April 8, 2025 • 19 mins
When two young girls go missing in neighboring towns, everyone wonders is the same person responsible? Who took Judith Ann Elwell and Brenda Lois White?
Written by John Lordan, produced by LordanArts.
Do you have any comments, or a case you’d like to suggest? Feel free to send it to me. You can find a case submission form at LordanArts.com or you can also message me on X @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
Written by John Lordan, produced by LordanArts.
Do you have any comments, or a case you’d like to suggest? Feel free to send it to me. You can find a case submission form at LordanArts.com or you can also message me on X @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
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Crimes involving children have a way of staying with us.
Long after the headlines fade and the investigations grow cold.
These stories continue to haunt our thoughts and tug at
our heart strings. Maybe it's the innocence lost or the
lingering questions that remain unanswered, but these cases simply refuse
(00:41):
to be forgotten and keep us searching for truth and justice.
Decades later, in nineteen sixty seven, life at home seemed simpler,
or at least that's how it's been explained to us
by the family members that lived it. Kids rode their
bikes for miles without a second thought. Parents act knew
their neighbors and could trust them. It was a year
(01:03):
of important events around the world, as thousands of young
people gathered in San Francisco for the Summer of Love,
and the Beatles pushed the boundaries of sound and imagination
with the album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The
nation reeled as the Apollo one mission ended in disaster
with three astronauts losing their lives, and a new American
tradition was born. The very first Super Bowl kicked off,
(01:26):
which would rise to become the biggest annual sporting event
in US history. From love and music to heartbreak and triumph.
Nineteen sixty seven was simply a year like no other,
but the heartbreak would be especially heavy for two Oklahoma families. Today,
we're diving into both and asking the question could these
(01:47):
cases be connected? While some believe so, others not so much. However,
one thing's for certain. The impact these cases had on
the families, friends, and community hasn't been forgotten, even after
more than fifty years. Judith Anne Elwell was an energetic
five year old living with her family in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
(02:10):
She loved to play outdoors with the neighborhood kids and
play with her favorite doll, one that she named Marianne.
Judith had raven black hair and brown eyes so dark
that her mom, Lola, said that they were almost black,
and she would regularly tell Judith that her eyes were beautiful.
Judah's father, James, worked as a service station attendant. Although
(02:32):
he had actually received his bachelor's degree in entomology the
scientific study of insects from Oklahoma State University in nineteen
fifty one. The problem was that James had a hard
time keeping jobs. Some believed it was from a terrible
tragedy that he witnessed. When James was just eight years old,
he saw his mother shoot his dad, repeatedly killing him.
(02:56):
A few months later, his mother took her own life.
On top of this, James was drafted while he was
in the eleventh grade. He received a discharge from the
army and would go on to have a nervous breakdown.
This effectively deemed him ninety percent disabled, and because of
this he would receive a veteran's disability check each month.
(03:16):
Once James met and married Lola, he was happy, and
when they had children, he was even more joyful. James
was said to be very happy living in his modest
home with his wife, his children, and earning an honest living.
Lola was a homemaker who adored her children. On July sixth,
nineteen sixty seven, Judith was wearing a blue and white
(03:37):
striped shirt with green shorts, white socks, and blue canvas shoes.
She had gone out to play in her backyard. After
some time, she came back in to ask her mom
if she would put pink ribbons in Marianne's hair. Her
mother did so and then heard Judith go back outside
to continue playing. Any mother would assume that their child
would be safe playing in their own backyard. However, Lola
(04:00):
would soon learn that this was the last time she
would see her precious daughter. James would arrive home from
the service station at eight fifty pm. Immediately he knew
something was wrong. Judith wasn't waiting for him by the bushes,
which was something that she always did. Worry started setting
in as James frantically looked around outside of the house.
(04:21):
He then checked inside and there was no sign of
his daughter. He phoned the police to report her missing.
