Elsie Mae Roane

• Missing Since 05/20/1957
• Missing From West Point, Virginia
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Date of Birth 11/06/1940 (85)
• Age 16 years old
• Height and Weight 5'8 - 5'9, 115 pounds
• Medical Conditions Elsie may have been pregnant at the time of her disappearance.
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, blue eyes. Elsie may wear eyeglasses.

Details of Disappearance

Elsie was last seen by a police officer in West Point, Virginia at 11:00 p.m. on May 20, 1957. She was standing near the intersection of Main Street and Seventh Street, carrying two suitcases, at the time. She has never been heard from again. Elsie was finishing her sophomore year at West Point High School when she went missing; she was an above-average student.

At the time of her disappearance, she lived with her adoptive father, Harry Roane, on Fifth Street; her mother had died of breast cancer two years previously. Her father didn't realize she was missing for some time because he worked the night shift and arrived home during school hours, when Elsie would normally have been out of the house. As a result, he didn't report her missing for three days.

According to people who knew them, Elsie's relationship with her father was troubled. Before her disappearance, she had written a letter asking if she could come live with her relatives in North Carolina, because her life at home was difficult. Her North Carolina relatives replied suggesting she try to work on improving her relationship with her father.

One person of interest in Elsie's case is Lloyd Hodges. He and Elsie were classmates and on the school rifle team together. Their fellow classmates said the two were dating, and there were rumors that they were going to get engaged.

The detective investigating Elsie's case stated when he went to interview Hodges at his home in North Carolina when Hodges was in his seventies, and at first Hodges said he didn't remember Elsie. Eventually he acknowledged her existence, but denied that they had ever had a relationship. The detective interviewed him multiple times and believed Hodges knew more about her disappearance than he disclosed, but Hodges never admitted to any involvement and he died in 2023.

Another person of interest is Billy Haigler, the police officer who was the last person to see her. Although she was out on the street very late on a school night, Haigler didn't stop and ask her why she was out or where she was going. There were no taxis in town, and the last public bus had left more than an hour earlier. Haigler quit his police job three months after she went missing, and died in 1969.

Elsie's father died in 1968, but her former classmates and the community would still like to determine her fate. Elsie's case remains unsolved. Investigators don't believe she ever left West Point, and although an arrest in unlikely in her disappearance due to the passage of time, they hope to find out what happened to her and recover her remains.