Phyllis Lorain Powell, 5: Last Seen Skipping Down The Street In 1963
A five-year-old girl has been missing for decades, and hers remains one of the most perplexing unsolved cases in North Carolina. Little Phyllis Lorain Powell was like any other carefree child growing up in the South in 1963. She lived with her family in Woodland, and on January 11 of that year, the young girl disappeared from the small, rural, wooded town.
It was around 11:00 a.m. when Phyllis Powell was at one of her neighbors’ homes in the 300 block of Ashe Street, somewhere near Highway (Route) 35. At the time, she was seen watching I Love Lucy on television, but she was gone when someone went to check on her by noon. Not long after, a witness told authorities that they saw Phyllis skipping down Ashe Street and said the little girl revealed she was going to her friend’s house. That was the last time anyone could recount the child’s location.
A Look At The Neighborhood
In January 1963, Ashe Street reportedly only had eight homes, inhabited mainly by families. A person could clearly see from one end of the lane to the other. There were dirt roads in the rural area filled with swampy woods and fields of trees. A search for Phyllis consisted of hundreds of people gathering together to find the little girl, but even with a massive search, there were no clues to where she may have gone—aside from a mysterious set of small footprints. The markings were found in the ground about a mile from where Phyllis went missing in an area reportedly bordered by thick woods. Police suspected foul play.
“Some may say, why don’t you just forget it?” Phyllis’s brother, William “Buddy” Powell, told a newspaper over 40 years after the five-year-old disappeared. “I will say to them, she wasn’t your baby, sister, daughter, aunt, cousin, etc. I will never stop looking. I will wait on God’s promise.”
Phyllis Powell: What To Know
At the time of her disappearance, Phyllis Lorain Powell stood 3 feet 8 inches tall and weighed approximately 40 pounds. She had black/dark brown mid-length hair and brown eyes. Phyllis was last seen wearing a brown coat, pants, and, for some reason, a white diaper wrapped around her head as if she was wearing a scarf. There aren’t any known pictures of Phyllis, but an artist’s rendering is included in this article. The Doe Network states that her DNA and dental records are on file, but her fingerprints are not. Phyllis would be in her 60s at the time of this publication.
Anyone with information regarding this case is urged to contact the Northampton County Sheriff’s Office at (252) 534-2611 or their local authorities.
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