Where had she gone? Thankfully, as you'll frequently hear in
cases involving children this young, the police response was immediate
and they wasted no time beginning the search for Judith.
Lola told the police that she had last seen Judith
sometime between six thirty and eight thirty pm. James arrived
(04:45):
home almost at nine pm, meaning there was a possible
two hour window that they were dealing with. Judith could
have been abducted and miles away by now. This would
not stop law enforcement or the family from searching through
that first day, but nothing was found. On the second day,
over three hundred people would join the search for little Judith.
(05:06):
Found Directly east and behind Theelwell's home was one of
Judith's blue canvas shoes. The area was extensively searched, and
while nothing else of Judith's was found, police did notice something.
A vehicle was sitting just a ways off from where
Judith's shoe was located. Two people in the vehicle were
blaring music and watching the search. Some officers found this odd,
(05:29):
and later investigators would track down the owner of that vehicle. Unfortunately,
it wasn't the big lead that they were hoping for.
The two people in the car were determined to not
be involved in Judith's disappearance. Members of law enforcement were
convinced that the shoe was telling them something that Judith
had lost that shoe in a struggle while she was
being abducted. Soon, law enforcement called off the searches and
(05:52):
began a full blown investigation on who would have taken Judith.
She was seemingly abducted, but that didn't stop the investigators
from starting back at square one. As with most child cases,
the family was looked into first. According to judas brother Mark,
the family's front yard, backyard, and even under the house
(06:14):
was dug up. Despite intensive searches, nothing of Judiths was found.
Mark remembers his parents being taken in numerous times to
be interviewed. He said that his parents were straight laced
Catholics who never drank, smoked, or even cussed, and there
was no way that they were involved with her disappearance.
The police never publicly accused the Elwells of being involved,
(06:36):
but with few other leads, it just seemed that they
were at a loss as to what happened. Investigators also
looked into sex offenders in Oklahoma City and the surrounding areas,
but that effort also proved to be fruitless. A tip
was called in and led police to stake out an
apartment building watching a possible suspect. It was yet another
(06:56):
lead that would go nowhere. Flyers were distributed to their states,
including Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and New Mexico in the
hopes that someone would recognize Judith and call in the
critical tip that they needed. Unfortunately, that tip would never come.
Judath's brother, Mark believes his sister's abduction was planned. He
(07:18):
would tell police that three weeks before Judith vanished, he
saw a big black car driving suspiciously near their home.
And that this car had even followed him on his
paper route. Police blew this off and would say that
Mark had an overactive imagination. Years later, he would reaffirm
that story to the media, stating that he knew what
(07:39):
he saw in the weeks before Judith vanished, and even
on the night that she vanished, he says he saw
that big black car with a man in it. It
was nine thirty or ten pm when Mark says he
heard his sister crying in the black car. He got
the nerve to walk about fifteen to twenty feet towards
the car before stopping to turn around and run back
(08:00):
to his house. He got his dad, but when the
pair made it back to where Mark saw the vehicle,
it was gone. Did Mark actually hear his sister in
the back of a big black car or had his
mind been playing tricks on him? Provoked by the thoughts
about her disappearance. With the searches and the investigation turning
up no viable leads, Judith's case was quickly growing cold.
(08:24):
It wasn't that the police weren't trying. They kept following
the leads. It was just that every road led nowhere.
Then another young girl in a neighboring town called Midwest
City would also vanish, and soon law enforcement was wondering
if the two cases were connected and were they dealing
with someone that would strike again. It was August third,
(09:00):
nineteen sixty seven in Midwest City, Oklahoma. Hope's Grocery Store
was a little corner store that sold a little bit
of everything, but on this day, six year old Brenda
Lois White and her friends were there for one specific thing,
penny candy. Brenda was a bright young girl with blonde
hair and blue eyes that came from a large family.
(09:22):
She was one of seven children, and on that day,
all the children were outside doing their own thing in
the neighborhood. The summer sun beat down that Thursday afternoon.
