Some names of missing people remain etched in the memory. 
One of those is April Fabb, a 13-year-old Norfolk schoolgirl who vanished 40 years ago today.
On April 8, 1969, April had been cycling to her sister’s home in Roughton, near Cromer to give her brother-in-law a birthday present. It was only two miles from her home in Metton, but she never made it along the country lane. In the space of six minutes, between 2.06pm, when she was seen by a tractor driver, and 2.12pm, when her blue and white bike was found lying on its side in a field, she vanished. Nothing has been heard of her since.
Detectives have kept the baffling case open in the hope of receiving fresh information which will provide the desperately needed answers for April’s grieving family.
Her mother Olive, who is 89, wonders every day what happened to her shy and sensitive daughter who loved picking primroses in a nearby wood.
There are strong similarities between this case and the unsolved disappearance of 13-year-old Genette Tate, a newspaper delivery girl on August 19, 1978.
In memory of those who are still missing.
[…] Ellee Seymour created an interesting post today on The missing – April FabbHere’s a short outlineSome names of missing people remain etched in the memory. One of those is April Fabb , a 13-year-old Norfolk schoolgirl who vanished 40 years ago today. On April 8, 1969, April had been cycling to her sister’s home in Roughton , near Cromer to give her brother-in-law a birthday present. It was only two miles from her home in Metton , but she never made it along the country lane. In the space of six minutes, between 2.06pm, when she was seen by a tractor driver, and 2.12pm, when her bl […]
I remember Genette Tate well. One of those that fell off the face of the earth.
What a long time to wonder what happened to her daughter. I am sure she has never been forgotten for even a day.
Genette Tate is the one who has always stayed in my mind too.
Her poor mother – carrying the weight of that uncertainty and grief for all these years. It must be a living hell.
There was a girl found in Kentucky in June of 1969, her body was never identified. Could this be the same girl?
The unidentified girl, who is being called “Caroline” was believed to be white
about five foot three,
medium build
reddish-blonde hair
she had a broken collar bone at one point during her life that had healed
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Mountain Cold Case – Unidentified Girl – 1969 Save Email Print
Posted: 10:27 PM May 4, 2008
Last Updated: 11:58 PM May 4, 2008
Reporter: Steve Hensley
Email Address: steve.hensley@wymtnews.com
0 comments
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Mountain Cold Case – Unidentified Girl – 1969 – Steve Hensley Reports
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A | A | A Anyone who was alive in Harlan County in 1969 probably remembers the story of a young woman found stabbed to death on Pine Mountain. Nearly 40 years later, it’s still not known who she was, where she came from, and who killed her.
After a short walk through a wooded area on a hill overlooking the city of Harlan, you’ll find a grave marker that simply says, Unidentified Girl Burial, June 5th, 1969, Colonial Chapel. Newspaper articles at the time say a man picking flowers found the woman’s nude, decomposed body about 50 feet off the Little Shepherd Trail. She’d been stabbed in the chest.
“People in Harlan were scared to death to let their girls go out on dates,” said Joe Mahan, former funeral home owner.
Mahan, who is mainly confined to a bed at the Harlan Nursing Home, believes he’s one of only two people still alive that saw the murder scene. Mahan was a funeral home owner and retrieved the young woman’s body. He says he still thinks about her all the time.
“It still stays with me. I’ve prayed a lot over this hoping that she can be identified and maybe the killer be identified,” Mahan said.
Mahan paid for the woman’s casket himself and members of the Harlan County Rescue Squad served as pallbearers when she was buried.
“I just couldn’t put that little girl in a casket knowing what she may have gone through, maybe on that mountainside some night, screaming for help,” Mahan said.
“It doesn’t appear that anyone ever looked for her. It doesn’t appear to me that anyone’s looking for her now,” said author Darla Jackson.
Jackson wrote about the unidentified girl in a book called Harlan County Haunts. Jackson’s uncle lived near the cemetery where she’s buried for a short time several years ago and believes she tried to communicate with him from beyond the grave.
“He actually saw her and she was simply staring out a window,” she said.
Incredibly, Jackson says her uncle believes the woman was guiding him to the answers nobody else could find. She told him her name was Caroline, that she was from Ohio, and even mentioned the name of her killer. Of course, none of this has been proven, although an order ticket from a Cincinnati, Ohio restaurant was found near the body.
“She would like to go home. She’s not familiar with this area, she feels like she doesn’t belong here, she doesn’t like to be referred to as the unidentified girl,” Jackson said.
Even though decades have passed, those who remember the murder, and who’ve studied it, would still like to know who “Caroline” was.
“Once you hear this tragic story, you can’t help but be touched by it,” Jackson said.
“Everyone would like closure involving this little girl,” Mahan said.
