Michael and Pamela Mayfield (Missing Persons)

On Thursday January 10th 1985, kindergarteners Michael and Pamela Mayfield vanished without a trace on their way home from school. At 2.45 pm, the bell rang, and the siblings left Betsy Ross Elementary in northeast Houston with the rest of their classmates. It was the first time they had been allowed to walk home alone. One witness said they saw Michael and Pamela getting into a green, two-door car close to the school, but other sightings were reported as late as 5.00 pm that day. Four months later, police received a call from a person claiming to know the location of the missing children, and the focus of the investigation was shifted 1500 miles away. 

Sources for the episode can be found here

Transcript

Michael and Pamela Mayfield

Michael Ray Mayfield was born in Houston, Texas on June 6th 1978. His little sister Pamela Denise Mayfield was born just over a year later on July 7th 1979. The siblings' parents were Cynthia Mayfield and Michael Gant. Cynthia was just shy of 16 when she gave birth to Michael, and Michael senior was 18. The couple were not married at the time of the births so both children were given Cynthia's maiden name as a surname. Cynthia and Michael Senior did go on to marry in April 1981, but separated not long after. 

For the most part Michael and Pamela were raised by their maternal grandmother, Lillie Mayfield, and resided in a run-down apartment block situated at 3507 Des Chaumes Street; close to Eastex Freeway in northeast Houston. The children often visited their mother Cynthia and her boyfriend Bernard. Cynthia would also come over to spend time with her children at her mother’s home. In addition, Michael and Pamela would regularly stay with their father, Michael, and his girlfriend Sheronda.

Michael was due to start kindergarten in the autumn of 1983 but several stories, including information from the Charley Project, say he was held back a year. It is unclear if Michael repeated the year or just started a year later. Michael is referred to as a "slow learner”, thankfully not a term that is used today. In Welsh education he may have been a pupil with Additional Learning Needs, though I don't have enough information to state this as fact. 

Both children attended kindergarten together for the 1984/85 academic year. Pamela was aged 5 and Michael 6. They went to the Betsy Ross Elementary school in the 2800 block of Bay Street. The school is still there, and in 1985 Michael and Pamela's home was just under a mile, or a few blocks, away. The principal of the elementary school, Dalton Hughes, later said the siblings were sweet children. Their class teacher Sue Moriarity added that during the school year Michael had been very quiet. In contrast, Pamela was talkative and very social. She was a confident little girl and would take it upon herself to look after her older brother. 

Over the Christmas period of 1984, Michael and Pamela spent time with their father and his family, including their paternal grandparents: Robbie and Wesley Gant. In January, when the holidays were over, the siblings returned to school and their normal routine resumed.

On Thursday January 10th 1985, Michael and Pamela attended kindergarten, as they would on any other day. At 2.45pm the school bell rang and the Mayfield siblings filed out of the school gates with the rest of their classmates. Several witnesses saw them walking along the Eastex Freeway in the direction of home. Then they vanished. 

Cynthia was at work that afternoon and the children's 46 year old grandmother Lillie was also not at home. The children's 19 year old uncle was at home, looking after his 2 year old nephew. At 3.30pm he became concerned that Michael and Pamela had not arrived home and called Cynthia. Friends and relatives went out searching the neighborhood but to no avail. Between 7.00 and 7.30pm, with their whereabouts still unknown, Cynthia contacted the Houston police department and reported both her children missing. It was policy for Texas law enforcement agencies to respond immediately to missing persons cases involving children under 9 and so officers were sent to meet with Cynthia Mayfield to gather details. Michael and Pamela were added to the 130 or so missing persons cases that were currently open.

At first police suspected the children may be with their father but Michael senior had no idea where his children were. This was not a custody issue and police openly stated they did not think the children's disappearance was linked to any domestic problems.

Over the next 48 hours police undertook extensive house to house inquiries along the route from the school to the children's home and in the wider community. Sgt Steve Gregg, who was put in charge of finding Michael and Pamela, said that no ransom note had been received by the family. Lt M.L. Yates of the Houston police juvenile division added that anything could have happened to the children and foul play had not been ruled out.  

The following descriptions of the missing children were circulated across Houston. 

Five year old Pamela had brown eyes and black/dark brown hair. She was 2 ft 9 and weighed 50lbs. When she went to school that morning she was wearing blue jeans, a light blue shirt, a yellow jacket with red and blue stripes and black shoes. She wore four white barrettes in her hair. Both ears were pierced. 

