Speaker 1: Hello, friends. Steve Stockton here brand new in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we're going to take a look at
Speaker 1: some bizarre disappearances from hospitals. Joined me, Let's walk and see.
Speaker 1: First up, we have the story of Joan gay Kroft.
Speaker 1: On April ninth, nineteen forty seven, the deadliest tornado ever
Speaker 1: hit Oklahoma went raging through parts of the state. A
Speaker 1: monstrous and deadly Class F five was a mouse fream
Speaker 1: of wind and debris, and it ripped through parts of Texas, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: and Kansas. At some point, it blew a path through
Speaker 1: the town of Woodward, Oklahoma, leaving in its way chaos, destruction, tragedy,
Speaker 1: and death. In the end, one hundred and eighty five
Speaker 1: people were deceased, a thousand more were injured, and it
Speaker 1: was the beginning and one of the strangest unsolved mysteries
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma's history. Although many people tragically lost their lives
Speaker 1: to the whirling cyclone of death, there were many many
Speaker 1: more who were spared. One of those who was lucky
Speaker 1: enough to escape death clutches was a four year old
Speaker 1: named Joan Gaycroft. Joan's mother had been killed in the
Speaker 1: natural disaster and her stepfather had been critically injured, but
Speaker 1: Joan herself had come away from the brush with death
Speaker 1: with a non life threatening injury in the form of
Speaker 1: a piece of wood that penetrated her leg. She was
Speaker 1: found and rushed to the hospital for treatment, along with
Speaker 1: her sister Jerry, who had also suffered non life threatening injuries.
Speaker 1: There was obviously a huge influx of seriously injured people,
Speaker 1: some on the brink of death due to the storm,
Speaker 1: and so the girls were quickly and easily treated and
Speaker 1: then relegated to the basement of the overcrowded hospital, as
Speaker 1: had been transformed into a shelter where many refugees from
Speaker 1: the tornado were being housed and treated. They were there
Speaker 1: for a night, and things were chaotic and sad, but
Speaker 1: they got through it together. The next day, two men
Speaker 1: in what were described as khaki army uniforms went into
Speaker 1: the hospital and made their way down to the basement.
Speaker 1: They went straight for Joan and tried escorting her out
Speaker 1: of the basement in front of everyone else, which by
Speaker 1: now was at least a few hundred people. Despite the
Speaker 1: little girl's loud protests and screaming, they knew who she
Speaker 1: was because when they first entered the basement, they'd ask
Speaker 1: a member the overworked and overtired staff who she was.
Speaker 1: Asked for her by name, specifically, and the staff member
Speaker 1: pointed her out. They didn't seem to be interested in anyone,
Speaker 1: but the four year old girl, Joanes, screamed and cried,
Speaker 1: pleading with the men not to make her leave her sister,
Speaker 1: and the men patiently comforted her, telling her that they
Speaker 1: were friends and that she would be back there in
Speaker 1: just a few hours to collect Jerry so they could
Speaker 1: be brought to wherever they were going together. The hospital
Speaker 1: staff realized what was going on after seeing the commotion
Speaker 1: and tried their best to intervene, and as they did,
Speaker 1: the men were very calm and composed, seemingly very professional,
Speaker 1: and they then explained that they were merely taking the girls,
Speaker 1: Joan first and then Jerry, to another hospital where the
Speaker 1: girl's relators were waiting for them. Somehow, the men were
Speaker 1: allowed to leave with the little girl, as apparently that
Speaker 1: explanation was deemed good enough for whoever was in charge,
Speaker 1: But no one ever returned with Joan, and she was
Speaker 1: never seen or heard from again. Nobody ever saw the
Speaker 1: two men again either. Eventually, it was discovered that Joan
Speaker 1: had vanished and had more than likely been abducted, and
Speaker 1: when that happened, a major manhunt was launched for but
Speaker 1: it turned up almost nothing at all. In fact, her
Speaker 1: kidnappers have never been identified and no trace of them
Speaker 1: or Joan has ever been found. The case gained international coverage,
Speaker 1: which meant it was a big deal at the time,
Speaker 1: a time when most cases didn't get much further than
Speaker 1: the local media and news, and in the years to
Speaker 1: come it spawned many anniversary articles asking what could have
Speaker 1: happened to the little girl and who her alleged abductors
Speaker 1: were were. On May nineteen ninety three, the case was
Speaker 1: covered on the show Unsolved Mysteries, and it featured a