As Brenda was riding her bicycle. The barefoot girl had
a nickel in the pocket of her gray and white
flowered dress that her mother had made for her. She
wasn't alone. She and her best friend Carol, along with
(09:43):
other children, were headed to that store, and Brenda specifically
had candy in mind. Pixie sticks were her favorite. When
they arrived at the corner store, all the other kids
had more money than Brenda, so the other kids decided
that they would head back and get another nickel for Brenda,
so they'd all be able to get ten cents worth
of candy. Brenda decided to wait at the store, and
(10:06):
when her friends returned just a few minutes later, they
could see her bicycle out front, leaning up on the
side of the building, But inside there was no Brenda,
and no one had seen where the six year old
had gone. It wouldn't be until dinnertime when the children
of the White family were all called in and mother
Alice noticed that her daughter was missing. Neighbors and relatives
(10:27):
began searching for Brenda. Bobby White, Brenda's dad, would race
home from Saint Louis, where he worked for Western Electric
as a telephone installer, to join the search efforts for Brenda.
After two hours of unsuccessfully searching, her parents decided it
was time to call the police and report their daughter missing.
An official search was under way immediately, and with this
(10:48):
being the second young girl to vanish in the area,
the public was on edge. Mothers in both towns were
afraid that their little girl would be the next one
to disappear. As the searches ramped up, more than four
hundred people began looking for Brenda, and one of those
searchers was James Elwell, the father of the first girl
to go missing, Judith. It seemed that these two families
(11:10):
would now be forever connected. As more and more people
began to speculate that the two cases were connected. Members
of law enforcement were having the same conversations was the
same person responsible for both cases. Neighbors began to turn
on each other with accusations, and rumors were running rampant.
Police were again facing the situation where no solid leads
(11:32):
were panning out in the search for Brenda, and another
similar trend surfaced where there was talk of a black
car in Judith's disappearance. Brenda's disappearance also has a car
that might be involved. A woman came forward and said
that she was being followed by a man in a
white car. She told police she was sure that this
man was waiting for the right opportunity to attack her.
(11:54):
This lead turned up nothing, as they couldn't locate the
vehicle or the man that the woman was talking about. Interestingly,
a neighborhood boy was interviewed by police and he told
them that he saw Brenda get into a white car
with a man and drive off on the day that
she vanished. Police didn't believe his story, as the timeframe
that he gave for that sighting was well before Brenda
(12:16):
was actually last seen at the store. Then, Brenda's best
friend Carol claimed that she saw a white car drive
away from the store as they were heading back, So
where the black car in Judith's story was only witnessed
by her brother Mark. In Brenda's story, we have a
white car being brought up by several people. Could this
car have actually been involved? Once again, we may never know,
(12:38):
as neither the vehicle nor the driver has ever been
identified and located. The search continued for both Brenda and Judith,
and days turned into months with no sign of either child.
But on November eighteenth, nineteen sixty seven, hunters would come
across a skull while out in a field. Police would
search the area, locating more bones in a sh shallow grave.
(13:01):
They also found a pair of panties, blonde hair, and
a crumpled up gray dress with a flower print on it.
These remains were found eleven miles away from Brenda's family
home in a field near an abandoned house. That house
had been abandoned for at least five years, but inside
police found two dirty white shirts, two pairs of men's pants,
(13:22):
and a badly damaged straw hat. In the basement, they
would find a piece of cloth hung from a nail.
Some people believed that this may have been used to
tie someone up, but law enforcement has never confirmed that conjecture.
It is also unclear if any of the items that
the police did find in the house were actually related
to Brenda's murder. However, someone would certainly be able to
(13:43):
confirm if the dress was hers the person that made
the dress. Brenda's mother, Alice, was asked to identify it,
and in that moment, she knew that her life was
never going to be the same. There were many similarities
in both girls cases. They were both going to start
first grade, both came from working class families, They were
(14:04):
both around the same height and wait. The girls both
knew their phone numbers and were taught not to talk
to strangers. They were both taken on a Thursday and
in broad daylight. They lived less than twenty miles apart.
