Survived a Tornado, THEN Disappeared! Where is Joan Gay Croft?

She survived a tornado, but while being treated for minor injuries at the hospital she disappeared. Where is Joan Gay Croft?

If you have any information on Joan Gay Croft please contact the Woodward Oklahoma Police Department at 580-256-2280, or the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation at 580-256-1771.

Do you have any comments, or a case you’d like to suggest? You’ll find a comment form and case submission link at LordanArts.com.

Thank you oklahoman.com, unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com, mysterydelver.com, Oklahomacoldcases.com, KFOR, Woodward news, Unsolved Mysteries, TheTrailWentCold podcast, CompulsionCast, Findagrave.com, Enidnews.com, Lostnfoundblogs, Redditt, Namus, Websleuths and Wikipedia for information contributing to today’s story.

This episode written by The Certified Roarikle and John Lordan, produced by LordanArts.

This is not intended to act as a means of proving or disproving anything related to the investigation.  It is a conversation about the current known facts and theories being discussed.  Everyone directly or indirectly referred to is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

LordanArts 2025


Do you have any comments, or a case you’d like to suggest? You’ll find a comment form and case submission link at LordanArts.com.

This is not intended to act as a means of proving or disproving anything related to the investigation.  It is a conversation about the current known facts and theories being discussed.  Everyone directly or indirectly referred to is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

LordanArts 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:20):
It was nineteen forty seven, a time when drive ins
were the new craze and a gallon of gas cost
a mere twenty three cents. Families gathered around the table
for dinner every night, savoring meat loaf and mashed potatoes.
America just felt simpler then. But in the town of Woodward, Oklahoma,
things would get very complicated, and for one family, life

(00:43):
would change forever. That spring, an F five tornado ripped
through the town, leaving destruction, injury, and death in its wake.
At the center of this chaos, a family faced their
worse fears when a four year old girl would vanish
and from a trusted safe location, a local hospital. How
was she taken in the middle of a catastrophe and

(01:05):
how have her whereabouts remained seriously mysterious to this very day.
This is the case of missing Joan Gaycroft. Joan Gaycroft
was born on October twenty eighth, nineteen forty two to
Hutchinson Olincroft, known as Olan and Cleida Maycroft and Woodward.
She had a half sister named Geraldine or Jerry Rawls,

(01:27):
Cleida May's daughter from a previous marriage. The family lived
in a modest home. Olin worked as a sheep farmer,
and Clida May was a telephone operator. Some reports described
the family as prominent in Woodward, others say that they
were average. By all accounts, they were happy raising their
children until the night of April ninth, nineteen forty seven.

(01:48):
What initially started as a still calmness in the air
would soon show signs of a fierce storm system approaching.
That evening, after the crofts ate dinner, Cleida May would
begin getting her children ready for bed. Joan, who was
four years old, and her sister Jerry, who was eight,
both had planned on going to school the next day,
after all, it was a Wednesday evening, but those plans

(02:10):
would get seriously derailed. Storm warnings were limited, complicated by
a national telephone workers strike. Only a few emergency workers
were actually on duty, reportedly just two in Woodward that evening.
By the time operators were informed about the tornado headed
towards the small town at full speed, there was practically

(02:31):
no time to alert the townspeople. A supercell that formed
in Texas transformed into an F five tornado headed directly
for the unsuspecting town, and by eight forty pm that
tornado struck within five minutes destruction consumed the town, leaving
one hundred and eighty five people dead and many more
trapped or wounded. The Croft family suffered immensely. Cleta May,

(02:56):
only twenty six years old, was killed when a portion
of a wall fell on to her, killing her instantly.
Olin was trapped under debris unconscious. Neighbors began searching for survivors.
At some point a neighbor took Joan and Jerry to
the local hospital. Joan had suffered a deep puncture from
a piece of wood in her leg. Accounts vary on

(03:16):
which leg this was, but one thing was for certain.
It should have left a noticeable scar. The hospital in
town was not very large. It only had twenty eight beds,
and with the storm knocking the power out, the only
light was by candle. The scene was very chaotic, with
many overflow patients and even some that had died, being

