Elsie Mae Roane, 16, was last seen in West Point, Virginia, the night of May 20, 1957. A local police officer spotted her around 11:00 p.m. standing at Main Street and Seventh Street with two suitcases. A sophomore at West Point High School, she lived on Fifth Street with her adoptive father, Harry Roane; her adoptive mother had died of breast cancer two years earlier.

Her father worked nights and did not realize she was missing for three days, delaying the alert to police. Friends said a male acquaintance spoke with her the night she disappeared and she planned to stay at a female friend’s house but never arrived. Rumors at the time suggested she might have been pregnant. The last bus had left more than an hour before she was seen and there were no taxis in town that night.

The case remained unsolved. In 2012 investigators reinterviewed witnesses and identified a male person of interest about Elsie’s age; a classmate, Lloyd Hodges, was questioned decades later and denied a romance with Elsie, then died in 2023. The officer who last saw her, Billy Haigler, drew scrutiny; he left the force three months after her disappearance and died in 1969. Anyone who knew Elsie or has information about that night is asked to come forward.