JANICE K POCKETT	Age Progression
Case Type: Non Family Abduction
DOB: Oct 15, 1965	Sex: Female
Missing Date: Jul 26, 1973	Race: White
Age Now: 46	Height:  4’0″ (122 cm)
Missing City: TOLLAND	Weight:  65 lbs (29 kg)
Missing State :  CT	Hair Color: Blonde
Missing Country: United States	Eye Color: Blue
Case Number: NCMC923957
Circumstances: Janice’s photo is shown age-progressed to 39 years. She left her home by bicycle in the afternoon of July 26,1973 and was never seen again. Her bicycle was found nearby Rhodes Road adjacent to a wooded area. Janice has a gap between her front teeth.

ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST)
Connecticut State Police 1-860-779-4900 or 1-860-779-4940

More details:

Pockett was last seen leaving her family’s home on Anthony Road in Tolland, Connecticut on July 26, 1973.  She planned to ride her metallic green Murray bicycle, which had a bell and a banana seat, through the neighborhood to search for a butterfly she’d caught and left on a rock a few days earlier.  She was carrying an envelope to carry the butterfly in.  It was the first time she’d been allowed to go out by herself.  She never arrived home and has never been seen again.  Pockett’s mother found her bike half an hour later, on Rhoades Road near a wooded area less than a mile from her residence.  The butterfly and envelope were never found. Authorities believe something happened to Pockett after she had picked up the butterfly and was on her way home.

Pockett was one of five people to disappear in the general area during a ten-year time period; another was Lisa White.  All of the missing were female; they ranged in age from 7 to 20 years old.  Two of them were found deceased years after their disappearances but the other three, including White, remain missing.  It is not clear whether the cases are related.

The late Charles Pierce, a pedophile who was suspected in many child disappearance cases in New England throughout the 1950′s – 1970′s, confessed to Pockett’s murder.  He claimed to have buried her in the Lawrence, Massachusetts area near an unidenitified boy who was another victim.  The boy was thought to be Angelo Puglisi, a Massachusetts child who vanished three years after Pockett in 1976.  Neither of the supposed graves has been discovered.

Another twist in the Pockett case came in 2000, when the bone fragments of a child were discovered in the garage of Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, a man charged with the 1996 abduction and presumed murder of Zachary Ramsay in Great Falls, Montana (the charges were later dismissed due to lack of evidence).  Pockett’s name surfaced in connection with Bar-Jonah when his criminal past came to light; he had served a prison sentence for the abduction and attempted murder of two boys in Massachusetts in 1977.

Putting the possible scenario together, investigators learned that Bar-Jonah lived in Webster, Massachusetts in 1973 when Pockett disappeared.  Webster is only 20 miles away from Tolland, Connecticut, which is Pockett’s hometown.  He would have been only fourteen years old when Pockett vanished, but Bar-Jonah had already allegedly strangled a playmate by that time.  There have been additional accusations that Bar-Jonah practiced cannibalism in recent years.  He was found guilty of two unrelated counts of child molestation in Montana in February 2002.  Bar-Jonah, whose given name was David P. Brown, claimed he was innocent of all charges against him.  Authorities also investigated the possibility that he was involved in the 1997 Wyoming disappearance of Amanda Gallion. Gallion is classified as a runaway, but her Social Security number has not been used since 1997 and there is suspicion that she met with foul play.

A handwritten list of names entitled “Lake Webster” was discovered in Bar-Jonah’s possession in December 2001.  Some news reports stated that Andrew Amato was among the children featured in the list, but this is untrue.  Amato disappeared from Webster, Massachusetts in 1978.  No one has been able to tie him to Bar-Jonah.  DNA testing conducted in 2001 on a bone located in Bar-Jonah’s Montana garage proved that it was not part of Ramsay’s, Pockett’s, or Gallion’s remains.  Amato’s DNA was not compared with the bone.  Bar-Jonah was never charged in connection with any of the other disappearances.  He died of a blood clot in a Montana prison in April 2008, at age 51.

Charges have not been filed against any person regarding Pockett’s disappearance. Her case remains unsolved.

To see if her case is still active click here.