(03:36):
placed on the front lawn area of the hospital. Others
who were looked over very quickly and thought not to
have life threatening injuries were placed on cots in the
hospital basement. This is where Joan and Jerry were sent,
sharing a cot until someone from their family could be located.
The girls had not yet learned that their mother had
died in the devastation. Soon a family member found the

(03:59):
girl girls, their aunt, Ruth Bond. She was trying to
locate other family members when she came upon them. She
knew that their mother had passed, and she also knew
that Olin had been taken to the hospital and that
he was still alive. Their aunt told them that she
was going to go find the other family member she
was looking for and check in on their father, and
that she would soon be back to make sure that

(04:21):
they were okay. She left the children behind, never imagining
that it would be the last time that she would
see Joan. It was around midnight when two men approached
the girls. They asked that Joan come with them. They
said that she was going to be taken to a
hospital in Oklahoma City where her dad was being treated.
Joan told the men that she didn't want to leave

(04:41):
her sister, but the men assured her that they would
come back and get her sister soon. Joan went with
the men, believing that she was on her way to
being reunited with her dad. She had no way of
knowing that her father started in the same hospital that
she was in that night, but He was later transferred
to Baker Hospital, a short dist stints away. Olin would

(05:02):
later tell reporters at their local papers that he had
never been transported to Oklahoma City and he had no
idea at the time that anyone had come and taken
his daughter with them. Aunt Ruth was not able to
check on Joan and Jerry until the next morning, as
she began helping the hospital with patients. When she finally
got back to the hospital basement, she only saw Jerry

(05:24):
on the cot. She had no idea what happened to
Joan Gaycroft. Joan's sister Jerry, told their aunt that around midnight,

(05:44):
two men dressed in khaki pants and shirts came and
took Joan. Ruth asked if Jerry knew who the men were,
but Jerry didn't recognize them. Some reports claimed that Jerry
told her aunt the men were dressed in khaki military
shirts and pants with some sort of logo on the shirt.
This would lead some to believe that the men were
from the National Guard, or at least posing as them. However,

(06:07):
this has never been confirmed. Alarmed, Joan's aunt went straight
to one of the nurses on duty and asked where
her niece was. The nurse told her about the two
men and their story about taking Joan to Oklahoma City,
where her father had been taken. The nurse described them
as two white men, again wearing khaki colored work clothes.
Keep in mind, this scene was in complete chaos. It

(06:30):
wouldn't have been too difficult for someone to use that
frantic pace to come in and pull this off. In
later years, the nurse who spoke to these men would
say that she did remember the men, but she couldn't
remember if the men actually asked for Joan by name,
as some reports have claimed. Olin had finally been released
from the hospital and was taken to a friend's home
to recuperate. He still had no idea that Joan had

(06:53):
been taken. It would be two days before Olin could
begin looking for his daughter. The family believed the story
that they heard that she must have been taken to
another hospital and they'd be sure to find her. They
knew that Joan spoke with a heavy lisp and people
would often misunderstand her. Even something as simple as getting
her name across could be challenging, with her usually saying

(07:14):
Jony Coughed instead of Joan Croft. Ultimately, it seemed to
be little more than wishful thinking. There were no records
found to support that Joan had been taken to any
other local area hospitals. While many people wonder how the
men may have known Joan's name, early reports made claims
that Olan had actually died in the tornado with his wife,

(07:36):
which of course was incorrect, but this led some to
believe that someone who knew the Crofts thought that both
parents were now dead, and maybe they came looking for
Joan to take her to make sure that she wouldn't
be orphaned, But that doesn't explain leaving Jerry behind. Maybe
they knew that Olan was not Jerry's father and believed

(07:56):
that she would be fine, believing that her biological father
was still alive. Olden claims the last person to see
Joan that night was missus Clyde Taylor. A neighbor reportedly
she saw both girls in the basement on their cot
that night. However, it's unclear where Olin got this information from.
It's also been reported that a nurse who gave the

