Barbara Joe Kelley - Missing Since June 1950

Paraphrased details from government source**: On June 18, 1950, Barbara Joe Kelley’s boyfriend Henry Baird was located deceased on the beach at Table Bluff. Kelley’s belongings were located nearby Baird’s remains. Law enforcement and family have been unable to contact Kelley and she remains missing today.

Missing Person: Barbara Joe Kelley ("Barbara Kelly" in journalism)
Last-contact date: June 18th, 1950 (Sunday)
The area where the MP was last seen: Fortuna, California; she was thought to have been at Table Bluff Beach, which was 20 miles south of Eureka, California.
Link to government source: NamUs MP83728


VITAL DETAILS

Ethnicity: White/Caucasian
Sex: Female
Age at time of disappearance: 17 years old
Birthdate: Barbara Joe Kelley was born between June 19th, 1932, and June 18th, 1933 based on her reported age at the last date of reported contact.
Hair: Light-brown hair, according to journalism
Eyes: Hazel, according to journalism
Scar: She had a scar on her left eyebrow.

19 Jun 1950, Mon Los Angeles Evening Citizen News (Hollywood, California) Newspapers.com

Height/weight: 5-foot-4 to 5-foot-7 and 150 to 165 pounds

BMI*: The missing person was overweight by BMI at the time of the last contact based on the upper ranges. Does not appear overweight in her picture.
Tattoos: Barbara Joe Kelley did not have any tattoos associated with her profiles.

By: Shane Lambert

This one sounded like a lover's lane double murder. That could start to evoke bad memories of people like The Zodiac Killer and the Phantom Killer of Texarkana.

Barbara Joe Kelley, a missing person, was last heard from on June 18th, 1950 when she was 17 years old. This individual has now been missing for about 71 years as of the original publication date of this blog post. All research with this individual pointed to death at about the time of her disappearance.

One thing that stood out with this case, is that several newspaper sources spelled her last name as "Kelly." It's not a case of it being a different person as all the case details aligned. Her name was spelled Barbara Kelly or Barbara Kelley so if you are researching this case, then be sure to toggle between spellings for your keyword searches.

The early journalism for this missing person covered the murder of her boyfriend. Kelley's clothes were found near his on a beach 20 miles south of Eureka. It appears that Kelly and Henry Baird, her boyfriend, were at or near a lover's lane beach. The boyfriend was murdered and Kelly has not been seen since June 18th, 1950. That she was apparently naked as she was held captive would strongly suggest that a sex fiend disappeared her.

19 Jun 1950, Mon Long Beach Press-Telegram (Long Beach, California) Newspapers.com
Early guesses (ie. bad guesses) with this missing person had to do with a murder-suicide pact. Baird's gun was missing and it was thought that Kelly may have shot her boyfriend with it and then committed suicide in the ocean. However, the missing gun was considered too light to cause the damage that was caused. A search of the ocean and beaches in the area revealed nothing as to where Barbara may have gone.

In the 1960s, one Gail Patrick Irish emerged as the suspected murderer of both Baird and Kelley/Kelly. He wasn't mentally stable and he confessed. His odd personality will certainly bring into question whether he was telling the truth but from what I gathered in reading about this case, he seemed to be believed.

As for the chances of locating the missing person, I think the following news article, which was published about 13 years after Kelley's disappearance, contains information that needs to be considered. That Kelly was not found where Irish said she would be could be due to reasons covered in the article.

25 Mar 1963, Mon The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, California) Newspapers.com

Please share this article to social media using hashtags that are related to where the missing person went missing from, which is Fortuna, California, and the Eureka area.

Author: S.K. Lambert (Blogger Hobbyist and Freelance Writer)

All articles are subject to editing after the original posting.

S.K. Lambert (Blogger Hobbyist and Freelance Writer) is not a Private Investigator, however, he is currently studying to be one as of April 2021.

If you like this blog, then you can join the affiliated Facebook group: MPC Facebook Group

Website hashtag: #MPCSL

*For BMI values, I use the UPPER or HIGHER ranges that are given for height and weight.
**Might not be the exact meaning that NamUs or Canada's Missing conveys. I improve upon their descriptions with my research.
Disclaimer: Whenever possible, government sources are preferred for getting the details of a missing persons case. However, any source that the article writer deems reputable may be used.

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Eileen Francis Hynson Missing Since June 1st, 1976

Author: Shane Lambert
Original Time of Writing: December 23rd, 2020
All articles are subject to editing after the original posting.

Eileen Francis Hynson left the residence she shared with her father (Thomas) and brother (Thomas) to go to a resort at Lake Berryessa on June 1st, 1976. She may have left the resort to go to Benicia, California to attend a bridal party dress fitting. However, details are scant in this case except that she has never been seen again. Her suitcase was reportedly left at her residence.

