the summer camp for another month, too, but her mother refused, and she appeared okay with that.
Days later, on July 16, 1952, Connie disappeared. The night before, she’d gotten into an altercation with her tentmates, which left her with a bloody nose that needed icing.
So, as her friends went to breakfast on the hot and humid morning of July 16, Connie decided to stay back. She claimed she was going to bring the ice pack back to the nurse.
However, Connie never made it to the camp dispensary. She left behind the ice pack in her tent and was seen walking away from the camp, down Indian Mountain Road, at about 8:15 a.m.
A camp employee noticed, but when speaking with police later, he said that he’d thought Connie looked old enough to be a camp counselor.
As the 10-year-old headed toward Lakeville’s center, she was spotted picking wildflowers on the side of the road by a local couple. Then, she reportedly visited two homes and asked for directions to Lakeville.
Another witness also saw Connie holding her thumb in the air around a mile and a half away from the camp, near Route 44 and Belgo Road. After she seemingly tried to hitchhike, she went missing.
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Counselors at Camp Sloane realized Connie was gone in the afternoon once they noticed the ice pack was still inside her tent. She left with no extra clothing or money.
The police launched an extensive search, scouring local trails and nearby forests. Volunteers even rode through the region on horseback, and planes flew over Salisbury looking for clues, to no avail.
Connie was the daughter of a wealthy rancher in Wyoming, as well as the granddaughter of a former Wyoming governor. Her divorced parents, Helen and Peter Smith, traveled to Connecticut, aided the search, and offered a $3,000 reward for her safe discovery or $1,000 for the recovery of her remains.
“Whether she is alive or dead, I want her back. I’ve got to know what happened to her. Christmas has always been such a big event in our house. But this year, I feel I can’t stand it. Each day is a little harder to face,” Helen said in 1954.
It was theorized that perhaps Connie, who’d apparently been homesick, had tried to run away and see one of her parents. But neither of them ever heard from their daughter again.
In the years that followed Connie’s disappearance, authorities received numerous tips regarding her case, ranging from upstate New York and Vermont to Cincinnati, Alabama, and Montreal.
A few possible suspects came under scrutiny. First was William Henry Redmond, a former carnival worker who’d strangled Jane Marie Althoff, an 8-year-old from Pennsylvania, in 1951, just one year before Connie went missing.
He was charged in Jane’s case in 1988, and investigators suspected he might’ve been in the Lakeville region at the time of Connie’s disappearance. Moreover, he allegedly admitted to killing four people during his lifetime while speaking to a fellow prison inmate.
Nonetheless, William passed a polygraph test. As for Jane’s murder, he was deemed too ill to stand trial and ultimately passed away in 1992.
The police looked into two additional suspects, Frederick Pope and Jack Walker. Frederick, who worked as a traveling jewelry salesman, allegedly spoke to the Ohio police and confessed to knowing Connie’s whereabouts.
He claimed that he and his associate, Jack Walker, had picked Connie up on Route 44 and promised to give her a ride to Wyoming. Then, Frederick alleged that Walker murdered the 10-year-old in Arizona, so he used a tire iron to beat Walker to death.
Initially, this seemed like a major break in Connie’s case, but further probing revealed no record of Jack Walker or a woman they were supposedly traveling with, Wilma Sames, existed. In the end, Frederick recanted his story and admitted it was a hoax.
Most recently, in 2018, an unidentified teenage girl’s remains were located in Arizona, and investigators hoped this development would provide some answers. Again, it proved to be unfruitful, as DNA testing was reportedly inconclusive.
Connie is remembered as a well-traveled and intelligent little girl who loved animals and enjoyed riding horses. Her disappearance, which has gone unsolved for over 72 years, remains one of Connecticut’s oldest and most famous missing person cases.
At the time Connie vanished, she was five feet tall, weighed 85 pounds, and had light brown hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing navy blue shorts with plaid cuffs, a brown halter top, a red long-sleeved windbreaker, and tan leather shoes.
Anyone with information regarding her case is urged to contact the Western District Major Crime Squad at (860) 626-7975.
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