Disappearance of Richard Colvin Cox

Cox was born in Mansfield, Ohio. Author Harry Maihafer, who wrote a book about Cox's disappearance, wrote the following about his parents and family:

Richard Colvin Cox, son of Rupert F. and Minnie Colvin Cox, was the youngest of six children. His father died when Richard was ten. (There had been rumors of suicide, but actually his death resulted from an aggravated diabetic condition. He'd been a practicing Christian Scientist; some said he would have lived much longer had he received proper medical attention.) Richard's mother, Mrs. Minnie Cox, was currently owner and operator of the family business, the Rupert F. Cox Insurance Agency.[1]

During his high school years, Cox told a friend he did not have time to participate in athletic teams because he always had an after-school job.[2] During summer vacations in his teen years, he worked full-time. While working on a road crew in Mansfield, he "fell and cut his arm badly on a scythe," wrote Maihafer citing a witness who was interviewed by researcher Marshall Jacobs more than thirty years later.[2] Cox immediately went home for help from his mother, who was a "Christian Science lay reader". She refused to call a doctor.[2]"The cut became infected," wrote Maihafer, "and later a woman who lived next door brought him to a doctor. As a result of the accident, [Cox] ended up with a prominent scar."[2]

After graduating from a public high school in Mansfield in 1946, Cox volunteered for service in the United States Army. He joined the United States Constabulary, a United States Army Gendarmerie force raised to be a police-type occupation and security force in Allied-occupied Germany. In May 1947, he began his assignment to the Sixth Constabulary Regiment, based at Coburg in the American occupation zone in Germany[3] and was in the S-2 (intelligence) section of Headquarters Company. Later in 1947, Cox applied for and received his appointment to West Point, arriving at the United States Military Academy Preparatory School (then located at Stewart Field near the academy proper) in January 1948. There his classmates included Ernest Shotwell.[4] Years later Shotwell became an important source on Cox's disappearance when he provided an eyewitness account that indicated that Cox had disappeared voluntarily and was deliberately avoiding contact with his distraught family.[4]

Cox entered West Point in May 1948 and did well there. (Shotwell did not attend the actual academy and did not see Cox again until 1952.)[4] Academically, Cox was ranked at about 100 out of a class of 550. He joined West Point's athletic team and competed in a national NCAA competition only a month before his disappearance.[5] Cox was engaged to be married; he and his fiancée, Betty Timmons, planned to marry after his graduation from West Point.[6]

At 4:45 pm on Saturday, 7 January 1950, a man telephoned Cox's West Point classmate, Peter Hains. Hains was acting as Charge of Quarters in Cadet Company B-2 (part of the North Barracks) and answered incoming calls for company members. He later said the caller's "tone was rough and patronizing, almost insulting."[7] After Hains told the man that Cox was not in his room, the man replied, "Well, look, when he comes in, tell him to come on down here to the hotel. ... Just tell him George called – he'll know who I am. We knew each other in Germany. I'm just up here for a little while, and tell him I'd like to get him a bite to eat."[6] Hains later stated he could not be completely certain the name given was "George", as he had answered many phone calls while on duty and that one had not seemed noteworthy at the time; Cox never referred to the man by name.[6]

At 5:30 pm, a man entered Grant Hall - an area where cadets could meet guests—and asked to see Cox. The cadet on duty telephoned Cox to tell him he had a visitor. The cadet later described the visitor as slightly under six feet (1.83 m) tall and weighing around 185 pounds (84 kg). He was fair-haired, had a fair complexion and wore a belted trench-coat, but no hat. When Cox entered the Hall, he shook hands with the man; the cadet on duty later recalled he seemed glad to see him.[6] Cox signed out in the Company B-2 Departure Book, indicating he would have dinner off-campus. Cox later admitted to his roommates, however, they did not dine, but drank from a bottle of whiskey while sitting inside the man's parked car.[8]

Cox returned to Cadet Company B-2, signed the Departure Book, took a shower, and slept off the effects of the alcohol (his two roommates later revealed this).[8] As a prank, his roommates photographed him, slumped over his desk, asleep.[6] At an indeterminate time that evening, Cox altered the military time he had written in the Departure Book, changing "1923" to "1823" to make it look as if he had attended the 6:30 pm cadet supper formation.[9] In fact, he had skipped the formation. This detail was not discovered until two years later, when an agent of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command had the Departure Book examined in a laboratory.[10] If the alteration had been discovered when it was fresh in January 1950, Cox could have been charged with violating the Cadet Honor Code.

The next morning, before attending the Sunday chapel service, Cox mentioned his visitor to his roommates. The man, Cox said, was a former US Army Ranger who had served in the same unit as he had in Germany. Cox said the man liked to brag about killing Germans during the war and had boasted about cutting off their private parts afterward. Another story he told Cox was about having gotten a German girl pregnant, and then murdering her to prevent her from having the baby.[6][11] That afternoon, Cox signed out a second time to meet the man, returning at about 4:30 pm.[6] The following six days were without incident. Cox mentioned his visitor once to his roommates. He remarked that he "hoped he wouldn't have to see the fellow again," giving them the impression he viewed the man with distaste.[6]