(08:16):
girls water was the last person to see the two
girls together, as well as a woman named Mary Carter.
The neighbor who took the girls to the hospital, so
ultimately we're unsure who actually had the last sighting of Joan.
When the rubble was cleared and the townspeople were accounted for,
another tragedy was discovered. Not only was Joan missing, but

(08:37):
three unidentified children were found deceeised. All three were girls,
an infant, a twelve year old, and a three to
four year old. When the funeral home director received the
children's bodies, he noticed how strong of her resemblance the
three to four year old had to Joan. He immediately
called her Aunt Ruth and asked her to come to
the funeral parlor and bring an outfit of Jones to

(08:59):
see if it fit the child. It is unclear why
Joan's aunt was called and not her father, but when
Aunt Ruth arrived, she would say that while the child
resembled Joan, the clothes were too big and it wasn't her.
Many in the small town claimed to know who this
little girl actually belonged to, with rumors being that this
child belonged to a family who couldn't afford the funeral,

(09:21):
thus that's why they never claimed her. These three little
girls would remain unidentified. As the days turned into weeks.
There was still no sign of Joan Olin and the
rest of the family searched for her, with little luck.
Soon it was reported that Olan moved away. He would
get remarried shortly after. It was unclear if Jerry made

(09:41):
the move with him or if she went to live
with other family members. The months would turn into years,
with the case getting colder and colder. Robert E. Lee,
an editor for the now defunct Woodward County Journal, would
often write about Joan on the anniversary of the tornado
and her vanishing, hoping someone might come forward with any
information on what had happened on that tragic April night.

(10:04):
Often the articles would be distributed by the Associated Press
and printed nationwide. This would generate many leads, mainly numerous
women coming forward claiming to be Joan herself. The women
never turned out to be Joan, but Robert continued writing
articles over the years, hoping for the big breakthrough. In
nineteen ninety three, Jones's case would be featured on an

(10:25):
episode of Unsolved Mysteries, and with that over two hundred
tips came in. One of those tips would come from
a woman named Jeane Smith, who was living in Arizona
at the time. She claimed that she didn't remember anything
before the age of six, and that she didn't look
like anyone in her family. She often questioned if her
parents were really her parents. Jean felt so strongly about

(10:48):
this that she took her birth certificate and baby photos
to the Phoenix Police Department and had them analyzed. According
to her, they determined that the footprints on the birth
certificate did not match genes, and that the baby in
the photos wasn't her either. Jean had been diagnosed with
psychogenic amnesia. This is a type of memory loss that

(11:09):
is presumed to be psychological rather than neurological, in which
a person could lose all of their autobiographical memories from
the past. It's sometimes also referred to as disassociative amnesia.
Could Jean actually be Joan had she suppressed all of
her memories due to the traumatic events of that April
night so long ago. Jeane would find out that she

(11:30):
had the same blood type as Joan. She also had
a scar on her calf and approximately the same spot
as the one that Joan would have acquired from the
wood splinter that pierced her leg on the night of
the tornado. For Aunt Ruth and her daughter who had
been searching for Joan for so many years. They finally
believed that they had found her. It was a joyous
time with them going out to Arizona for two weeks

(11:52):
so that they could get to know Jane, someone that
they fully believed was the beautiful, shy little girl that
they knew all those years. Again, you might wonder why
Olin and Jerry didn't go to Arizona to meet Jane.
Surely they would have been able to tell if this
was actually Joan. However, Olan passed away in nineteen eighty three,

(12:13):
and Jerry has only ever made one public statement about
her sister's case. It was after the airing of the
Unsolved Mysteries episode, and she said it would be more
than a joy if Joan was found through one of
those stories, but the chance is less than one in
a million. Jerry was very young at the time and
losing both her mother and sister must have been extremely difficult.

(12:36):
Unsolved Mysteries would step forward and pay to have Jean's
DNA tested. Jerry would decline to give her DNA for
unknown reasons, but there were other family members that samples
were taken from. Jeane Smith was not a match to Joan.
The hopes were again dashed and the case went back
to its previous cold status Until April twelfth of nineteen ninety.