Michael was 3ft and 6 years old, weighing 75-80 lbs. He also had black hair and brown eyes and was last wearing red trousers, a blue and red jacket and blue tennis shoes. Michael had a burn scar on his wrist. Most reports say this was his right wrist but I've found one that says it was the left. The scar was caused by a hot iron falling on him when he was a baby. Michael was said to have a slight speech impediment, also described as a stutter. 

Initially, only one photograph of each child could be found. The photos had been taken over 2 years previously when the children were 3 and 4. At that age children are growing fast and police were worried that the photos no longer represented a good likeness of the children. Eventually in November 1985 Pamela's nursery school teacher found a more recent photograph taken when the 5 year old had performed in a recent school play. Another kindergarten teacher found some undeveloped negatives which contained pictures of the whole class, including both Mayfield children. These new images replaced the earlier ones first circulated by organizations such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, (NCMEC).

At first, information given by police and filtered through local press suggested that Michael and Pamela always walked home from school alone, and were never late. However in an article in the Houston Post from June 1987 Cynthia Mayfield says that day was the first time the children had walked home alone. Normally someone would pick them up and accompany them home. Pamela had been badgering her mother to be allowed to walk home with Michael alone. During classes that day Pamela had constantly reminded her kindergarten teacher that they were walking home on their own. It was obviously something she was looking forward to doing.

On Saturday January 12th the house to house search was called off, a little over 48 hours after the children were last seen. Sgt J.R. Wiederhold of the Houston police department said they would be continuing to check out some leads they had received over the past couple of days. The investigation was just beginning.

During police inquiries a fellow student of the Betsy Ross Elementary School came forward with some potentially vital information. The young boy said he had seen Michael and Pamela getting into a green, two door car on the north side of the school building. The witness could not clearly see the man who was driving the car, because he was bending down in the seat.  

This next part of the story is not mentioned in modern-day writeups on the case but is told in the Houston Post June 21st 1987 edition. According to journalist Jack Douglas, several people said they saw Michael and Pamela playing in the courtyard of Oak Manor Apartments, a residential complex half a block away from the Mayfield home. Significantly, this sighting was timed at 5pm, over two hours after the children had left Betsy Ross Elementary School. 

Two young boys said they had witnessed Michael and Pamela leaving the Oak Manor apartment complex in a green and white Cadillac, possibly a 1961 model, driven by a black man with a dark complexion. The children had got into the car voluntarily, they were not bundled inside. The two boys later recanted their story but, significantly, two years later in 1987 one of the boys said he had been telling the truth about what he had seen, but had changed his story because he was scared. 

Could this green and white Cadillac be the same “green” car the other witness saw Michael and Pamela get into near the school? 

In the wake of their disappearance Michael and Pamela’s case was covered by local TV station KTRK-TV and in particular channel 13 news. After one segment was aired by newsreader Melanie Lawson the station received an ominous phone call from a man claiming to know the whereabouts of the missing children. He said unless said newsreader, Melanie Lawson met him in person, he would kill Michael and Pamela. 

The man gave a time and location for the newsreader to meet him and so the Houston police hatched a plan. When the man turned up he was immediately arrested. 

It was soon discovered that the 28 year old man had no actual knowledge of the whereabouts of Michael or Pamela. He had used the incident as a ploy to meet newsreader Melanie Lawson, with whom he was obsessed. The man was given a short jail sentence for filing a false report but when he was released he continued to harass Melanie Lawson and other KTRK employees. He started making threatening phone calls and a witness said he told her he was going to kill Melanie Lawson. The man was arrested and eventually sent to prison for 10 years. The whole affair must have been very unsettling for Melanie Lawson, and in terms of the Mayfields’ case it had been an unwanted distraction.

Three months after the children went missing it was evident that something significant would have to happen in Michael and Pamela’s case if they were going to be found. In April 1985 their photographs began to appear on milk cartons sold in local Safeway stores and other supermarket chains. This was the first time pictures of missing Texas children had been used in such an initiative. Pizza Hut displayed cards with photos of Michael and Pamela. The Entex gas company also began considering sending out pictures of the missing children with gas bills, mirroring an initiative already employed by the American Gas Association to publicise other missing person cases. I'm not sure if Entex ever followed through and did this.

