Video Series- Part 1 Angel in the Wind Oregon Cold Case From 1941

The story of a little Oregon girl who vanished without a trace in the early 1940's.

Little Betty Photo courtesy: Lela Taylor

(SILVER FALLS) - The family of Lela Taylor experienced the worst kind of change in 1941 when her aunt Betty, a ten-year old girl who could neither speak or hear, went missing in the Silver Falls area.

After many decades the story of Betty, someone she missed knowing by just a year, is an active part of Lela's life. And it was one year ago when Lela asked me if I would assist her in doing research on the long lost child, and possibly creating a television documentary.

She hopes such a program could shed light even after so much time has passed, and how could I say no?

So rather than pursue the traditional television documentary format, we decided that we would deliver the research as it happens here on Salem-News.com.

So here is the first part of Angel in the Wind. We hope that as people watch it, they comb the farthest reaches of their minds for any sort of a clue. Perhaps Lela and I will miss things along the way, maybe there are sources we aren't thinking of.

The comment section exists for feedback and we would like to hear anything that a visitor even remotely thinks would be interested to us.

Lela thinks that Betty could have been located in later years too, by people who weren't familiar with the story, and that her remains await identification in a morgue or box somewhere. Thanks to DNA, these things can now be determined.

It is assumed that she probably fell into harm's way, perhaps a predator or a wild animal?

Or maybe Betty was picked up by a family who thought she was lost. She could never have given them the information they would have needed to leave her alone. Maybe, just maybe, Betty is still alive today. At this point, only time can tell. But there is more... Lela and I have learned another fact that is a little unsettling; that six years prior to Betty's disappearance a man named Harold Brown who lived nearby went for a walk and never returned. Earlier in the century, there was another missing person case involving more than one person.

And today, locals tell you that things aren't always predictible there; strange people, large animals, and thousands and thousands of acres of the most remote land in the Willamette Valley.

WATCH THE VIDEO REPORT BELOW WITH SALEM-NEWS.COM'S TIM KING AND LELA TAYLOR

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