(13:01):
Robert E. Lee was then writing for The Oklahoma and
he kept writing pieces on Joan. He would receive an
email from a woman. According to the article in the Oklahoma,
the email that he received said, mister Lee, I know
that you've written many articles about the nineteen forty seven
Woodward Tornado and about the missing Joan gay Croft. How

(13:23):
would you like to write an article about what really
happened to Joan and where she has been this past
fifty four years. She has been living and is living
in Oklahoma City off and on since nineteen fifty six
under a different name, with the full knowledge of her father,
Olin Croft. She even graduated from a okc High school

(13:44):
under her different name. If you want more information, please
contact me, signed Miss Joan gay Croft. Robert immediately went
to his it guys at the Oklahoma. He wanted to
see if there was any way to trace the email,
but unfortunately they didn't have the tools to do it.
With that, Robert would write back to the person claiming

(14:06):
to be Joan, and he would receive a reply on
May second of nineteen ninety nine. This email read, mister Lee,
I know this time of year there are many people
who crawl out of the woodwork claiming to be the
lost girl. But I was never physically lost. My immediate
family knew where I was. I just didn't know who

(14:26):
I was until just lately. I've never faced the fact
that Cleita Croft, my mother, died upon me. I buried
this information deep within my long term memory and refuse
to accept. If you want to know the rest, email me.
We will arrange to meet in person to discuss the details.
I propose we meet at Penn Square for the first meeting.

(14:48):
I would like to meet in public, but not publicly
and without photos. Please let me know a time and
date convenient for you. As to compensation, I would prefer none. Yours,
Joan Gaycroft. Robert would email her back, telling her that
he would love to know more. However, he was also

(15:09):
unsure why this lady who typed her signature at the
end of the messages spelled Gay with an E at
the end, when that's not how Joan Gay's name was
actually spelled. This woman also referred to her dad as Orlend,
not Olin, but the reporter was still intrigued by whoever
this woman was. Robert would also tell this woman that

(15:29):
his wife was also a survivor of the Woodward tornado.
This seemed to have an unintended effect. The email writer
stopped responding to messages, and eventually her email address was
no longer accepting messages. Why would the woman stop once
Robert mentioned his wife surviving the tornado? Was it because

(15:50):
the woman got spooked that someone would find out that
she was not Joan? Or was she spooked that the
world would know that she actually was Joan? Was the
woman actually romantically interested in Robert. While it is more
than likely the woman claiming to be Joan gay was
not who she claimed to be, many of Jones's family
members still believe that she could be alive and she

(16:12):
could have lived a full life not knowing who she
really was. If Joan Gaycroft is actually still living, she
would now be eighty two years old as of this recording.
Joan still has family members who want to know what
happened to her. She was four years old in nineteen
forty seven, with shoulder length, strawberry blonde hair and blue
eyes and a fair complexion with chicken pox scars on

(16:34):
her forearm. Joan's navel is deformed, with a spot about
the size of a dime protruding to the left side
of the navel. Joan was shy and known to be
a mom a's girl. Her half sister, Geraldine Joyce or
Jerry Rawl's Young, passed away in twenty twenty one at
the age of eighty one. If you have any information

(16:55):
on Joan Gaycroft, please contact the Woodward, Oklahoma Police Department
at five eight zero two five six two two eight zero,
or you can also contact the Oklahoma State Bureau of
Investigation at five eight zero two five six one seven
seven to one. Do you have any comments or a
case you'd like to suggest, You'll find a comment form

(17:16):
and caseubmission link at Lordenarts dot com. Thank You, Oklahoma
dot com, Unsolved Mysteries dot fandom dot com, Mysterydelver dot com,
Oklahoma Coldcases dot com, k f o R Woodwardnews, Unsolved Mysteries,
The Trail Went Cold podcast, Compulsioncast, find Agrave dot com,
Enidnews dot com, Lost and Found, blogs, Reddit, NamUs, websleuths

(17:39):
and Wikipedia for information contributing to today's story. This episode
was written by The Rourical and John Lorden and produced
by Lordenarts. Thank you to our seriously mysterious financial supporters,
and most of all, thank you for listening. I'm John Lorden.
Please join me again next week for another story I
know you'll find seriously mysterious