Clueless in New England: The Unsolved Disappearances of Paula Welden, Connie Smith and Katherine Hull

by Michael C. Dooling

Three young women, all seen hitchhiking, all disappeared. Two of these unsolved disappearances are the oldest cold cases in their respective states. Paula Welden, a resident of Stamford, Connecticut and student at Bennington College in Vermont disappeared in 1946 after hitching a ride to walk a portion of the Long Trail. Her disappearance sparked the largest search in Vermont's history. She was never found. Two states away, Connie Smith of Wyoming left a Lakeville, Connecticut summer camp in 1952 and was seen trying to catch a ride to the village center...and then she was gone. A nationwide search resulted in hundreds of leads but not one clue as to what happened to her. But there was a case a few years earlier relating to another missing young woman...the details of which lay buried for many years. Katherine Hull was visiting her grandmother in Lebanon Springs, New York, went for a walk and was seen hitchhiking. She was never again seen alive. Seven years passed before a group of hunters came face-to-face with her skull off a lonely road outside Pittsfield, Massachusetts. With 21st century eyes, Michael Dooling takes a fresh look at these three cases and puts them in context of modern psychological and geographic profiling. Using knowledge gained from the only case in which any remains were found, he sheds new light on what might have happened to the other two young women.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

236 pages, Hardcover

First published June 8, 2010

Reviews

[katerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Connie would have been my great aunt. I very much loved the descriptions, quotes and quips pertaining to my Great Grandfather Pete. He never stopped searching for Connie until his death in 2012 at age 97.

[Doreen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I live in Connecticut, so I did enjoy this book. The author gives an in-depth account of the disappearances of three young women and the searches that followed. He describes the investigations, pointing out the lack of clues and the ineffectual crime-solving of the 40's and 50's.
I especially enjoyed how the author used modern-day profiling and deduction to present plausible conclusions as to the manners of death. Forensics have advanced greatly and swiftly since the time of these crimes. The author is descriptive and thorough in dissecting these stories. The nature of the material made for a very, dry read, but I appreciated the research and care that went into the detailed analysis and retelling of these stories.

[Beth Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow. Spooky but not convincing. This kept me up late and gave me spooky dreams, but I found the end of the book (which reads like a book report on serial killer tactics) left me unconvinced that these three events were related. Still, Dooling did some extensive research and deserves credit for keeping me up, spooking me out, and writing engaging prose when he isn't trying to tie these tales together in the end.

[Amy H. Sturgis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Clueless in New England to learn more about the Paula Welden disappearance, but I was grateful for the opportunity to explore the Katherine Hull and Connie Smith cases, as well, and to see the ways each intersect. This is by far the most comprehensive and meticulously researched account available, and I found Michael Dooling's theories at the end to be instructive. Highly recommended!

[Howard Fielding · Rating 4 out of 5]

In today’s world of Amber and Silver alerts, around-the-clock news, social media, crime scene investigations, video monitoring and criminal profiling, missing-persons cases still baffle investigators.
In the middle of the 20th century, however, they were often nearly impossible to solve.

Intrigued by the similar disappearances of two young women in New England within a few years of each other, historian Michael Dooling set out to examine news reports and case files to determine whether there was a connection. His trail led him to a third, underreported case close in time and geography that had been closed when the victim’s remains were found on a remote mountainside.

The skull of Katherine Hull, who went for a walk while visiting her grandmother in the Lebanon Valley of New York State in 1936, was found seven years later and the case was immediately closed. Paula Weldon, who walked away from Bennington College in Vermont in 1946, and Connie Smith, who wandered from her summer camp in Lakeville, Connecticut in 1952, were never found. Dooling was the first to see the connections in the three cases.

All three young women were known to be hitchhikers. The three disappearances each took place along the New York State line, near main north-south and east-west state roads in those pre-Interstate days. In researching each case, Dooling also traces other historical missing-persons cases in those areas, some dating back to the 19th century, to put them into context.

These digressions can be confusing to the reader, as can the detailed witness-by-witness account of the Weldon case. The depth and scope of Dooling’s research is impressive and carefully documented and footnoted. This level of detail does eventually allow the author to connect the dots among the three cases and make his argument for a serial-killer theory, but it also gets in the way of the narrative at times.

Were there other cases over this period, perhaps elsewhere in the country, that the author did not find? Were other bodies found but dismissed as victims who were lost in the woods and died of exposure? Perhaps. Dooling is persuasive that, given what we know today about serial killers and their patterns, if these cases happened today they would be investigated for possible relations instead of simply as women who wandered off the beaten path.