It's a set of circumstances that certainly raises the question
about the cases being connected, but that leads to other questions.
(14:24):
Were they taken by someone that they were both connected to,
or someone that they both knew. Were these simply crimes
of opportunity. In over fifty years, no outcome has been
completely ruled out in their case, and while some people
think that it was no coincidence and it was the
same person responsible for both abductions, others aren't so sure.
(14:45):
Their families never stopped wanting answers, but obviously to very
different questions. Lola and James desperately wanted to know what
happened to Judith and if she would ever be found.
Bobby and Alice wanted to know who took the life
of Brenda and if they would ever se justice. Lola
Elwell would pass away from breast cancer just six years
after her daughter vanished. James had a hard time holding
(15:08):
down a job as he had lost his daughter and
then his wife. He has also since passed away. Mark
still misses his sister and hopes to have answers one day.
For the White family, life had to go on. Some
of Brenda's siblings were just too young to remember her,
and some of the others say that what happened to
her was just never talked about. It was too hard
(15:30):
on their parents and on them. In twenty thirteen, Troy Fiesen,
a private investigator from Lawton, Oklahoma, would come out saying
that he knows who took Judith and who murdered Brenda.
He had come across Judith's case while researching another case,
and from there began connecting Judith and Brenda's cases. He
requested to see the case files for both, only to
(15:53):
find out that police no longer had Brenda's case file
it had been lost in a flood. Judith's case file
was missing as well, although it's unclear what exactly happened
to hers. Troy would start from the beginning and said
that the more he dug, the more everything came back
to the same man who lived in hera near where
Brenda's body was found. He says that this man was
(16:15):
considered a suspect in nineteen sixty seven, but he was
a teenager back then and cleared by police all those
years ago. Troy has never publicly released the name of
this man because he is only eighty percent positive that
he's correct. Another possible clue to this mystery comes up
at a very unexpected place. Brenda's obituary on find agrave
(16:37):
dot Com says something quite interesting. Brenda had a loyal
little friend who had a father that was involved in
Brenda's death. This little friend, now a woman, has been
telling what happened for a long time. Her father passed away,
having stolen the lives of many before his passing in
many different ways, never serving a day in jail for
(16:58):
what he did. Brenda can't come back. We're just going
to have to be good enough to make it to
Heaven to see her there. It's unclear if this statement
has ever been looked into by law enforcement. With both
girls being taken in broad daylight during the summer, one
would think that someone would have seen something, and maybe
(17:18):
they did and they were just too afraid to come forward.
Maybe all these years later, that person can find the
strength to stand up and be the voice for these
two little girls. Although the parents have passed on, there
are still other family members searching for Judith and waiting
for justice for Brenda. If you have any information regarding
(17:38):
Judith Marie L. Well, please contact Oklahoma City Police at
four oh five seven three nine one three one seven
and refer to case number zero seven DASH zero six
nine three one seven. If you have any information regarding
Brenda Lois White. Please contact the Midwest City Police Department
at four zero five seven thirty nine one three zero six.
(18:01):
Do you have any comments or a case you'd like
to suggest, feel free to send it to me. You'll
find a comment form and case submission link at lordenarts
dot com. Thank you, The Dough Network, Cold Case Oklahoma City,
The Oklahoma, The Charlie Project, Oklahoma Coldcase Newspapers dot Com,
True Crimediba Websleuths NamUs, track Missing dot org, find agrave
(18:22):
dot com, Facebook, and Wikipedia for information contributing to today's story.
This episode was written by The Roracle, edited by John Lordon,
and produced by Lordenarts. Thank you to our audience here
for the live recording session hosted on the YouTube channel
Lordenart's Studio two Special. Thanks to Seriously Mysterious Financial supporters
(18:42):
Susie B. Jones, Kira McQueen, Chaz Robert Martin, Kelly E,
and Mike W. Most of all, thank you for listening.