Speaker 1: full dramatic reenactment of the whole bizarre event. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: many women have come forward throughout the years claiming to
Speaker 1: be the adult Joan gay Craft, but those leads have
Speaker 1: never gone anywhere, and all the women have been ruled out,
Speaker 1: either genetically or by some other means. In nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: a woman came forward to the editor of the newspaper
Speaker 1: The Oklahoma claiming to be Joan, but she then ceased
Speaker 1: all communication after the initial contact and failed to show
Speaker 1: up for the planned meeting with the editor. This happened
Speaker 1: again with a woman living in Canada, and obviously no
Speaker 1: one knows whether or not either of those women would
Speaker 1: have been the long lost little girl. Despite dozens of
Speaker 1: women throughout the decades who claimed to be the little girl,
Speaker 1: none of them have ever proven to be, and that
Speaker 1: leaves us with nothing but theories to go on. As
Speaker 1: Joan gay Croft is still listed as a missing p
Speaker 1: most people believe she was kidnapped due to obvious reasons,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't explain the series of bizarre events that
Speaker 1: happened leading up to the alleged abduction. Who were the men,
Speaker 1: how do they know about Joan, who she was and
Speaker 1: where she was? Why were they specifically looking for her
Speaker 1: out of the dozens of other kids who have been
Speaker 1: orphaned or at least stranded in the shelter to the
Speaker 1: devastation of the tornado, And why not take her sister too?
Speaker 1: They knew her name and so they must have known
Speaker 1: at least of her. But what do they want and
Speaker 1: how were they able to publicly take her yet leave
Speaker 1: behind no clues or traces and never be seen again
Speaker 1: For their part, Jon's family believes that some other family
Speaker 1: lost their daughter in the disaster and wanted to replace
Speaker 1: her with Joan. But just like everything else, there's never
Speaker 1: been any proof to that theory. Simply put, no one
Speaker 1: knows what happened to Joan Gaycroft, and more than likely
Speaker 1: no one ever will. Next up, we have Jerry Irwin.
Speaker 1: Another strange vanishing that has more than just a little
Speaker 1: bizarre and unexplained element to it is the disappearance of
Speaker 1: Private first Class Jerry Irwin. On March two, nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: Jerry woke up at a hospital in Cedar City, Utah,
Speaker 1: with no memory of how he ended up there in
Speaker 1: the first place. He had reportedly been unconscious for twenty
Speaker 1: three hours, during which time he had been talking in
Speaker 1: his sleep and saying something about the jacket on the brush.
Speaker 1: When he came to, he asked the hospital staff if
Speaker 1: there were any survivors, but no one knew what he
Speaker 1: meant by that survivors of what no one knew, including
Speaker 1: Jerry himself. Finally, though, he became lucid enough to tell
Speaker 1: his story and it seemed like his memory was coming
Speaker 1: back to him. He told the staff that he had
Speaker 1: just been off on a leave of absence and on
Speaker 1: his way home from Napa, Idaho, going to Fort Bliss
Speaker 1: in El Paso, Texas, where he was stationed. He said
Speaker 1: he was a technician for Nike Missiles and that after
Speaker 1: he had reached Cedar City, he had been driving along
Speaker 1: Route fourteen when he looked up and saw what he
Speaker 1: described as a strange pulsating object in the sky. He
Speaker 1: pulled over and got out of his car to try
Speaker 1: and get a closer look at what he was seeing,
Speaker 1: and he thought that at first it was a large
Speaker 1: airplane coming in for possible emergency landing. Jerry then wrote
Speaker 1: a note, which he put on his car windshield that said,
Speaker 1: have gone to investigate possible plane crash. Please call it
Speaker 1: law enforcement officers. He also scrawled the word stop on
Speaker 1: the side of his vehicle to try and get whoever
Speaker 1: was passing by to stop and read the note, thereby
Speaker 1: calling attention to it and alerting the authorities about it.
Speaker 1: He simply scrawled the word stop and shoe polish and
Speaker 1: then walked off to investigate the strange side of the sky.
Speaker 1: A fishing game inspector came along and found the note.
Speaker 1: Some time later, and after alerting the Sheriff's office. A
Speaker 1: search party was launched both for Jerry and for the
Speaker 1: alleged plane crash claimed to have gone to investigate. When
Speaker 1: he was brought to the hospital, no one could understand
Speaker 1: why he was completely out cold and unable to be
Speaker 1: woken up by any of the usual means, and there
Speaker 1: also seemed to be nothing physically wrong with him either.
