Ricky Jean Bryant (NamUs MP #5890) - Very Likely Dead in Fire

Author: Shane Lambert

I read about the missing-person case of Ricky Jean Bryant tonight and did some research on it using online newspaper databases. I thought, for a short time, maybe she was kidnapped and alive somewhere. However, after researching this case, I think Ricky Jean Bryant simply died in a house fire that occurred the day she went missing. Furthermore, I think it's futile for websleuths or amateur investigators to work on this case any further.

Ricky Jean Bryant, the missing person, disappeared at the age of four in December of 1949 in Wisconsin as the house on her family's farm burned down. As described at Doenetwork.com, the case sounds as though a "tall blonde lady in a new car" kidnapped 'Jeannie' as flames leveled the house.

Jeannie and two of her siblings were home with their grandparents, who also lived on the farm. Ricky's brother, who was 5 years old at the time, remembers leaving Jeannie and their younger sister outside, when a tall blonde lady in a new car, drove up and told him to run to a neighbor's house for help. He said the woman sent him to a home further away and told him the phone wasn't working at the nearby house. When he came back with a neighbor, Jeannie was gone, and the lady and the car were nowhere to be found. The neighbor said she put the children in the family car and then went inside to look for Jeannie. She found the grandmother in the kitchen collecting canned goods, and she said that Jeannie was gone. As the house continued to burn, the neighbor kept searching for Jeannie. Finally, the grandmother told her to stop worrying about Jeannie because she was with relatives.

After the fire, Jeannie's father had the local authorities, state police and the FBI searching the ruins of the fire for any possible human remains. No remains were found during the search and her father searched the property three additional times by himself. Each time he found nothing. He never believed that Jeannie perished in the fire.

The description above leaves a lot to be desired. For starters, the timing seems a little strange.

Ricky's brother, whose name is Forrest, supposedly runs to a neighbor's house to get help, and when he returns the grandmother is in the house collecting canned goods. Seems to me that the house would be burning this entire time and wouldn't be safe enough to enter. I do find the story details strange and I find it strange that the grandmother, who is one Mrs. Casper Halverson, would advise stopping looking for Jeannie as though canned goods were more important.

One major fact that I did not ignore during my research was that, according to the original journalist back in 1949, Jeannie was considered dead in the fire. The Daily Tribune out of Wisconsin Rapids on December 21st, 1949 calls Jean Bryant "the little girl who lost her life as fire destroyed the Bryant farm dwelling" (no author listed).

Mrs. Casper Halverson, the grandmother, reportedly got the children out of the house and then climbed a ladder to rescue her husband, "an invalid," from "an upstairs bedroom." If there was a time frame where Mrs. Halverson was preoccupied with getting that ladder, setting it, climbing it, and getting her husband out of the house while Forrest went for help then that leaves the two-year-old child and Jeannie unsupervised. For those playing the entire scenario out, be sure to include a scene in your mind where the invalid grandfather suffers burns to his body: his rescue was a narrow one and certainly would have had Mrs. Halverson's undivided attention.

Could be that the four-year-old Ricky Jean Bryant wandered back into the house while unsupervised. Why wouldn't she? If the grandmother felt that it was safe enough to retrieve canned goods then a part of the house might have looked safe to a four-year-old. Then maybe Mrs. Halverson just assumed that Jeannie was in safe hands when she was able to face the issue.

A big part of this missing-person case is that the Doenetwork says no human remains were found in the fire. The Daily Tribune article might contradict that: it says that "bone particles" that were found "were sent to the state crime laboratory" for testing and that the fire was hot enough to melt metal.

As for the father not believing that his daughter had died in the fire, it's not something to criticize him for. The death of a child is hard to accept. You might settle on remote possibilities instead. In fact, I have a great deal of experience talking with people and/or reading reports that include opinions of loved ones in regard to their missing relatives. Sometimes people think that someone is alive in lieu of much-much more likely scenarios. It seems that the death of a loved one is just unfaceable for some.

NamUs MP #5890 · Wed, Dec 21, 1949 – 9 · Eau Claire Leader (Eau Claire, Wisconsin) · Newspapers.com

My guess is that the fire cremated Ricky Jean Bryant. I'm aware that skeletons usually survive house fires but I wonder if that's the case for such young victims, victims who might not have completely developed bones of adult volume. The elephant in the room, in this case, is that firefighters heard screams that originated from inside the house, ones that were attributed to a little "tyke."

Take it or leave it, but I think this missing person will be missing for all time and that those researching this mystery should focus their efforts elsewhere. That Ricky Jean Bryant died in a fire and that her parents had trouble accepting that is, in my opinion, much more likely than a tall-blonde woman of mystery kidnapping the girl as the house burned down. That would be one on-the-spot child abductor operating in a hurry with witnesses both already present on the scene and converging on the scene.

This is not a good case for Websleuths or amateurs to be working on at all. Make sure you aren't being too imaginative or fanciful when trying to think of leads. You could spend loads of time with basically a 0% chance of producing any kind of results.

NamUs MP #5890 · Wed, Dec 21, 1949 – Page 1 · The Daily Tribune (Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin) · Newspapers.com

NamUs MP #5890 · Wed, Dec 21, 1949 – Page 1 · Green Bay Press-Gazette (Green Bay, Wisconsin) · Newspapers.com