I'm John Lorden. Please join me again next week for
another case that I know you'll find seriously mysterious
Crimes involving children have a way of staying with us.
Long after the headlines fade and the investigations grow cold.
These stories continue to haunt our thoughts and tug at
our heart strings. Maybe it's the innocence lost or the
lingering questions that remain unanswered, but these cases simply refuse
(00:41):
to be forgotten and keep us searching for truth and justice.
Decades later, in nineteen sixty seven, life at home seemed simpler,
or at least that's how it's been explained to us
by the family members that lived it. Kids rode their
bikes for miles without a second thought. Parents act knew
their neighbors and could trust them. It was a year
(01:03):
of important events around the world, as thousands of young
people gathered in San Francisco for the Summer of Love,
and the Beatles pushed the boundaries of sound and imagination
with the album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The
nation reeled as the Apollo one mission ended in disaster
with three astronauts losing their lives, and a new American
tradition was born. The very first Super Bowl kicked off,
(01:26):
which would rise to become the biggest annual sporting event
in US history. From love and music to heartbreak and triumph.
Nineteen sixty seven was simply a year like no other,
but the heartbreak would be especially heavy for two Oklahoma families. Today,
we're diving into both and asking the question could these
(01:47):
cases be connected? While some believe so, others not so much. However,
one thing's for certain. The impact these cases had on
the families, friends, and community hasn't been forgotten, even after
more than fifty years. Judith Anne Elwell was an energetic
five year old living with her family in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
(02:10):
She loved to play outdoors with the neighborhood kids and
play with her favorite doll, one that she named Marianne.
Judith had raven black hair and brown eyes so dark
that her mom, Lola, said that they were almost black,
and she would regularly tell Judith that her eyes were beautiful.
Judah's father, James, worked as a service station attendant. Although
(02:32):
he had actually received his bachelor's degree in entomology the
scientific study of insects from Oklahoma State University in nineteen
fifty one. The problem was that James had a hard
time keeping jobs. Some believed it was from a terrible
tragedy that he witnessed. When James was just eight years old,
he saw his mother shoot his dad, repeatedly killing him.
(02:56):
A few months later, his mother took her own life.
On top of this, James was drafted while he was
in the eleventh grade. He received a discharge from the
army and would go on to have a nervous breakdown.
This effectively deemed him ninety percent disabled, and because of
this he would receive a veteran's disability check each month.
(03:16):
Once James met and married Lola, he was happy, and
when they had children, he was even more joyful. James
was said to be very happy living in his modest
home with his wife, his children, and earning an honest living.
Lola was a homemaker who adored her children. On July sixth,
nineteen sixty seven, Judith was wearing a blue and white
(03:37):
striped shirt with green shorts, white socks, and blue canvas shoes.
She had gone out to play in her backyard. After
some time, she came back in to ask her mom
if she would put pink ribbons in Marianne's hair. Her
mother did so and then heard Judith go back outside
to continue playing. Any mother would assume that their child
would be safe playing in their own backyard. However, Lola
(04:00):
would soon learn that this was the last time she
would see her precious daughter. James would arrive home from
the service station at eight fifty pm. Immediately he knew
something was wrong. Judith wasn't waiting for him by the bushes,
which was something that she always did. Worry started setting
in as James frantically looked around outside of the house.
(04:21):
He then checked inside and there was no sign of
his daughter. He phoned the police to report her missing.
Where had she gone? Thankfully, as you'll frequently hear in
cases involving children this young, the police response was immediate
and they wasted no time beginning the search for Judith.