A comment on a Facebook post about this missing person's case said:

"Please bring my. dearest cuzin home.......She left my home to go home and get ready to go get fit for her gown. She was to be my Maid of honor.......40 yrs go by and....believe me..I still look for her She will always be with me in her heart...We were very close cuzins.....I thought we were BFF....Some days I feel superclose....as if she is right here by my side........Please give our family hope and that we WiLL find her and bring her home........We love you Eileen........please call me......" (user's name withheld).

Missing Person: Eileen Francis Hynson
Last seen or contact date: June 1st, 1976
Where last seen: Napa, California

This is a case where the research was difficult. Her case is mentioned on Internet websites but it seems everyone says the same thing. When I searched for her in newspaper databases, I found the obituaries for her parents and that's all. 

I did find someone who posted something on Facebook about the case, which generated a comment from a user who claimed to be her cousin. I reached out to this person to try and get some information but what that leads to is pending at this point.

NamUs # and Link: #MP14520
Ethnicity/Race: White
Sex: Female
Age at time of disappearance: 19
Hair: Brown
Eye color: Hazel
Height and weight at the time of disappearance: 5'2" and 130 pounds

Lake Berryessa, the location of the resort that Eileen Francis Hynson may have been heading to, was the scene of a Zodiac Killer attack in 1969. Bryan Calvin Hartnell survived the attack while 22-year-old Cecelia Ann Shephard died. This attack happened about seven years before Eileen's disappearance. The Zodiac Killer remains unidentified but I think the chance that he is related to this MP could be mentioned as food for thought.

Zodiac's Cipher 340 -- Egomania Analyzed

By: Shane Lambert

Time of writing: December 13th, 2020

One of The Zodiac Killer's notes was cracked recently with credit going to David Oranchak, Jarl Van Eycke, and Sam Blake. These individuals had a background in software development, computer programming, and mathematics respectively. The note, known as Cipher 340, went like this:

"I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me

That wasn't me on the TV show which brings up a point about me

I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradice all the sooner

Because I now have enough slaves to work for me where everyone else has nothing when they reach paradice so they are afraid of death

I am not afraid because I know that my new life will be an easy one in paradice death."

The letter in question was sent to the San Francisco Chronicle in November of 1969. The TV show mentioned is likely "The Jim Dunbar Show," which was a talk show (see the video at the end of the article). The date in question of the show, I believe, is mid-to-late October of 1969 with October 22nd, 1969 the date that I think the show aired as per the newspaper clipping below which identifies the day-before Wednesday as the date of the show. That would mean the letter was written after the show and on or before November 8th, 1969. 

Thu, Oct 23, 1969 – 16 · The Ottawa Citizen (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) · Newspapers.com

Cipher 340 is interesting for a couple reasons, I think. Firstly, three of the sentences start with the word "I." I recall reading several years ago about a previous deciphering of a different note. Bettye and Donald Harden, the couple that solved a previous coded message, assumed that The Zodiac Killer was an egomaniac who would often start sentences with the word "I." That Zodiac sentences have a tendency to start with that word may be a point to take away for anyone working on the other letters that remain uncracked. 

A history.com article on the matter stated this about the previous deciphered note: "Inspired by the killer’s obvious craving for attention, Bettye guessed that the message would begin with the word 'I.' She also believed the word KILL or KILLING—or even the phrase I LIKE KILLING—would appear somewhere in the message. Her guesses turned out to be correct."

The previous note went like this:

"I like killing people because it is so much fun. It is more fun than killing wild game in the forest, because man is the most dangerous animal of all. To kill something is the most thrilling experience. It is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl. The best part of it is that when I die, I will be reborn in paradise and all that I have killed will become my slaves. I will not give you my name because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife."

Now that they have two codes deciphered, it may help with the deciphering of the codes that remain, especially if clues across the two deciphered messages start to appear. For example, the use of the word "fun" appears in both messages. That might reveal how he changed his coding around or even how he kept it the same between messages when going for the same word. Also, one note has the word "nothing" while the other has the word "something" and the similar ending between the words might start opening up ways to figure other notes, if they employed similar phrases.

Another thing to take away is that this note wreaks of fear of losing a certain chess match with the police. In reading the deciphering, it's clear that The Zodiac Killer wanted to make it clear that if he got caught that he still didn't lose. That's the communicated message when he refers to his opinion that getting sent to the gas chamber would only send him to a cushy afterlife.

It creates a situation where he wins or he wins: if he doesn't get caught, he taunts the police but even if he does get caught his ego remains protected from them 'winning' because the death penalty in itself is a reward -- or so he says. It's this win-win situation that The Zodiac Killer is communicating with the note and, I think, it reveals a deep concern over being caught.