“Caroline” was believed to be white, about five foot three, with a medium build and reddish-blonde hair. Joe Mahan says she had a broken collar bone at one point during her life that had healed.
To contact Author Darla Jackson’s, you can send an e-mail to rdjackson@kih.net
http://www.wkyt.com/wymtnews/headlines/18566989.html
Its she found yet?
I feel sorry for her, what a long time to worry about your daughter, or your own child in general. It must of been one of the most traumatic ordeals in her life.
thanks for the post though,
regards
http://chinesedemocracyforum.com
This case too has haunted me since young when I read somewhere that her parents were still waiting for her to come home.If it was a rape and murder and a body had been found, the parents would have least had some sort of closure now, but this is the very cruelest,worst thing that could have happened to that family. My Christmas 1969 was the last best childhood Christmas I had ever had, but for the Fabb family it was their most god awful ever. You would not have wished this on your very worst enemy.
I have never been to Metton, but following the route on Google Earth you have to ask just what exactly her abductors were doing in the area in the first place? there is nothing there! only a few farm buildings.Perhaps they had left somewhere for launch in the country at 2pm ?
I think the writer Maurice Morson has a theory
about the navvies who were laying the new gas pipes to Bacton at the time. If that is so why hasnt this been followed up and the pipe tracts been radared and even excavated?
We also should remember a boy dissapeared from Norfolk (or maybe Suffolk?) in the summer of same year (see EDP archive) but boys dont seem to command the same attention?
I didn’t know that it was the fortieth anniversary this year, but some some reason this story came into my head and I decided to look it up on the internet today. On that night I and some other teenagers where driving through North Norfolk on the way to a party and were stopped and questioned by the police. For some reason it left a very strong impression on me as a teenager.
April was my classmate at the time of her disappearance and I remember her very well. She had sat on my knee at the school dance and when the girls played hockey with the boys , she had playfully used her stick to stop me in what could have been quite a devastating way. She was a very popular girl , full of life vivacious and pretty. On the day she went missing I was also out on my bike fishing with a friend but had cycled home alone.
When I left school I worked with her father for a short time. The pain he felt was etched on his face at all times and I can not put into words how sorry I felt for him and the rest of April’s family.
I will always remember her . God bless you April
Peter, my partner has a gift. I still as yet don’t quite understand it. I’ve even been crazy enough just now to phone Norfolk Police ‘cold case’ team. Everything she says is absolutely spot on. Can I ask, what was April wearing on that day and, was there a boy at school, large but socially inadequate? I’m a former detective so please don’t think I’m mad. My partner tells me, she needs to rest now. Is there a big red brick built house somewhere nearby? My number is 07910 607635.
There is a square, red-brick built house on the crossroads, which where the Metton Road crosses the Felbrigg Road. Are you saying that your partner is psychic in some way?
Actually it’s not red brick any more, but it was at that time.
I needed information about it on Ask and came upon your post. I found it to be nice very clear. Appreciate it
I was sixteen when April went missing and her name and the fact that her cycle was found abandoned has stuck with me ever since. Where was Fred West at the time? I assume he would have been in his twenties at the time, could this have been one of his earliest victims.
martin
I have just watched this on a Lorraine missing person show. Such a dreadful shame for the family. Wish the police would open it as a cold case file. Lots of technology these days and could possibly show up fingerprints on Aprils’s bike as it seems the perpetrator threw her bike into the field. I really hope the family get some closure on this esp before the mum passes on. Thinking of you all. X
Observer> I don’t know how a girl missing from Norfolk would end up in the states, especially Kentucky.
I’ve heard connections that “Bible John” suspect and proven serial killer Peter Tobin has been connected to her disappearance. Tobin moved to Brighton, Sussex in 1969 (which is when the Bible John murders stopped in Glasgow, where Tobin previously lived). Sussex is rather far from Norfolk, but I wonder if there’s any records on Tobin’s travels in April 1969; it could help strengthen the link.
Fabb is around the age of girls Tobin has been known to go after, so it makes sense.
My Grandad was a serving police officer in Norfolk at the time and was working on the case. For as long as i can remember he was always convinced that she was murdered and her body dumped in a concrete making plant near by but sadly i cant remember its name.
i hope they find this poor girl,i know she must be pretty old by now but it must be horrible for her mother and father to wake up everyday and wonder where she has gone,i feel sorry for their family’s who are grieving.
i myslef live in cromer and it worries you how close people can vanish just up the road.
no not yet x
police should not give up on robert black prime suspect in my eyes .
Its more than likely that two persons were involved in taking april remember she was not a little girl she was verging on womanhood,someone had to restrain her while other thru bike over hedge,then kept quiet while driving away without anyone noticing anything untowardthis was a spur of moment thing and i dont think Black was involved,lots of otinerant workers in norfolk at time workin on the gas pipes