Mystery solved: Ohio police detective tracks down woman who went missing in 1945

SHELBY — While the mystery of what happened to Mary Jane Croft Vangilder has been solved, questions about her two lives will likely linger forever.

Shelby police Detective Adam Turner has doggedly pursued the case for the last 5½ years. He held a press conference Monday morning at the Kehoe Center to announce the results of his investigation.

Vangilder had last been seen in the Shelby area in 1945. Originally from West Virginia, Vangilder moved to Ohio in 1944 to work at the Wilkins Army Air Force Depot in Shelby.

On March 8, 1945, she resigned from her job, citing "added household duties," according to Turner's research.

It turns out Vangilder had a second, secret life and family. Neither family knew about the other.

In October 2018, the Shelby Police Department received a Facebook message from Mindy Wilson, one of Vangilder's granddaughters.

Police Chief Lance Combs assigned the case to Turner, who has been looking ever since.

Turner caught a break in the cold case when he obtained Vangilder's military file and published it online.

A "civilian sleuth" as Turner calls her had been following the case. In November of 2023, the woman came across the name "Percy L. Sebren." When Vangilder was promoted to high-lift fork operator, she took the position from Sebren and likely received training from him.

"This name was among dozens of others located throughout Mary Jane's military file, but it would be this one alone that would prove crucial," Turner said.

Police detective tracked down name of missing woman's second husband

Searching Sebren's history on findagrave.com, Turner learned the man died in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1969. It also showed he was married to a "Mary J. Sebren," who was born on Nov. 19, 1911, and died in 1990.

Both were buried in Forest, Louisiana.

Sebren was run over and killed by a train. He and his wife had two sons, one in 1945, the second in 1947.

The older son was born nine months after Vangilder left her position at the Wilkins Army Air Force Depot.

"This was probably the reason for her listing 'added household duties,''' Turner said, adding he never found a marriage certificate for the couple.

He did, however, track down one of the Sebrens' granddaughters. Bobbie Sebren provided him with photos of her grandmother from the late 1970s and early 1980s.

"She told me that she didn't know much about her grandmother's life and that it was not discussed," Turner said.

The detective contacted Moxxy Forensic Investigations to do a side-by-side photo enhancement. He also received a document from the grandchildren with her signature.

"Comparing it to Mary Jane Vangilder's signature showed distinct similarities in how each letter was shaped and formatted," Turner said. "Mary Jane Sebren had somehow obtained and was using a different Social Security number than the one we found in her military file."

Turner was getting closer.

Additional photos of Mary Jane and her husband confirmed what Turner already knew. A DNA test made it official: Mary Jane Sebren was, without a doubt, Mary Jane Vangilder.

According to the grandchildren from her second family, Mary Jane was the perfect grandmother. She loved to garden, with her favorite flower being the hydrangea. She liked sun tea and was a great cook.

Sebren/Vangilder died from colon cancer. She was cremated and buried next to her husband after living the majority of her life after 1945 in Arkansas.

How did we get here?

Turner generated 107 supplemental reports, spanning thousands of pages, on the case.

Early in the investigation, he discovered that Vangilder lived at two locations in Plymouth; both since have been razed. She also lived at a Willard house that still stands.

After a story ran in a Plymouth newspaper in December 2004, one of her granddaughters received a letter the next month from William King, who worked with Vangilder at the Depot. He said he lost touch with her when the business went through layoffs.

Vangilder had been sending her daughter war bonds, but in January 1945, she requested that all the bonds be sent back to her. It was the last contact she had with anyone from her first family.

Vangilder filed for divorce in February 1945 from husband James. Her attorney withdrew the request in April 1946, when she didn't show up for court.

James Vangilder filed for divorce and later remarried, raising the five surviving children he had with Vangilder into adulthood. He died in 1985.

Turner used the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System and findagrave.com in his search. He attended exhumations in Wisconsin and Indiana in 2021, the results of which are still pending.

Another exhumation, this one in the Dayton area, didn't provide answers in the Vangilder case but did give closure to another family.

Previous exhumation yielded surprising results

Turner and Chief Combs attended the exhumation of a Jane Doe in Eaton in August 2019. In January 2021, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation gave Turner the surprising results.

The DNA profile was from a small-framed man who, in March of last year, turned out to Albert Allen Frost, a drifter whose family never reported him as missing.

While Frost's surviving family members likely have questions, so do Vangilder's original children and grandchildren.

"As you can imagine, this disclosure has been very painful for them," Turner said. "Additionally, the Sebrens also have been experiencing the gamut of emotions because their grandmother never told them who she really was and misled them about her past."

Mindy Wilson, the granddaughter from South Carolina, attended Monday's press conference.

"Our family finally has closure," she said tearfully. "This search started before I was born. My aunt never gave up hope and is so happy to know what happened to her."

Wilson went to Louisiana to visit Vangilder's final resting place and put flowers on her grave.

"This gives me some kind of peace and brings me closer to a woman I never met," she said.

She added she will always be grateful to Turner, whom she described as a "forever friend."

For his part, Turner credited Combs for allowing him to pursue the investigation when some people scoffed at trying to find a person who went missing in 1945.

Turner feels 'huge relief' over case's resolution

"It was quite shocking at first," Turner said of the resolution. "I wasn't really prepared. I thought, 'This can't be real.'

"It's a huge relief off my shoulders that we solved this."

Combs said Turner is the only detective at the Shelby Police Department and credited him for keeping costs to a minimum.

"He funded his trips and did podcasts on his own time," the chief said. "It was more of a hobby and something he did on his own."

Turner says he wishes he knew why Vangilder left her family behind to start a new life elsewhere.

"What it shows is that our decisions can reverberate through time and distance and affect generations of our immediate family and descendants and that our choices in life need to be made in consideration of how it will affect those who love us," he said. "... Mary Jane's absence left a hole in her children's and grandchildren's lives that was a continuous wound.

"Questions will always remain as to why she voluntarily vanished from their lives, but at last, the investigation into her disappearance can be and is officially closed."

mcaudill@gannett.com

419-521-7219

X: @MarkCau32059251

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Ohio police detective solves mystery of missing woman