Lola told the police that she had last seen Judith
sometime between six thirty and eight thirty pm. James arrived
(04:45):
home almost at nine pm, meaning there was a possible
two hour window that they were dealing with. Judith could
have been abducted and miles away by now. This would
not stop law enforcement or the family from searching through
that first day, but nothing was found. On the second day,
over three hundred people would join the search for little Judith.
(05:06):
Found Directly east and behind Theelwell's home was one of
Judith's blue canvas shoes. The area was extensively searched, and
while nothing else of Judith's was found, police did notice something.
A vehicle was sitting just a ways off from where
Judith's shoe was located. Two people in the vehicle were
blaring music and watching the search. Some officers found this odd,
(05:29):
and later investigators would track down the owner of that vehicle. Unfortunately,
it wasn't the big lead that they were hoping for.
The two people in the car were determined to not
be involved in Judith's disappearance. Members of law enforcement were
convinced that the shoe was telling them something that Judith
had lost that shoe in a struggle while she was
being abducted. Soon, law enforcement called off the searches and
(05:52):
began a full blown investigation on who would have taken Judith.
She was seemingly abducted, but that didn't stop the investigators
from starting back at square one. As with most child cases,
the family was looked into first. According to judas brother Mark,
the family's front yard, backyard, and even under the house
(06:14):
was dug up. Despite intensive searches, nothing of Judiths was found.
Mark remembers his parents being taken in numerous times to
be interviewed. He said that his parents were straight laced
Catholics who never drank, smoked, or even cussed, and there
was no way that they were involved with her disappearance.
The police never publicly accused the Elwells of being involved,
(06:36):
but with few other leads, it just seemed that they
were at a loss as to what happened. Investigators also
looked into sex offenders in Oklahoma City and the surrounding areas,
but that effort also proved to be fruitless. A tip
was called in and led police to stake out an
apartment building watching a possible suspect. It was yet another
(06:56):
lead that would go nowhere. Flyers were distributed to their states,
including Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and New Mexico in the
hopes that someone would recognize Judith and call in the
critical tip that they needed. Unfortunately, that tip would never come.
Judath's brother, Mark believes his sister's abduction was planned. He
(07:18):
would tell police that three weeks before Judith vanished, he
saw a big black car driving suspiciously near their home.
And that this car had even followed him on his
paper route. Police blew this off and would say that
Mark had an overactive imagination. Years later, he would reaffirm
that story to the media, stating that he knew what
(07:39):
he saw in the weeks before Judith vanished, and even
on the night that she vanished, he says he saw
that big black car with a man in it. It
was nine thirty or ten pm when Mark says he
heard his sister crying in the black car. He got
the nerve to walk about fifteen to twenty feet towards
the car before stopping to turn around and run back
(08:00):
to his house. He got his dad, but when the
pair made it back to where Mark saw the vehicle,
it was gone. Did Mark actually hear his sister in
the back of a big black car or had his
mind been playing tricks on him? Provoked by the thoughts
about her disappearance. With the searches and the investigation turning
up no viable leads, Judith's case was quickly growing cold.
(08:24):
It wasn't that the police weren't trying. They kept following
the leads. It was just that every road led nowhere.
Then another young girl in a neighboring town called Midwest
City would also vanish, and soon law enforcement was wondering
if the two cases were connected and were they dealing
with someone that would strike again. It was August third,
(09:00):
nineteen sixty seven in Midwest City, Oklahoma. Hope's Grocery Store
was a little corner store that sold a little bit
of everything, but on this day, six year old Brenda
Lois White and her friends were there for one specific thing,
penny candy. Brenda was a bright young girl with blonde
hair and blue eyes that came from a large family.
(09:22):
She was one of seven children, and on that day,
all the children were outside doing their own thing in
the neighborhood. The summer sun beat down that Thursday afternoon.