At the end of April, NBC aired the TV movie “Adam”, based on the 1981 abduction and murder of 6 year old Adam Walsh. Following the movie, a clip put together by the NCMEC and introduced by President Ronald Reagan was shown, highlighting 61 missing children from all over America. Michael and Pamela Mayfield were included. It was the third year in a row “Adam” had been shown. In 1983, 13 of the 15 missing children that were highlighted were found. In 1984, 19 of 51 cases were solved. Unfortunately the 1985 version did not result in Michael and Pamela being found. 

Lead investigator Sgt Steve Gregg told the Houston Chronicle in May 1985 that despite the coverage afforded by the TV and milk carton campaign, they had no leads to go on. That's not to say the police didn't have some theories about what might have happened to Michael and Pamela.

As is normal in a case like this, immediate and extended members of the Mayfield and Gant families were looked into extensively but police found no evidence of their involvement in the suspected kidnapping. Houston police officer Gary Montgomery stated that Michael and Pamela were not abused children and did not lack attention. Both parents and their extended families spent quality time with Michael and Pamela. They were very much loved and cared for. All key family members had taken polygraph tests and there had been no signs of deception. They had all also said they would appear before a grand jury if needed. I should say here that maternal grandmother Lillie Mayfield had a heart attack in the aftermath of the children going missing. She was able to make a recovery but this illustrates the immense mental and physical strain the family was under. 

Police suspected that the children may have gone with someone that they knew and trusted. This was partly based on the knowledge that they had been warned not to go with strangers. However, it is important to remember that it is children, not their parents, who decide whether or not someone is a stranger. 

John Rabun, the deputy director of NCMEC, told the Houston Chronicle in November 1985 that there was an overemphasis on stranger danger. This was to the detriment of properly safeguarding children and giving them the tools to recognise a dangerous situation. Abducted children are often lured away because they know the preparator, even if it is only a very casual acquaintance. Perhaps someone who loaned them a little money, so they could buy sweets or a friendly person who always let them pet their dog. The contact could be very minimal and yet be enough for the child not to view the person as a stranger, but rather as a trusted adult. John Rabun cited more extreme forms of emotional manipulation sometimes favoured by predators. There had been instances where abductors had claimed to be a child's real father in order to win their trust and persuade the child to go with them. 

Gary Montgomery of the Houston police told the Houston Chronicle there was no reason to believe the children were dead. He did not believe it was a sex crime but rather thought Michael and Pamela had been taken by a friend or relative. As the immediate family had been cleared I think he was meaning a distant relationship. It was speculated the children may have been taken in order to “rescue” them from a life of poverty.

The family wracked their brains but couldn't think of anyone who would take the children. Police seemed confident it was someone who had some prior contact with Michael, Pamela or both siblings. 

Hundreds of leads were looked into and took investigators across the country, as far afield as Maine, but all led to a dead end and no suspect emerged. With one exception. On May 12th 1985 a telephone call was received by the Houston police dispatcher and immediately caught the attention of investigators because the caller gave the specific details about the whereabouts of Michael and Pamela. 

A person who sounded like an elderly black man called to say the children in the quote “so-called kidnapping” (referring to Michael and Pamela Mayfield) were doing fine and living with their maternal grandmother in Los Angeles, California. They were living near 75th Street, about a mile east of Inglewood Park Cemetery. The man did not give an exact address. The police dispatcher asked the man how he knew the children were there. He replied, quote “I know”. He then hung up without giving his name. He did not make contact again.

What is strange is that the Mayfield siblings had lived with their maternal grandmother, Lillie Mayfield, in Houston and their paternal grandparents also lived in Houston. No grandparents lived in L.A. That being said, both the Mayfield and Gant families did have extended family members living in L.A. The Houston Police department asked the FBI to check all their addresses, but the children were not found. An article from the Houston Chronicle in 1991 says a tip that a “distant relative” took the children and absconded to California was investigated but led nowhere.

Information letters and colour pictures of the Mayfield siblings were sent to all 1083 school districts in Texas in case their kidnapper tried to enrol them under assumed names. There were no positive responses. A plan was made to send the case details to L.A. schools, though I'm not sure if this ever happened. In addition, letters were sent to hundreds of hospitals across Texas in case the children were brought in for treatment. Again there was no positive news.

