Haunted Henry County

The Mysterious Disappearance of Catherine Winters.

Many local people believe that the disappearance of Catherine Winters is Henry County’s most intriguing mystery.  No trace of the little girl has been found since she was last seen at noon on Thursday March 20th, 1913.  Extensive local searches, and a nation-wide search failed to locate the child.  If living, Catherine would have celebrated her 100th birthday on February 10, 2004.

The friendly brown eyed third grader left her home at 311 North 16th Street at nine a.m. to sell needles for a church charity.  She was last seen about noon looking at an Easter display in the window of William Siefert’s drug store at 16th and Broad.  A few yards east of the drug store, sat a gypsy caravan of four wagons which had stopped to water their horses.  At this point, only two and one-half blocks from her home and almost within sight of her front steps, the little girl apparently vanished.  She has never been seen since.

The caravan of gypsies were immediately suspected.  Local authorities along with the girl’s dentist father, Dr. William Winters and some of his friends, conducted a 40 hour search in Wayne County that night and into the next day.  The gypsy caravan was found outside Economy, Indiana.  The little girl was not with them.  A reported fifth wagon was never located.  It was concluded finally that the fifth wagon was a flour wagon from Milton which was making deliveries on Broad Street the day the little girl disappeared.

On Monday, March 24, four days after her disappearance, the city’s local business, industry and manufacturing elite met in the court room of the Henry County Courthouse and organized a 700 man search for the child.  On Tuesday the 25th, amid torrents of rain, the huge search team scoured the city for the child.  Many believed that the downpour of rain, which was the beginning of the disastrous 1913 flood, may have obliterated clues to finding the child.

Police were unsuccessful in determining the fate of the child.  They investigated the gypsy theory, the relative theory and the degenerate theory and could find no clue.  Detectives who worked on the case, including those from the famous Pinkerton and Burns agencies, investigated the same theories and came to the same dead end.  Detective Al Lunt of the Chicago Burns Agency finally gave up in disgust saying “the Winters case is too deep for the Burns men to fathom.”  He had even followed the gypsy caravan to the Pennsylvania state line which so exasperated the gypsy leader that he reportedly offered a $1000 reward to anyone who found Catherine Winters in his caravan.

Dr. Winters seemed devastated and near collapse by his daughter’s disappearance as did Mrs. Winters, the child’s stepmother.  It was at this time, friends said, that Mrs. Winters hair began to turn white and she lost more than twenty pounds.  The family continued to set a place at the large dining room table for Catherine.  Her little brother, Frankie, caught a white cat which he was saving to give his sister when she returned.

Dr. Winters searched area gypsy camps in hopes of finding Catherine.  He followed every clue that he received including the many put forth by area psychics and fortune tellers.

In the spring, the Doctor went to Chicago searching for his daughter.  The Hearst papers emblazoned the story in huge headlines.  The gypsy camps there were searched, the Chicago Boy Scouts organized a Catherine Winters search day.  William Randolph Hearst reportedly offered a reward for the safe return of the child.

Dr. Winters visited Jane Addams’ famous Hull House where Gertrude Howe Britton, head of the Juvenile Protection Agency, offered him the services of a detective to help him search for his daughter.