As Brenda was riding her bicycle. The barefoot girl had
a nickel in the pocket of her gray and white
flowered dress that her mother had made for her. She
wasn't alone. She and her best friend Carol, along with
(09:43):
other children, were headed to that store, and Brenda specifically
had candy in mind. Pixie sticks were her favorite. When
they arrived at the corner store, all the other kids
had more money than Brenda, so the other kids decided
that they would head back and get another nickel for Brenda,
so they'd all be able to get ten cents worth
of candy. Brenda decided to wait at the store, and
(10:06):
when her friends returned just a few minutes later, they
could see her bicycle out front, leaning up on the
side of the building, But inside there was no Brenda,
and no one had seen where the six year old
had gone. It wouldn't be until dinnertime when the children
of the White family were all called in and mother
Alice noticed that her daughter was missing. Neighbors and relatives
(10:27):
began searching for Brenda. Bobby White, Brenda's dad, would race
home from Saint Louis, where he worked for Western Electric
as a telephone installer, to join the search efforts for Brenda.
After two hours of unsuccessfully searching, her parents decided it
was time to call the police and report their daughter missing.
An official search was under way immediately, and with this
(10:48):
being the second young girl to vanish in the area,
the public was on edge. Mothers in both towns were
afraid that their little girl would be the next one
to disappear. As the searches ramped up, more than four
hundred people began looking for Brenda, and one of those
searchers was James Elwell, the father of the first girl
to go missing, Judith. It seemed that these two families
(11:10):
would now be forever connected. As more and more people
began to speculate that the two cases were connected. Members
of law enforcement were having the same conversations was the
same person responsible for both cases. Neighbors began to turn
on each other with accusations, and rumors were running rampant.
Police were again facing the situation where no solid leads
(11:32):
were panning out in the search for Brenda, and another
similar trend surfaced where there was talk of a black
car in Judith's disappearance. Brenda's disappearance also has a car
that might be involved. A woman came forward and said
that she was being followed by a man in a
white car. She told police she was sure that this
man was waiting for the right opportunity to attack her.
(11:54):
This lead turned up nothing, as they couldn't locate the
vehicle or the man that the woman was talking about. Interestingly,
a neighborhood boy was interviewed by police and he told
them that he saw Brenda get into a white car
with a man and drive off on the day that
she vanished. Police didn't believe his story, as the timeframe
that he gave for that sighting was well before Brenda
(12:16):
was actually last seen at the store. Then, Brenda's best
friend Carol claimed that she saw a white car drive
away from the store as they were heading back, So
where the black car in Judith's story was only witnessed
by her brother Mark. In Brenda's story, we have a
white car being brought up by several people. Could this
car have actually been involved? Once again, we may never know,
(12:38):
as neither the vehicle nor the driver has ever been
identified and located. The search continued for both Brenda and Judith,
and days turned into months with no sign of either child.
But on November eighteenth, nineteen sixty seven, hunters would come
across a skull while out in a field. Police would
search the area, locating more bones in a sh shallow grave.
(13:01):
They also found a pair of panties, blonde hair, and
a crumpled up gray dress with a flower print on it.
These remains were found eleven miles away from Brenda's family
home in a field near an abandoned house. That house
had been abandoned for at least five years, but inside
police found two dirty white shirts, two pairs of men's pants,
(13:22):
and a badly damaged straw hat. In the basement, they
would find a piece of cloth hung from a nail.
Some people believed that this may have been used to
tie someone up, but law enforcement has never confirmed that conjecture.
It is also unclear if any of the items that
the police did find in the house were actually related
to Brenda's murder. However, someone would certainly be able to
(13:43):
confirm if the dress was hers the person that made
the dress. Brenda's mother, Alice, was asked to identify it,
and in that moment, she knew that her life was
never going to be the same. There were many similarities
in both girls cases. They were both going to start
first grade, both came from working class families, They were
(14:04):
both around the same height and wait. The girls both
knew their phone numbers and were taught not to talk
to strangers. They were both taken on a Thursday and
in broad daylight. They lived less than twenty miles apart.
It's a set of circumstances that certainly raises the question
about the cases being connected, but that leads to other questions.
