Cold and Missing: Joan Gay Croft

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The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts.

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All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

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Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages and is intended for a mature

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audience.

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Listener discretion is advised.

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Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing.

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I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski.

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And unfortunately my co-host, my husband Eli Sulkowski is a little busy this week so he

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won't be able to join us.

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But I still wanted to bring you either a cold case or an unresolved missing person case,

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just like I do every week on Cold and Missing.

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This week I wanted to bring you the case of Joan Gay Croft.

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And this takes place in April of 1947 in Woodward, Oklahoma.

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But first a little bit about Joan Gay.

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Joan Gay in 1947 is four years old.

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She was born October 28th, 1942.

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So today she would be 80 years old.

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Her family described her as very bashful.

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She had blonde hair and blue eyes, and she had some faint small pock scars on her arms

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as well as a few on her forehead.

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She most likely has a scar on her right calf from the injuries sustained the night she

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went missing.

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At four years old, she could talk, but according to her father, Olin Croft, quote,

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She talked plainly for a child her age, but she was bashful around strangers, and I doubt

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a stranger could understand her when she pronounced her name.

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It sounded more like Joe Gay when she said it.

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End quote.

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So now we'll get into the timeline of events.

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On Wednesday, April 9th, 1947, that evening, Joan Gay was getting ready for bed with her

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sister and mother when the deadliest tornado in Oklahoma history ripped through Woodward,

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Oklahoma.

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The tornado started in Texas and ripped through Oklahoma and Kansas, but it was at its strongest

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in Oklahoma.

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It was rated an F5.

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In 1947, there were no tornado sirens, and to further complicate matters, the local telephone

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operators were on strike, so no one could be warned that the storm was coming.

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This storm is so bad that it's reported that birds do not return to the area for over

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a month.

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As the storm hits, chaos erupts.

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According to Joan Gay's grandfather, quote,

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The family ran out into the yard so the house wouldn't fall on them.

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They never thought of the flying pieces of house and such things.

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End quote.

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And that's Hutchinson Croft.

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Again, Joan Gay's grandfather.

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The entire Croft home is destroyed, and Joan Gay's parents are hurt.

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Her mother, Cleeta, is killed in the storm, and her father, Olin, originally is listed

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in the newspapers as dead, but he was found clinging to life.

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He'll actually be one of the first rushed out of Woodward when ambulances begin to arrive.

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Shortly after the storm, a neighbor, and I do apologize here, it was not reported her

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name, she's just reported as a Mrs. Clyde Taylor, finds Joan Gay and her sister, Jerry,

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in the wreckage.

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Both are in their pajamas.

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Both girls have cuts to their head, but are conscious.

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Joan Gay also has a wood splinter that had pierced her right calf.

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And there is some debate, or I don't want to say debate, but later it's reported that

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it's her left leg.

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Here I'm going to go with her right leg, because that's what is originally reported

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in the newspapers in 1947, so that's the information I'm going to go with.

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The neighbor pulls the girls from the wreckage and takes them to the Woodward Memorial Hospital.

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Joan Gay and Jerry are both admitted, but were quickly tagged to go to another hospital

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in Oklahoma City.

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Joan Gay and Jerry are placed on the same cot and put in the basement with other people

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waiting to be transported.

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There are some conflicting reports if family were able to find Jerry and Joan Gay that

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evening.

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An aunt in interviews years later will say that she did see the girls in the basement

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before leaving that evening to continue volunteering in search and rescue efforts.

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But their father will say family missed them because they didn't know people had been

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taken to the basement.

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That evening at the hospital, two white men dressed in khakis entered Woodward Memorial

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Hospital.

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It's reported that the men specifically asked where the Croft children were.

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Jerry said, quote, two men came into the basement and got Joan Gay.

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It was still dark.

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Joan Gay cried.

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She said she wanted to stay with her sister, end quote.

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The men put Joan Gay on a stretcher.

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It's likely her leg was still injured as no hospital staff remember treating it or taking

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care of it.

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The men then carried her out to a waiting car.

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According to her grandfather, Roy Gable, quote, a nurse on duty at the hospital said two men

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came in and carried Joan Gay out.

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They told the nurse they were taking her out of this mess and going to care for her in

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Washington.

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That was about two hours after the storm, end quote.

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This will also be repeated that these men told staff at the hospital that they were

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taking her to a hospital in Oklahoma City where her family was.

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So those are two stories, but this quote is pulled from newspapers at the time.

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The next day, Thursday, April 10th, Olin, Joan Gay's father, is still in the hospital

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in Oklahoma City.

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And Joan Gay's uncle goes to the hospital to wash the girls and only finds that Jerry

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is there.

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Jerry will ultimately be transferred to another hospital at around 11 a.m. that morning.

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So I think that does support that maybe the aunt did make contact with the girls the night

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before because an uncle was able to come the next day.

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So I think there is some support that it was confirmed that family saw Joan Gay in the

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hospital besides Jerry, her sister.

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On Friday, April 11th, Olin is released from the hospital and immediately begins to look

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for his family.

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In the following days after the storm, lots of funerals are held around town, including

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Joan Gay's mother, Cleta.

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Newspapers will continue to report Joan Gay as missing, but most will fail to mention

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she went missing after the storm.

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Lots of people were still missing at this time from the storm itself.

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On Sunday, April 20th, so this is a few weeks after the storm, the State Safety Department

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began to worry that Joan Gay was buried under the wrong identity.

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The acting Highway Patrol chief H.B. Lowry said, quote, The last we knew of Joan Gay,

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she was lying among the injured on the floor of the hospital.

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Of course, it was dark in there and the confusion was terrible.

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She may have died and being carried to the morgue along with dozens of other bodies,

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end quote.

