Disappearance of Beverly Potts

Beverly Potts
The best-known photograph of Beverly Potts
Born	Beverly Rose Potts (1941-04-15)April 15, 1941 Cleveland, Ohio
Disappeared	August 24, 1951 (aged 10) Cleveland, Ohio
Status	Missing for 65 years, 7 months and 25 days

Beverly Rose Potts (born April 15, 1941) was an American girl from Cleveland, Ohio, who in 1951 became the subject of a famous missing persons case when she disappeared only a few blocks from her home, after attending a show in a nearby park. She has never been found and her disappearance remains unsolved.

Blonde, blue-eyed Potts was described as a shy, quiet and responsible child, fascinated by the performing arts, who was due to enter the fifth grade in fall 1951. At the time she was living on Linnet Avenue with her parents Robert and Elizabeth Potts and her 22-year-old sister Anita.

On August 24, she and her friend and neighbor Patsy Swing were given permission to see the Showagon, an annual summer children's performance event being held that evening in Halloran Park, less than a quarter of a mile from the girls' homes. This was a special treat, as the park was generally considered unsafe after dark, when large trees dimmed the surrounding streetlights. It was also frequented by the local vagrant population.

The two girls initially went to the park on their bicycles around 7 pm. At 8 pm, deciding it would be easier to maneuver on foot through the large crowds in attendance, they returned home to drop off their bikes, arriving back at the show sometime before 8:30 pm. At about 8:45 pm, Swing, who had promised to be home before dark, suggested they leave for home. Potts said that she had been given permission to stay for the entire show, which was not due to end until after 9 pm, so Swing went back to her own house alone. Swing last saw Potts in the crowd, still watching the performances onstage.

At about 9:30 pm, when the show had ended and the park was emptying, a 13-year-old boy who knew Potts saw her heading diagonally across the park in a northeasterly direction, about 150 yards from the corner of Linnet Avenue and West 117th Street. This would have been the quickest route to Potts' home, which would then only be a few minutes' walk away. The boy recognized Potts by her distinctive "duck-like" gait, walking with toes pointed outward. Several other witnesses said they had seen a girl resembling Potts near a battered black 1937 Dodge coupe idling on West 117th Street, apparently speaking to two young men inside. The various witnesses placed this encounter anywhere between 8:30 and 9:30 pm, but none of them had seen the girl entering the car.

When Potts did not return home by 10 pm, her family began searching the area. About an hour later, having found no sign of her, they called the police.

The police immediately began a large-scale search of their own but were unable to find any trace of Potts, even after several days' investigation including door-to-door canvassing of nearby neighborhoods, tracing suspicious cars, searching nearby vacant lots, and using a plane to survey open railway cars. Police received and investigated thousands of telephone tips, which had been spurred by the extensive press coverage of the disappearance, but none provided any solid leads. Potts' family members were quickly cleared; investigators determined that her home life had been stable and by all accounts happy, and there appeared to be no reason for her to have run away.