(14:24):
Were they taken by someone that they were both connected to,
or someone that they both knew. Were these simply crimes
of opportunity. In over fifty years, no outcome has been
completely ruled out in their case, and while some people
think that it was no coincidence and it was the
same person responsible for both abductions, others aren't so sure.
(14:45):
Their families never stopped wanting answers, but obviously to very
different questions. Lola and James desperately wanted to know what
happened to Judith and if she would ever be found.
Bobby and Alice wanted to know who took the life
of Brenda and if they would ever se justice. Lola
Elwell would pass away from breast cancer just six years
after her daughter vanished. James had a hard time holding
(15:08):
down a job as he had lost his daughter and
then his wife. He has also since passed away. Mark
still misses his sister and hopes to have answers one day.
For the White family, life had to go on. Some
of Brenda's siblings were just too young to remember her,
and some of the others say that what happened to
her was just never talked about. It was too hard
(15:30):
on their parents and on them. In twenty thirteen, Troy Fiesen,
a private investigator from Lawton, Oklahoma, would come out saying
that he knows who took Judith and who murdered Brenda.
He had come across Judith's case while researching another case,
and from there began connecting Judith and Brenda's cases. He
requested to see the case files for both, only to
(15:53):
find out that police no longer had Brenda's case file
it had been lost in a flood. Judith's case file
was missing as well, although it's unclear what exactly happened
to hers. Troy would start from the beginning and said
that the more he dug, the more everything came back
to the same man who lived in hera near where
Brenda's body was found. He says that this man was
(16:15):
considered a suspect in nineteen sixty seven, but he was
a teenager back then and cleared by police all those
years ago. Troy has never publicly released the name of
this man because he is only eighty percent positive that
he's correct. Another possible clue to this mystery comes up
at a very unexpected place. Brenda's obituary on find agrave
(16:37):
dot Com says something quite interesting. Brenda had a loyal
little friend who had a father that was involved in
Brenda's death. This little friend, now a woman, has been
telling what happened for a long time. Her father passed away,
having stolen the lives of many before his passing in
many different ways, never serving a day in jail for
(16:58):
what he did. Brenda can't come back. We're just going
to have to be good enough to make it to
Heaven to see her there. It's unclear if this statement
has ever been looked into by law enforcement. With both
girls being taken in broad daylight during the summer, one
would think that someone would have seen something, and maybe
(17:18):
they did and they were just too afraid to come forward.
Maybe all these years later, that person can find the
strength to stand up and be the voice for these
two little girls. Although the parents have passed on, there
are still other family members searching for Judith and waiting
for justice for Brenda. If you have any information regarding
(17:38):
Judith Marie L. Well, please contact Oklahoma City Police at
four oh five seven three nine one three one seven
and refer to case number zero seven DASH zero six
nine three one seven. If you have any information regarding
Brenda Lois White. Please contact the Midwest City Police Department
at four zero five seven thirty nine one three zero six.
(18:01):
Do you have any comments or a case you'd like
to suggest, feel free to send it to me. You'll
find a comment form and case submission link at lordenarts
dot com. Thank you, The Dough Network, Cold Case Oklahoma City,
The Oklahoma, The Charlie Project, Oklahoma Coldcase Newspapers dot Com,
True Crimediba Websleuths NamUs, track Missing dot org, find agrave
(18:22):
dot com, Facebook, and Wikipedia for information contributing to today's story.
This episode was written by The Roracle, edited by John Lordon,
and produced by Lordenarts. Thank you to our audience here
for the live recording session hosted on the YouTube channel
Lordenart's Studio two Special. Thanks to Seriously Mysterious Financial supporters
(18:42):
Susie B. Jones, Kira McQueen, Chaz Robert Martin, Kelly E,
and Mike W. Most of all, thank you for listening.
I'm John Lorden. Please join me again next week for
another case that I know you'll find seriously mysterious
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