The Disappearance of Doreen Vincent (Connecticut)

When a 12-year old girl disappeared from her home on a summer night in 1988, police took her father’s word that she’d run away just as she had more than once before. But more than 30 years later, there’s still no sign of the missing girl and her father’s story just isn’t adding up.

Where is Doreen?

It was the evening of Saturday, June 18, 1988 and Donna Lee Jones was en route to her ex-husband Mark Vincent’s new house where their 12-year old daughter Doreen Vincent was living with Mark and his wife, Sharon, and her children. Donna hadn’t been to the new house yet. They’d moved into the big purple-painted farmhouse on Whirlwind Hill Road in Wallingford, Connecticut only about 10 days before but she talked to Sharon earlier that week to ask for directions.

Donna was supposed to pick up Doreen on Friday, but when Friday rolled around, Donna called their house several times and no one answered the phone. She actually hadn’t been able to reach anyone at their house for days now. So, the next day, Donna decided to just show up. She was looking forward to some mother-daughter time with Doreen, especially after not being able to reach her on the phone for the last few days.

According to an award-winning article by Jason J. Berry titled “Where is Doreen Vincent?” published in the Record-Journal on May 6, 2001, when Donna pulled up to Mark’s house early that Saturday he was outside puttering around with a lawn mower. He acted confused and almost annoyed to see her.

Donna asked Mark where Doreen was, but Mark threw the question right back at her. As Donna describes it, he said that Doreen wasn’t there and that she ran away and was apparently unconcerned. He just assumed that Doreen was with Donna. It wouldn’t be the first time Doreen left and went straight to her mother’s place.

It was true that Doreen had run away before, but every time she left her father’s home, she was either only gone a few hours or she showed up at Donna’s doorstep, and then she would call Mark to let him know Doreen was safe…But Donna hadn’t heard from Doreen. 

Donna tried to reason with Mark but he was uninterested in his ex-wife’s concerns. He was convinced that after hearing all his daughter’s complaints about moving to Wallingford, Doreen decided to leave and was either with friends in the city or that maybe she was in Florida with her grandparents. Donna once sent Doreen there amidst a tumultuous custody dispute with Mark.

Donna pleaded with her ex-husband. She didn’t have Doreen with her and she didn’t know where their daughter was. She wanted Mark to call the police to file a missing persons report, but Mark just didn’t think that was necessary. Finally, with Donna close to begging, Mark relented and agreed to file a report that day, June 18th…But by then, Doreen had already been missing for almost three days.

The Search

Mark told police that the last time he saw his daughter Doreen was on the night of June 15th. According to a 2012 piece published in Connecticut Magazine and written by Michelle Tuccitto Sullo, Ann DeMatteo, Brian McCready and Daniela Forte, Mark said he went to his workshop after dinner that night but saw Doreen in the kitchen around 8 p.m. By 9 o’clock when he went to Doreen’s bedroom, she was gone. Mark believed she took $50 that she’d made from doing chores around the house and some personal items with her when she left.

Because Doreen had run away from his house at least once before and later showed up at her mother’s house, he told police he assumed this time was no different and that’s why he didn’t jump to alert the authorities when she took off.

Donna tried to give a statement as part of the missing persons report, too, but she has said that police refused to take it. From the very beginning, Donna just couldn’t believe that Doreen left on her own…Because where was a 12-year old girl to go in a rural town where she knew no one? Donna’s fears that something else was at play here conflicted with Mark’s narrative that Doreen had run away. According to Donna, investigators told her the contrasting statements would be confusing.

Police did not believe foul play was a factor in her sudden disappearance, so based on Mark’s statements and Doreen’s previous behavior, she was treated as a runaway. Police called friends and family, they checked bus and train stations, and they circulated her description in the media. Doreen was 5-feet-4 inches tall with brown hair and brown eyes and weighed about 110 pounds. She was believed to be wearing shorts, a waist-length denim jacket and white and purple Reebok athletic shoes when she left.

Leads trickled in with potential sightings of Doreen. One tipster reported seeing the missing girl at a McDonald’s in New Haven, but it didn’t turn out to be Doreen, just someone who kind of looked like her.

In July, after a month without any new leads, Doreen’s family announced a $5000 reward for information leading to the discovery of her whereabouts. It may have generated a few new calls to Wallingford PD that summer, but none that produced any real answers.

Donna took time off work to search for her daughter. She went to New York City, scouring the streets hoping to see a familiar face looking back at her. She even hired a private investigator on her own dime, willing to do anything to find Doreen if she was really out there somewhere, but Doreen wasn’t among the crowds of Manhattan and the PI could turn up no trace of her either. It was like Doreen had vanished into thin air.

Strange Sighting in Huntington State Park

In the late summer or early fall of 1988, as the search for Doreen continued, something odd happened about 50 miles west of Wallingford in the town of Bethel. Sergeant Paul O’Connell of the state Department of Environmental Protection was out in a section of Collis P. Huntington State Park when he witnessed a downright suspicious scene.

Sgt. O’Connell watched as an unknown man took something out of the back of a pickup truck in a wooded area of the park. It looked like his arms were out in front of him, carrying something shaped like a carpet…Or a person. The guy took off running deeper into the woods as the officer documented the license plate and description of the truck. He noted everything from the color down to the dents, the towhook and the DIY toolbox attached to the back of it. He didn’t really get a good glimpse at the driver though, the man who darted into the dark carrying something in his arms.

Sgt. O’Connell later called the incident into his DEP office but the potential significance of the bizarre sighting wouldn’t be fully realized until the following summer.