Speaker 1: When he did finally wake up, he claimed that his
Speaker 1: jacket was missing, but that he otherwise felt perfectly normal,
Speaker 1: if not a little tired and confused. He was then
Speaker 1: transferred to William Beaumont Hospital at Fort Bliss so that
Speaker 1: there he could be observed for four days, and after
Speaker 1: that he was put back on duty and into circulation.
Speaker 1: Not too long after continuing his duties, Jerry began suffering
Speaker 1: random fainting spells while on duty, and fearing for his health,
Speaker 1: his superiors at the base made him go and get
Speaker 1: evaluated again at the hospital. He fainted again, and when
Speaker 1: he woke up at the hospital he was said to
Speaker 1: have been in a similar state to when he had
Speaker 1: first been there a few weeks earlier. He woke up
Speaker 1: suddenly panicked and once again started asking king The hospital
Speaker 1: staff if there had been any survivors. It seemed like
Speaker 1: he was having some sort of flashback, and when he
Speaker 1: woke up that time, he thought he'd been waking up originally,
Speaker 1: meaning Jerry Irwin was completely unaware that any time had
Speaker 1: passed at all between when he left a note on
Speaker 1: his car and woke up. He didn't know he'd been
Speaker 1: on duty for all those weeks, or that he had
Speaker 1: been feigning he had no memory at all the previous weeks,
Speaker 1: and in his mind, had only just gone to investigate
Speaker 1: a possible plane crash. He was kept at the hospital
Speaker 1: for a full month for observation, and was then once
Speaker 1: again released back on base into active duty. The very
Speaker 1: next day, he suddenly left base without permission and got
Speaker 1: on a bus to al Passo, stopping at Cedar City
Speaker 1: and disembarking. He then headed directly to where he had
Speaker 1: originally parked his car on the side of the road
Speaker 1: and to the same area where he had originally been
Speaker 1: investigating what he thought was a possible plane crash. He
Speaker 1: apparently found his jacket and inside one of the pockets
Speaker 1: was a pencil shown inside of a buttonhole with a
Speaker 1: piece of paper entwined around it. Jerry purportedly burned the paper,
Speaker 1: but then came out of whatever trance he was seemingly in,
Speaker 1: then returned to the road. He was picked up there
Speaker 1: by the local sheriff. The sheriff told Jerry what had
Speaker 1: happened to him, but he had no recollection at all
Speaker 1: of leaving the base where as to why he had
Speaker 1: traveled back to that very spot. He also had no
Speaker 1: idea what was on the paper that he burned, or
Speaker 1: why he had burned it in the first place. Jerry
Speaker 1: Irwin was subjected to another extensive psychological evaluation, but when
Speaker 1: no further answers could be found, a deeper analysis was ordered.
Speaker 1: He was once again put into Beaumont Hospital for tests
Speaker 1: an additional evaluation, but then he was almost immediately released again.
Speaker 1: As soon as he was released, he once again went
Speaker 1: a wall without any warning, and he hasn't been seen
Speaker 1: or heard from since. So what happened to Jerry Irwin?
Speaker 1: And why was he seemingly so obsessed with that particular
Speaker 1: location on the side of the road, Why had he
Speaker 1: gone back there? What happened to him initially that made
Speaker 1: it so? He was so knocked out that even the
Speaker 1: usual methods of waking someone up from a stupor proved
Speaker 1: useless when used on him. How and why had he
Speaker 1: been so entranced that he had no memory returning to
Speaker 1: that spot, or why he had burned that piece of paper.
Speaker 1: If he was tranced or knocked out or both, then
Speaker 1: by whom and why? There's so many questions here, but
Speaker 1: with no answers, it's impossible to understand mostly anything about
Speaker 1: this case and what happened to Jerry himself after he
Speaker 1: went missing again? Why was he continuously released from the hospital,
Speaker 1: and if it was really because nothing could be found
Speaker 1: to be wrong with him, then what was going on
Speaker 1: with him? One of the main questions is how did
Speaker 1: he end up that hospital in the first place, But again,
Speaker 1: we'll probably never know, and there's been no new information
Speaker 1: about this case, though conspiracies and rumors run ramping around it.
