Beverly Potts
1951 10 years old shy quiet girl
aug 24 1951 took her friend to the park they went after dark because there was a show. her friend patsy left at 9:30 but Beverly didn’t have to be home till 10 so she stayed a 13-year-old boy said he saw Beverly that night around 9:30 once the show ended. saw her walking diagonally northeast which is the quickest way home. The boy said that he knew for sure that it was her because she walked a duck like way due to her feet turned inward she walked a certian way
Some whitnesses say they saw what they think was a girl that looked like Beverly by a black 1937 Dodge. inside the car were 2 men which the girl was speaking to. No one said that they got in the car with them.
She was a super shy girl and that normally would run away from strangers so this was odd if it was her.
She didn’t come home at 10:30 her parents called police they did searches for days but nothing became of it. The case got a lot of media attention tho.
Beverleys sisters and parents were ruled out as suspects.
The family speculated that it might of been someone that she knew. No plausable suspect was found.
She was warned at a young age about men but maybe not a female which makes a lot of people wonder if she was acutally lured by a female not a male. Would a female be more trusting for a shy 10 year old girl?
There have been several suspects and confessions to her disappearance.
In 1955, Harvey Lee Rush, a drifter and Cleveland native, told police in California that he had killed Potts after luring her to a nearby bridge with candy; however he placed the murder in 1952, a year after Potts’ actual disappearance. Rush recanted his entire story shortly after being extradited to Cleveland, saying that he had confessed merely as a way to get back to his hometown
In 1980, two retired Cleveland police detectives, James Fuerst and Robert Shankland, revealed that in 1974 they had received a tip from a local attorney with a client whose brother had supposedly confessed to abducting Potts. The detectives subsequently found and questioned the brother, who, they said, had readily admitted to having lived near Halloran Park in 1951 and making a habit of picking up and molesting young girls there. The man did not remember abducting Potts in particular, but said he had “flashes” of memory involving a girl named Beverly. Fuerst and Shankland were convinced the man was guilty, but the county prosecutors’ office refused to pursue the case, citing a lack of evidence
William Henry Redmond, an Ohio native and former carnival worker, was indicted in 1988 for the 1951 Pennsylvania murder of eight-year-old Jane Marie Althoff.[7] While in prison, Redmond reportedly told a cellmate that he had killed three other young girls. When questioned about the Potts case in particular, Redmond refused to make a statement one way or the other. He was in the general area at the time of Potts’ disappearance and had a record of child molestation convictions dating back to 1935; however Potts would have been considerably older than his previous victims
In 1994, a letter was discovered under a carpet in a Cleveland house, written by a woman who claimed to have caught her husband disposing of Potts’ body in their furnace. Upon being traced and questioned by police, the woman said that the allegation was false; she had written the letter solely as a revenge fantasy against her abusive husband.[8]
More letters were sent to reporter Brent Larkin of the Cleveland Plain Dealer beginning in 2000, purporting to be from an elderly and infirm man who claimed that he wanted to confess to molesting and murdering Potts before his imminent death. The anonymous author pledged to turn himself in on August 24, 2001, the fiftieth anniversary of Potts’ disappearancebut shortly beforehand wrote again to say he had to enter a nursing home and would be unable to honor his promise or otherwise reveal himself. An extensive investigation failed to turn up any clues to the author’s identity; Larkin now believes the letters to have been a hoax.
William R. Slates. He was placed on a one year probation in 1949 by making advances on a eight year old girl and a psychologist deemed him an “inadequate personality, mildly neurotic” and said he’s clearly in need of “psycho therapy treatment”. He lived with his widowed mother on West 166 St near Halloran Park (where Beverly was probably taken from).
This is taken from the book: “According to the neighbors, the man had suddenly locked up the house and vanished the Sunday after Beverly’s disappearance”. Furthermore — “For some strange reason never adequately explained, “Bill” (his nickname), had borrowed a friend’s car on Sunday and driven to Columbus, where he took up temporary residence in a hotel”.
There’s more info in the book but ultimately he did end up failing a lie detector test, his two friends gave conflicting account’s of Bill’s actions on the night of Aug 24, and more.
Dusk and Shadows The mystery of Beverly Potts
Beverleys mother died in 1956 over what her sister say was heartbreak over never finding her sister they still continue to search for answers until her own death in 2006
In [an] early August telephone call, an unknown person provided pieces of information about a possible suspect in Beverly’s disappearance from Halloran Park on Cleveland’s West Side on the night of Aug. 24, 1951.
Police investigated the information provided by the caller and found it to be accurate. But they need more, so they’ve increased the standard Crime Stoppers reward to $15,000 from the standard $2,500.
“The major part of our most recent tip is very intriguing,” said Rich McIntosh, Crime Stoppers interim director. “A piece of it was specific enough to check out, but we need more specificity to proceed. Our investigators need this person to call back.”
One response to “Beverly Potts”
Very good info thanks so much!