The Puzzling Disappearance of Jacqueline Kinney
Five Decades After She Went Missing in Canton Few Clues Have Ever Been Made Public in Jacqueline's Mysterious Vanishing
By Shawn R. Dagle
On a late summer morning a backhoe sifted through the rubble of a torn down farmhouse off a rural stretch or roadway in Canton, Connecticut. Somewhere amid the debris filling the old farmhouse’s cellar hole Connecticut State Police hoped to find the body of missing High Street resident Jacqueline Kinney.
Seven years prior to the search- in December of 1969 - Jacqueline was reported missing by her husband Gerald. She was never seen again.
Five decades later details regarding Jacqueline’s disappearance are scarce. Reports in the years following Jacqueline’s disappearance indicated that her husband reported her missing on December 8. NAMUS and other contemporary sources however indicate she was reported missing on December 5,
35-years-old at the time of her disappearance Jacqueline was described as having reddish hair and blue eyes. She was five feet, four inches tall and weighed approximately 150 pounds. She lived on High Street in the Collinsville section of Canton.
The precise circumstances surrounding Jacqueline’s disappearance are not publicly known. In the years following her disappearance Jacqueline’s husband Gerald moved out of state – reportedly north to Maine.
Then in September of 1977 there appeared to be a major break in the case. Police received a tip that Jacqueline may have been buried at the farmhouse in the Werner Woods.
Four years earlier the farmhouse had been torn down. At the time of Jacqueline’s disappearance however it had yet to be demolished and the farmhouse, land and a nearby barn had been given to the state as a game refuge.
Using the backhoe police searched the farmhouse’s cellar hole, an old fireplace on the property and a beehive oven but turned up no remains. Investigators were also interested in searching a well on the property but learned it had been filled in years before she disappeared according to the Hartford Courant which followed the story at the time.
While police continued to explore the possibility that Jacqueline might still be alive her family did not believe she would have simply walked off without a trace according to the Courant.
For more than a year there appeared to be little progress in the case then in February of 1979 news broke that police were ready to seek a warrant in the case.
That month the Courant reported that “reliable sources” had indicated that state police were ready to seek an arrest warrant charging an unnamed man in Jacqueline’s murder even though her remains had yet to be found.
According to the Courant the unnamed individual had once lived in Canton and had known Jacqueline. Police and prosecutors would not comment. No arrest however appears to have ever been made.
At the time the Courant reported that Jacqueline’s husband was last known to be living in Maine in September of 1977. The exact whereabouts of Jacqueline’s husband after that however appear to be a mystery.
In November of 1985 a legal notice was published in the Evening Express in Maine announcing that there were divorce proceedings underway in Connecticut involving Jacqueline and Gerald Kinney [presumably filed by her family].
According to the ad Gerald’s residence and whereabouts were “unknown” at the time - though given the fact the announcement was published in Maine they must have believed he still might be living in that state.
While it is unclear where Gerald moved in Maine, there is the possibility that he may have been living in Bridgewater – where his family may have originally been from – as late as 2000. He may have passed away soon after that date.
To date no trace of Jacqueline has ever been found.
According to NAMUS Jacqueline has a scar on the right side of her abdomen from a previous surgery, a scar on the back of her left leg before her knee and a vaccination scar on one of her legs above the knee.
-November 29, 2022
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SOURCES
WTHN “Missing in Connecticut” Olivia Lank April 22, 2022
.Courant “Canton Site Probed for Missing Woman” Joan Kenney September 2, 1977
Hartford Courant “Police Seek Warrant in Killing” Howard Sherman February 2, 1979
The Evening Express Legal Ad November 5, 1985
NAMUS
1940 Census
Hartford Courant “Granby Slaying Probed” September 13, 1977 Kirk Hastian