She Vanished After Packing A Bag And Telling Her Sisters She Was Headed To New York City To Marry Her Old Boyfriend
In November 1934, Etta Reil, a 20-year-old mother from Worcester, Massachusetts, packed a bag and told her sisters that she was going to New York to marry her old boyfriend the night before a paternity hearing for her baby. She claimed she’d be back later that week to pick up her daughter, Alma, but was never heard from again.
Etta was born in Providence, Rhode Island, but grew up in Worcester, where she went to high school and met and began dating Henry “Red” Swain.
Following graduation, she attended Worcester State Teachers College, now known as Worcester State University; meanwhile, Henry headed to Bates College in Maine. But despite the pair no longer being together, they remained in touch, and Henry even helped pay Etta’s tuition.
She ultimately got pregnant, and in May 1934, she claimed Henry was the father of her baby. So, Etta filed a paternity suit against him, yet Henry denied fathering the child.
Etta’s daughter, Alma, was born in September 1934. Then, on November 21, just one day before the paternity hearing, she disappeared.
That night, Etta had gone to her friend Theresa’s home, and Henry showed up unexpectedly at approximately 10:00 p.m. He wanted to speak with her in private, and witnesses, including a hairdresser, spotted the pair together.
When Etta returned home early the following morning, around midnight, she began packing her things into a small travel bag and wrote a note for her sisters about Alma, referencing her daughter’s nickname, “Snooni.”
“I’ll be back this weekend after Snooni. Please don’t worry,” the note read.
Etta’s sisters woke up while she was still packing, though, and she wound up telling them about her plan to elope with Henry in New York City. He’d apparently dropped out of Bates College the prior year and had been working at a New York-based garage.
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She said that she’d be back later the same week to pick up her daughter, but Etta never returned. She failed to show up to the paternity hearing, and when her sister, Alice, happened to run into Henry, he claimed they’d never discussed getting married or going to New York.
Rather, Henry stated that Etta had asked to be dropped off at Union Station in Worcester, and he obliged. Moreover, he alleged Etta had admitted Alma wasn’t actually his child and was supposedly nervous about the paternity hearing. Henry claimed to think Etta was actually suicidal.
When the police questioned Henry later, he detailed how Etta allegedly confessed to having an affair with two different men who were married. In the wake of the paternity trial, Henry reportedly threatened to expose her affairs, which pushed Etta to flee town.
About two weeks after Etta vanished, her attorney received a telegram ordered from a payphone in New York City, which said that Henry was telling the truth. It also instructed her attorney to withdraw the paternity suit. But strangely, the telegram sender used a fake address, and it’s never been confirmed whether Etta was actually the caller.
In the wake of Etta’s disappearance, her family didn’t know whether Henry was telling the truth. Nonetheless, her friends had received troubling letters from her leading up to the month she vanished. On October 8, 1934, for instance, she wrote, “I wanted to kill myself last Sunday night, but I promised to go on living, for him, as I have always done. I loved him and promised him all the happiness it was in my power to give.”
Etta’s former teacher and friend, Helen Kennedy, on the other hand, doubted that she’d ever take her own life.
“She seemed in excellent spirits, and I am sure that suicide was the thing farthest from her mind. I feel certain she didn’t run away. She had confided all her troubles with me,” Helen explained.
“I fear that she is dead. Etta, I think, would surely have let some member of her family or someone of her friends know that she was alright, if she were still alive.”
Over the course of their investigation, the police discovered the Worcester train dispatcher had gotten three different calls about Etta from 2:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. the night she went missing. One of the callers said they were the Oxford switchboard operator and asked that Etta not be allowed on the train. Yet, the real Oxford switchboard operator never actually placed that call, and who did remains a mystery.
By April 1935, search parties comprised of about 300 volunteers and police officers scoured Worcester County for any sign of Etta. The efforts uncovered no evidence of her whereabouts.
There were numerous reported sightings of Etta over the months following her disappearance. A beauty salon manager and two employees “tentatively identified” her as visiting the salon and providing the name “E. Riel” while having her hair done. Additionally, a city employee named John T. Dorey alleged he’d talked to Etta while she was asking for money on the street in February 1935.
Henry continued to be a person of interest in the investigation as well, but authorities also looked into other potential suspects. One included Joseph Gauthreau, a Connecticut man who’d spoken to Etta and had actually received a letter from her only three days before she went missing. What exactly was written in the letter has never been made public, and the police eventually ruled Joseph out as a suspect.
Etta’s daughter, Alma, was raised by her aunt and uncle, who said they were her parents. It wasn’t until she was older that Alma learned about her mother’s disappearance, and later, the fact that Henry was alive. She’d been told Henry was dead by her aunt and uncle.
The realization pushed Alma to file a paternity suit against him in 1990, which reignited awareness about her mother’s case. But the suit was ultimately thrown out, and Henry died eight years later at 84 years old.
Alma also died in 2006, at the age of 72, and she never learned the truth surrounding her mother’s disappearance. Today, Etta’s case has gone unsolved for over 90 years.
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