The Disturbing Disappearance Of Lisa White On 'Paper Ghosts'

Paper Ghosts is a true-crime podcast that looks at the disappearance of four young girls from neighboring towns in Connecticut in the early- to mid-1970s. Though quite a lot of the circumstances of these cases tied them together, pointing to one suspect, not a single arrest has been made in connection to any of them for over 50 years. Now, investigative reporter and true crime author M. William Phelps has gotten new information that has kicked open these cold cases yet again. In this episode, he examines the one case that doesn’t quite connect – 13-year-old Debbie Spickler – and looks closer at 13-year-old Lisa White’s case, where some disturbing testimony was never satisfactorily followed up.

When 7-year-old Janice Pockett disappeared in 1973, the area was already in high alert because of Debbie going missing 5 years earlier, in 1968. Debbie also went missing from the same town where Lisa vanished. Because of this, the three girls’ cases have always been grouped together, with all three of their faces printed onto the same missing person flyers still being posted around the town today. But, as Phelps explains, the age and location of the victims is where the similarities stop. He goes through the facts of Debbie’s case with his private investigator, Ken Robie, speculating on the truth of Debbie’s whereabouts today. Though they don’t know with certainty, they feel Debbie is still alive somewhere today. 

Not so with Lisa White, a 13-year-old girl who vanished in Vernon Connecticut one night in 1974. She was hitchhiking home from her friend Maria’s house. Given how many years have gone by, Phelps says it’s no surprise how many leads the police have gotten about Lisa, but a few have stuck out to him: A neighbor of the older boys' reported hearing a girl screaming and pounding on the walls of their apartment. A trucker said he had picked up Lisa at the 7-11 and dropped her off just across the city lines in Manchester. And just weeks after Lisa went missing, a woman called police, having heard a young girl screaming, “He’s going to kill me!” When she looked out the window, she saw a girl matching Lisa’s description running down the street, being followed by a van. And in 2013, an art student, searching for scrap metal for a sculpture, stumbled on the skull of a young woman. Listen to the episode to learn more about Lisa’s disappearance, and the other girls who vanished, on Paper Ghosts.

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