Speaker 1: Still to this day, Jerry Irwin is still listed as
Speaker 1: a missing person. Next Benita Chamberlain. On February thirteenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight, a young mother to be named Benita Chamberlain,
Speaker 1: who was only twenty four years old, arrived at the
Speaker 1: Sacred Heart General Hospital in Eugene, Oregon, seemingly in labor
Speaker 1: and ready to give birth her baby girl. Benita had
Speaker 1: gone into labor five weeks early, and the premature infant
Speaker 1: was immediately put into intensive care as she fought for
Speaker 1: her life for a week. Beanita dealt with it wonderfully
Speaker 1: by all accounts, and when she went back to the
Speaker 1: hospital to visit her little girl after having been released
Speaker 1: herself a few days earlier, she was told that her
Speaker 1: daughter was doing great and was becoming very strong and healthy.
Speaker 1: In fact, the baby girl was doing so well that
Speaker 1: the hospital surprised Benita by telling her she would be
Speaker 1: able to take her daughter home that afternoon. Benita was incredible,
Speaker 1: be excited and relieved, and she immediately went and called
Speaker 1: a friend to tell them the good news. That was
Speaker 1: the last time anyone ever heard from her. When she
Speaker 1: didn't return home that night, she was supported dismissing and
Speaker 1: the authorities launched a search. Her car was quickly found,
Speaker 1: and it seemingly had been abandoned at a nearby bottling factory,
Speaker 1: and it didn't take long for them to find her purse,
Speaker 1: which had been discarded in the parking lot of the
Speaker 1: University of Oregon. The last time anyone saw she was
Speaker 1: driving out of the parking lot of the hospital after
Speaker 1: being given the good news about her daughter. Her newborn daughter,
Speaker 1: and Benita's two oldest daughters were all left behind with
Speaker 1: no answers and without their mother. Authorities thought they saw
Speaker 1: the mystery a week later when they made a gruesome discovery.
Speaker 1: They found the remains of a murdered woman stuffed into
Speaker 1: a plastic bag and then dumped into a garbage bed. However,
Speaker 1: it turned out to be someone different and had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with Benita. So what happened to Anita Chamberlain
Speaker 1: is still a mystery to this day, and she is
Speaker 1: still considered a missing person. Next Tavish Sutton, an equally
Speaker 1: strange disappearance happened on March sixth, nineteen ninety three, when
Speaker 1: a one month old baby named Tavish Sutton was admitted
Speaker 1: to the Hughes Spaulding Pediatric Unit of Grady Memorial Hospital
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, Georgia. Tavish had been admitted in order to
Speaker 1: have an abscess removed, and after a routine minor surgery,
Speaker 1: he was sent into a semi private room to recuperate
Speaker 1: and rest because his mother was being treated for psychiatric
Speaker 1: problems at a mental institution at the time. Tavish was
Speaker 1: released back into the custody of the Department of Child
Speaker 1: and Family Services, as he had been living with a
Speaker 1: foster family since he was released from the hospital after
Speaker 1: being born. His biological mother didn't even know her new
Speaker 1: baby was having surgery or that he had been admitted
Speaker 1: into the hospital that day. Three days after that surgery,
Speaker 1: Tavish Sutton would vanish the out of trace. In the
Speaker 1: early morning hours around six forty five am on March sixth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, a nurse checked on him and found
Speaker 1: him to be doing well. She returned to the room
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes later, and the baby was simply gone. A
Speaker 1: thorough search of the hospital in a surrounding area turned
Speaker 1: up nothing at all, and the nurse was the only
Speaker 1: one who had entered or left the unit at that time.
Speaker 1: Some sources say she's the only one that left the
Speaker 1: hospital at all that hour on that day. No suspects
Speaker 1: ever turned up, and because his mother hadn't even known
Speaker 1: he was there in the first place, and because she'd
Speaker 1: been under the care of staff at the institution, she
Speaker 1: was in with her whereabouts without the entire day being
Speaker 1: known and verified, she wasn't even considered a suspect, nor
Speaker 1: were any of her or Tavished as other family members.