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The family and State Safety Department had checked all hospitals in Oklahoma and neighboring

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states as well, and there was no trace of Joan Gay.

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The family believe that Joan Gay's platinum blonde hair could have been darkened from

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the storm since the same thing happened to her mother.

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It'll take weeks for police to fully focus all their efforts on Joan Gay because of the

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storm.

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In June, this is about two months since Joan Gay has been missing.

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Olin Croft says, quote, I don't know what to do now.

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The Red Cross and Highway Patrol are still working on it.

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I asked the FBI for help, but they said they would not have jurisdiction unless there was

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positive proof of a kidnapping, end quote, which there does seem like there's proof

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of it if two men came and the sisters testifying to this and hospital staff are.

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I'm not sure why the FBI didn't get involved right away.

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In July, so around three months, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol asked for help from Kansas,

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Colorado, Texas and New Mexico to join in the search for Joan Gay.

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I noticed here that in these states that Oklahoma requested looking for Joan Gay, Washington's

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state is missing.

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And there is that quote from the grandfather that these men possibly took her to Washington.

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So I thought that was pretty notable that Washington was left out of the state search.

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August of 1947, so four months now, police reveal that they have tracked down several

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leads, but they have all fizzled out.

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Olin will also take Jerry around this time and move out of Oklahoma, but he'll never

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stop searching for Joan Gay.

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On the one year anniversary of the tornado and Joan Gay going missing, April 9th, 1948,

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Major Lowry of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol says that there has been no trace of the girl,

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but is encouraging his staff to work the case until she's home.

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Police are also ruling out that she was buried under the wrong identity, and all of the unidentified

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children had been loosely ID'd except for a 12 year old girl.

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Joan Gay's family continued to search for her at playgrounds, summer resorts, everywhere,

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the family said.

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Bess Irwin was a nurse on duty the night that the storm hit.

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And she says, quote, You will of course realize the terrible confusion we were in.

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The electricity was off and we worked by candlelight most of the night.

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The hospital was completely filled within the hour and emergency units had been set

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up in various buildings in the city.

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The incident is vague to me now.

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It is true that two men stopped me in the hall and remarked they were taking a small

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child with them.

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I cannot state what they said, but I do recall I wondered why they should even bother at

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the time, end quote.

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And then that's truly it for a while.

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The newspapers every year on the anniversary of the tornado hit will usually run Joan Gay's

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story.

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And it truly is the same story year over year.

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They just kind of update the age that Joan Gay would be that year.

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In April of 1979, so this is 30 years that Joan Gay has been missing.

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Joan Gay's sister, Jerry says, quote, Granted, it would be more than a joy if Joan Gay was

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found through one of these stories.

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But chance is less than one in a million, end quote.

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And then in the 90s, the story enters the media again.

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On September 22, 1993, the season six premiere of Unsolved Mysteries, the original Unsolved

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Mysteries features Joan Gay's story.

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A woman from Phoenix, Arizona believes she's Joan Gay and not without good reason.

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She says her earliest memory is of chaos and a lot of bloody people.

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And she was also able to prove that her birth certificate is fake and that her parents were

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not her biological parents.

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And she also had a scar on her leg.

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She gets in contact with the family and the family begins to believe that this is Joan

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Gay and the producers of Unsolved Mysteries will actually pay for a DNA test.

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But the DNA test will prove that this woman is not Joan Gay.

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Over the years, hundreds of women will actually come forward after this Unsolved Mysteries

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episode airs.

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But a lot will quickly be ruled out by the family or they'll want money or they'll

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just stop talking.

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So a lot get ruled out over the years.

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And in 1998, a woman from Canada emerged that did seem like she could be Joan Gay.

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She says her family often told stories of a tornado wiping away their home when she

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was a little girl.

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But this woman will also have items with the Croft name on it, specifically Olin Croft's

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name, which was Joan Gay's father.

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Ultimately, though, through a DNA test, she will be ruled out too.

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In May of 2016, police put family DNA into the NamUs database and into CODIS, hoping

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to learn Joan Gay's fate.

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But there has not been a hit and there hasn't really been any updates since then.

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If you know anything about what happened to Joan Gay Croft in April of 1947, you are encouraged

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to call the Woodward Police at 580-254-8535.

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And the sources for today's podcast come from the Woodward Daily Press, the Ind Daily Eagle,

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the Blackwell Journal Tribune, Fairview Republican, the Daily Oklahoman, Tulsa World, the Alva

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Review Courier, the Tulsa Tribune, the Duncan Banner, the Brandenton Herald, Weather.gov,

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and Unsolved Mysteries.

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But that is the story of Joan Gay Croft.

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And this is one that I actually came across last week as I was researching Jeremy Toll's,

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the episode that we covered last week.

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And this really stuck with me, just kind of the chaos of the tornado night and this child

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going missing.

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But also, it didn't seem random.

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If what is reported is true, these men came in and specifically asked for Joan Gay, which

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makes it seem like it was targeted.

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And yeah, it's like, why this night?

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Why this time?

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How did they know?

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There's a lot of questions.

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But one thing that is persistent in all the reporting is that two men, two white men,

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wearing khakis.

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And that has been from the beginning until 2016.

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Those have been elements of the story that have not changed.

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But again, if you know anything, please call the Woodward Police at 580-254-8535.

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If you are enjoying Cold and Missing and would like to keep up with us, Instagram is a great

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place to do that.

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You can follow us.

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We're just at Cold and Missing.

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You can search it and we'll pop up.

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And we post stories.

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I was able to find some photos of Joan Gay, so we'll be posting those throughout the week.

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And we also, in our story, post lots of active cases and active missing person cases.

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So always a really great resource.

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