In so many similar suspected child abduction cases significant rewards are put together by local businesses and community groups. As far as I can see in the Mayfields’ case only one group, the “Top Ladies of Distinction” came forward with a reward of $500 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who had taken the children. The reward went unclaimed. 

At Christmas 1985 local Mayor Kathy Whitmire launched a campaign to help find missing children at a press conference at the Children's Museum of Houston on Allen Parkway. The initiative was sponsored by local supermarkets and Nestle, and was supported by NCMEC. It highlighted that the majority of missing children were taken by non-custodial partners or were runaways. 91% of missing children cases were solved by Houston police. The Mayfield children were mentioned in this campaign and were the only case of quote “stranger abduction”.

Two whole years passed with no news. In June 1987 Michael and Pamela's parents talked with the Houston Post about the tortuous journey they had been on since the day their children were taken from them. Cynthia was having recurring dreams which culminated in Michael and Pamela being found alive. She would wake in the night and then be faced with the reality that they were still gone. It was then impossible for her to go back to sleep and she would lie awake crying. 

Michael Gant felt that his children were still alive. He gave a message to their captor pleading to ensure they were taken care of, fed and well-dressed. Both parents loved their children. Michael Gant said he would do anything to bring them back and hold them in his arms. Michael and Cynthia remained separated at this point and eventually divorced in 1990.

At this time, Gary Montgomery of Houston police was still working the investigation and wanted the public to know that the case had not been put on the back burner. He wasn't allowing himself to get frustrated as this would make him lose sight of his objective; to bring the children home. Sgt Steve Gregg, who also continued to work the case, was finding it difficult to remain positive. He said it was the most frustrating case he had worked on in his then 13 year career. New leads were few and far between and there were no suspects. The police were still saying the strongest clue they had was the anonymous phone call indicating the children were being kept in LA. 

Interestingly the children's principal, Dalton Hughes, was talked to in the aforementioned 1987 Houston Post article. He said that the most reliable thing he had heard was that the children had made it home after school on the day they went missing, but found the apartment locked and no-one there. They had then begun to walk to another relative's house. 

About six months before the said newspaper article an anonymous caller  telephoned the Mayfield children's paternal grandmother, Robbie Gant. The caller told her that Michael and Pamela were dead, and that the children's bones could be found on the porch of their maternal grandmother Lillie Mayfield’s house. A bag of bones was found but they were determined to be the bones of a dog. The whole thing had been a disturbing prank and a teenager had thrown the bag over the fence as a sick joke.

The Mayfield and Gant families were trying to stay optimistic. Paternal grandfather, 53 year old Wesley Gant, told the Houston Chronicle in 1991 that nobody gives up hope but he added he had a bad feeling about it. Maternal grandmother Lillie Mayfield continued to phone the police department regularly asking for updates for many years. She never gave up looking.

Sadly proof of what happened to Michael and Pamela Mayfield has yet to materialise. During the episode I did covering the case of Daina Moon Yoli and Mark Yoli, I mentioned how rare it was for two children to be abducted seemingly by a stranger at the same time. The Beaumont siblings from Adelaide 1966, Joanne Radcliffe and Kirste Gordon also Adelaide in 1973, the Mackay Sisters from Queensland in 1970, the Millbrooke twins from Georgia 1990 and the Fandel Siblings from Alaska 1978 are all examples that stick in the mind precisely because of the rarity of these crimes and their devastating effect on the families and communities left behind. 

Now most organisations that publicise the Mayfield children's case do class it as a non-family abduction. If the sightings of the children getting into a green and white Cadillac are correct it does suggest they knew their abductor. Perhaps it was only a fleeting connection, but it was enough to persuade them into the car when the door was opened.

As the crime has gone unsolved for so long there is the possibility it was a crime of opportunity and pure luck that this was the first day the children had walked home alone. Maybe the abductor didn't know them, but knew how to win the trust of two small children. If this is the case, the assailant would be incredibly bold to have the confidence to take two children off the street and in broad daylight.

Age progressed pictures of Michael and Pamela have been created by NCMEC which show them at 40 and 39 respectively. 

If you have any information about the 1985 abduction of  Michael and Pamela Mayfield, you can contact the Houston Police department on 832 394 1872 or contact Crimestoppers on 1-800-222-TIPS.

.