Speaker 1: A lawsuit was filed against the hospital and it resulted
Speaker 1: in a six hundred thousand dollars settlement, but no leeds
Speaker 1: were ever found as to what became of Tavish Sutton,
Speaker 1: who was only one month old at the time of
Speaker 1: his disappearance. The main theory in the beginning was that
Speaker 1: a woman who would show up at the hospital pretending
Speaker 1: to be pregnant all the time had somehow abducted him,
Speaker 1: but this was never proven, and that lady too had
Speaker 1: an alibi and wasn't able to be considered a suspect
Speaker 1: in this case, How did an almost newborn baby vanish
Speaker 1: from such a public place in the matter of a
Speaker 1: mere fifteen minutes. Tavis Sudden has never been found and
Speaker 1: there hasn't ever been a single lead or clue as
Speaker 1: to what happened to him. And finally, the case of
Speaker 1: Philistine Saint Cyr. Sixty six year old Haitian immigrant Philisteine
Speaker 1: Saint Cyr of Immacaulay, Florida, was admitted to nh North
Speaker 1: Naples Hospital in April of two thousand and six after
Speaker 1: being airlifted there for an unspecified medical emergency. The next morning,
Speaker 1: he was reported to have made a full recovery. I
Speaker 1: was put into a taxi so that he could get home.
Speaker 1: When they reached Immacalli, Bill Steed claimed that he didn't
Speaker 1: know his own address. Either that or he was trying
Speaker 1: to say that. He couldn't explved because he didn't speak
Speaker 1: any English at all, and so the cab driver drove
Speaker 1: him back to the hospital where it'd originally been picked
Speaker 1: up from. The staff put him on a bus instead,
Speaker 1: and that bus was allegedly going to take him practically
Speaker 1: to the front door of his home. He was reported
Speaker 1: by hospital staff as being on his way to the
Speaker 1: bus station when they last saw and spoke to him,
Speaker 1: But that was the last time anyone would ever see
Speaker 1: or speak to him, because he seemingly vanished right off
Speaker 1: the face of the earth and never made it home.
Speaker 1: Investigators have been trying to track him down since that
Speaker 1: day but haven't had any success at all. No one
Speaker 1: even knows if he ever got on the bus in
Speaker 1: the first place, but there's some evidence that shows he
Speaker 1: made it at least to the station and was paring
Speaker 1: to go home from there. As planned. Considering Philistein didn't
Speaker 1: speak any English and didn't drive, it's thought that he
Speaker 1: couldn't have possibly gotten far, but he somehow managed to
Speaker 1: not be found. Even after all this time has passed,
Speaker 1: it's been almost twenty years and he still listed as
Speaker 1: a missing person. One of the most popular theories as
Speaker 1: to what could have happened to him is that he
Speaker 1: wandered off and got hopelessly lost. Some people say that
Speaker 1: he might have suffered mild dementia, but it's not clear
Speaker 1: how much it affected him, if it did at all.
Speaker 1: Another theory is that perhaps he had grown tired of
Speaker 1: living in the United States and that he headed back
Speaker 1: to Haiti, But those who knew him best have serious
Speaker 1: doubts he would have been able to carry out such
Speaker 1: a perfect plot to disappear so well. There never been
Speaker 1: any indication at all that he felt that way about
Speaker 1: living in America, and his family is adamant that he
Speaker 1: wouldn't have just left him like this, to pick up
Speaker 1: the pieces and spend the rest of their lives wondering
Speaker 1: what happened to him. How could an elderly man who
Speaker 1: suffered mental issues, who couldn't speak English and didn't drive
Speaker 1: so thoroughly allude to professionals who have been trying to
Speaker 1: find him ever since there's no evidence as to what
Speaker 1: happened to him, one way or another, and his family
Speaker 1: still hope and pray for his safe return or just
Speaker 1: to simply know what happened to him and why. Well, friends,
Speaker 1: there you have it. Hospitals are places we go when
Speaker 1: we're injured to some extent, and we expect to leave
Speaker 1: them healed and complete. Yet for the people we've discussed
Speaker 1: here today and so many others throughout the world, hospitals
Speaker 1: have been their final destination before passing into the strange
Speaker 1: world of bizarre and mysterious disappearances. Where did these people
Speaker 1: go and what happened to them? How could a person
Speaker 1: so completely disappear so suddenly and leave behind absolutely no
Speaker 1: trace at all of what happened to them or where
Speaker 1: they ended up. Hospitals are very public places that are
Speaker 1: staffed by thousands of people in some cases, so how
Speaker 1: does something like this even begin to happen? Those are
Speaker 1: all great questions, but unfortunately they will most likely forever
Speaker 1: remain without answers, at least in the majority of these.
Speaker 1: I look forward to your comments on these cases, but
Speaker 1: please be friendly and respectful until we meet again. Be
Speaker 1: good to yourselves and each other. And I'll see you
Speaker 1: just a little further on down the trail. I'm Steve Stockton,
Speaker 1: and i'll talk to you next time. And please tell
Speaker 1: your animals I said hi.