Full disclosure: I worked with Michael Dooling for several years when he was archivist and researcher for the Republican-American newspaper in Waterbury, Connecticut (where the Connie Smith case is still remembered). I know him to be a meticulous researcher of news archives and original-source material, which is evident in this volume.

[A.M. Clyne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had heard of the Paula Welden case before, which is why I bought this book to begin with. Unsolved mysteries intrigue me - especially ones where people seemingly just disappear without a trace. The other cases were new to me and interesting for the reasons cited above.

The details of each case were comprehensive and thorough, including a good deal about the investigators, some of whom did not give up for years (Connie Smith’s case is literally still open and assigned to an officer). The author definitely did his research, and leaves few stones unturned. However, rather than exposition on serial killers, et al, I would have preferred if he’d profiled more cases, of which there have been many based on his own research.

That said, the author’s attempt to link these 3 specific disappearances/deaths (all of which were separated by years, locations, and circumstances) to one ‘serial killer’ was a bit of a stretch.

[Lonnie D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scary

This book details three girls' never solved disappearances, recovery searchin New England frpn the 1940's and 50's.
Also information about these kinds of crimes from a modern day police point of view. I read this because of my curiosity about the author Shirley Jackson , who lived in the Bennington community where Paula Weldon dissappeared. I believe, like this author, that in all three of these cases, the victims were acducted while hitchhiking and hidden where they weren't searched for. It's a scary, if informative, true crime book. It does tell all that is known about these three dissappearances which may have been related as they took place near each other, in the same hitchhiking situations, and each about 10 years apart. Very eerie!

[Nancy Gates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well-researched, thought-provoking, and heart-breaking. Heartbreaking to contemplate the terrible deaths of these self-confident, intelligent young women.

I think Mr. Dooley did an excellent job of presenting the information, as well as theorizing what may well have happened. Dooley's theory can't ever be proven, not at this late date, but I find it to be a very plausible theory.

If you're thinking this will just be a fun sort of spooky read, this is really a very sobering examination of real human mystery and tragedy.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am from Vermont and am familiar with the wild stories of the Bennington Triangle. They are hokum. Dooling has put together the facts of the missing persons cases better than most the other authors. His story theory is certainly plausible. I think he did a very good job with the material. The information on serial killer profiling at the end of the book was very interesting.

If you are interested in Vermont or New England lore, missing persons, or serial killers this is a good read.

[Cena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good coverage of three missing people from the 1940s and 50s. Author’s theory of an unknown serial killer culprit in the last 20% was tenuous and purely speculative, and the only real thing linking the girls was the fact that they went missing and maybe hitchhiking. To date, only one set of remains has been found. Otherwise well-written and sourced.

[Nattie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found out about these missing person cases on Wikipedia while doing some research on other cases. The subject has interested me for many years and this book did not disappoint until the last several chapters.

The last several chapters were a bit dry and repetitive and focused a lot on landscapes and the mindset of various serial killers. Overall, Katherine definitely got the short end of the stick compared to the other two girls.

In Connie's story, one of her camp counselors claimed to see her leaving the camp but thought she must be one of the other counselors instead of a child. It was said that she was tall for her age and looked older than her ten years. I don't understand how the counselor could have made a mistake like that, Connie looked like a kid in her pictures and she was only 5'0" tall.

I know in the 1950's the height of girls was looked at differently, but 5'0" isn't exactly a tall girl. I was 5'4" when I was nine.

Paula Welden's story gave me an uneasy feeling. The writing was good and it felt like the author was invested in her.

[Meaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author attempts to tie the 1946 disappearance of Paula Welden and the 1952 disappearance of Connie Smith with an earlier case, that of Katherine Hull in 1936. Katherine was 22 when she disappeared from Lebanon Springs, New York. Her skeletal remains were found in the local area seven years later. There wasn't much left of her and the police had almost zero evidence to go on, so they closed her case as an accidental death and threw out all her investigation files. But as Dooling points out, it could well have been murder. We'll never know now.

I'm not at all convinced by his serial killer theory -- the many years between the disappearances, and the fact that they occurred hundreds of miles apart, are hard to get over -- but I do think this was an excellent book. It provides a wealth of detail on all three women's cases, as much detail as you're going to get at this late date, not only about the disappearances themselves but about the investigations and the way police did things back in the day. Well done, Mr. Dooling.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of great research went into this book. I met the author at the Big E and we had an interesting talk about how many unsolved cases there are in New England. These three certainly seem linked and he's done an excellent job of documenting them.