On Saturday, 14 January, Cox watched a basketball game between the Army and Rutgers University. Afterwards, he was seen talking to a man thought to be "George," although the cadet who saw the two talking gave a description that differed greatly from the description given by the cadet who had seen the stranger in Grant Hall on 7 January. According to the eyewitness description from 14 January, George was "dark-haired and rough looking." Cox returned to his room and mentioned to a roommate he was signing out to dine with his visitor again, although he appeared "not apprehensive, just sort of disgusted."[6] The two men left the grounds of the academy and vanished without a trace.[12][13]

Cox was supposed to return by 11 pm. When he did not return, no alarm was raised because cadets occasionally returned late. His continued absence was reported to a superior officer at 2:30 am, but again no action was taken as cadets had been known to stay out all night despite the punishment this would incur. On Sunday morning, his roommates reported all they knew of the matter to their superior; the New York State Police and the CID were informed. The FBI also became involved in the investigation.[6]

Three days after Cox's disappearance, a public appeal for information was broadcast on nearby radio stations.[14] The grounds of West Point were intensively searched by helicopter and by troops on the ground.[6] The Lusk Reservoir was dragged, the banks of the Hudson River were searched and a nearby pond was drained.[6] The manhunt lasted two months but produced no significant leads. A search of Army records for a soldier who had served with Cox and matched the description of "George", only led to individuals who could not have been at West Point at the time of the disappearance.[6] Cox's service in Germany was investigated and revealed nothing out of the ordinary. The theory that he had deliberately deserted from West Point was discounted, as he had left behind in his room $87 (about $980, inflation adjusted to last year) and two suits of civilian clothes.[6] On 15 March 1950, Cox was listed as absent without leave.[6] He was declared legally dead in 1957.[15]

Harry Maihafer's book Oblivion (1996) documents the investigation conducted by Marshall Jacobs, a retired high school history teacher, of Cadet Richard Cox and his disappearance from West Point in January 1950.[16] Jacobs began his research on the Cox disappearance in 1985. The more involved Jacobs became, the more intrigued he became with Cox and the prior inconclusive investigations. It was inconceivable to Jacobs that after 35 years this mystery had not been solved.[17]

During the ten years that passed between Jacobs beginning his investigation and Maihafer writing the book, A Current Affair telecast a segment about the Cox mystery on one of its episodes.[18] The segment was anchored by Krista Bradford, who was seen interviewing Marshall Jacobs at his Miami, Florida home that had many boxes of files from his research. Bradford also interviewed a retired U.S. Coast Guard officer named Ernest J. Shotwell Jr., who said on-camera that he had had a conversation with Cox at the Washington, D.C. Greyhound Lines bus station two years after his disappearance.[18] During the conversation between the two men who had been classmates at the USMA Preparatory School at Stewart Field and had not seen each other since then, Shotwell did not know Cox was a missing person.[19] During the encounter at the bus station, Cox seemed "uncomfortable" and was vague about his plans for the immediate future.[20]

For ten years, Jacobs thoroughly investigated the case, traveling across the United States following up on new leads and revisiting old leads. He interviewed Cox's family, high school friends, military pals, and West Point classmates; CIA, FBI, and CID agents; and West Point and Army officials. He researched West Point's archives and the files from the FBI, CIA, and CID investigations of Cox's disappearance, to which he gained access under the Freedom of Information Act. Among Jacobs' findings was that authorities had been remiss when they had discounted the theory that Cox had disappeared deliberately.[21] Jacobs came to believe that the presence of 87 dollars in Cox's shared room did not rule out the strong possibility that his visitor had helped him start a new career and life.[21]

The old leads Jacobs revisited included ones from a Mansfield News Journal reporter named Jim Underwood who had written a 12-installment series on the Cox mystery that the News Journal had published in 1982, costing the newspaper more than 18,000 dollars.[22] Underwood had interviewed a high school acquaintance of Cox named Ralph E. Johns, who later in life was elected as juvenile and domestic relations judge in Mansfield, serving six years, and became "a driving force to encourage Mansfield to build and maintain a Juvenile Detention Center."[23]

Johns told Underwood that he had not been involved in the original investigation in the 1950s, but during that era "he and another Mansfield man, William McKee, grew very interested in the Cox case and had frequent contacts with local FBI officials. ... Johns also told Underwood that on one occasion, when discussing the Cox case with former FBI agent Vince Napoli, Napoli told him and McKee that the FBI had been within twenty-four hours of grabbing Cox, and he couldn't understand why the FBI would not let them pick him up or why they pulled them off the case. According to Underwood, Johns had speculated, perhaps based on Napoli's story, that Cox might have gone into some secret government agency such as the CIA."[24] In the late 1980s, Jacobs interviewed Johns, who confirmed that he had speculated about a secret government agency but it was only his speculation.[25]

When he was ready to reveal his findings, Jacobs, admittedly not a writer, contacted Maihafer with hopes they could collaborate on a book. They did and the Jacobs investigation is revealed in the book Oblivion. The book has a section with photos including the snapshot that Cox's roommates took of him on 7 January 1950 sleeping off the effects of the alcohol he had consumed in his visitor's parked car a very short time earlier.

• List of people who disappeared

• Maihafer, Harry J., (1999). Oblivion: The Mystery of West Point Cadet Richard Cox. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's. ISBN 1-57488-224-4

• "What Happened to Vanished West Point Cadet?". The Milwaukee Journal. 9 January 1953.
• "The Mystery of the Missing Cadet."[1] LIFE Magazine. 14 April 1952.