Vanished in the 1950s: What happened to Clara Frost?

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – Three cold cases from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s are now connected in a surprising way.

Wednesday, we first told you how the search for Mary Jane Vangilder, a missing woman in Richland County, led to the identification of a man named Albert Frost in southwest Ohio.

You can watch those stories here.

Albert & Clara Frost

Albert went missing in the early 1960s.

His unidentified skeletal remains were buried in a cemetery in Preble County for more than 50 years.

Det. Adam Turner with Shelby Police discovered his remains when he was searching for a possible match to Mary Jane Vangilder, who went missing in 1945.

After exhuming his body, he worked with Moxxy Forensics to identify his remains using Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG).

They found Albert’s closest DNA relative was his great niece, Tina Barrett.

When the detective reached out to her, he unlocked another mystery.

“Initially, I thought they were talking about my great aunt Clara because until that moment, I did not know that Albert existed. No one talked about it,” Barrett said.

It turns out, there were two missing siblings in the same family.

“But Albert was just presumed to have taken off, and then just not spoken about. You know, that puzzles me to this day, because they did ask about Clara and although Albert had a history of just being gone for a while, he also had a history of always coming back. And no one ever talked about it,” Barrett said.

Clara Frost was Albert’s older sister.

She went by the nickname Inez and was in her early 20s when she went missing about a decade before he did.

The young mother vanished from Cleveland in the 1950s.

The only photo of her the detective could find was from her 10th grade yearbook.

“We searched through ancestry and public databases. And there was very little information about her,” Det. Turner said.

Several family members told Det. Turner that Clara’s mother “sold” her to a man who later became her husband.

They had two kids together, who were just a baby and a toddler when she vanished.

Clara’s disappearance

Clara’s family thought her disappearance was suspicious.

They told police her husband had been physically abusive to her.

“And no one knew where she was. And I think it was presumed that she was living somewhere else by some people. Others were pretty sure that her husband had killed her,” Barrett said.

Clara’s last known existence shows up in the 1950 census, in Cleveland.

Det. Turner believes she went missing not long after that.

Records show Clara’s husband remarried.

“By about 1952 he had remarried and moved the children to Pennsylvania,” he said.

Det. Turner said based on information from her family, Clara’s husband, who passed away decades ago is now a suspect in this case.

At the time, Clara’s husband told police she had just ran off.

“It was inconsistent with who she was to get up and leave,” Barrett said.

“My family didn’t squeak enough, didn’t complain enough. Maybe they were also afraid of this man. I don’t know. I didn’t meet him. But not enough was done to make sure that her children knew what happened to her,” she said.

Three cold cases connected

He started with one cold case, but now Det. Turner is working on three.

And he’s not giving up on the cases of Albert and Clara Frost, even though they’re not out of his city.

He is volunteering his own time to work on those cases.

“It’s gonna remain open, you know, until it’s solved until it’s completely done,” he said.

“It’s it’s important because I feel like they’ve essentially like fallen through the cracks, you know, these are people that you know with time and with circumstances, you know, unfortunately kind of been forgotten. And I you know, I wouldn’t want that to happen to me,” Det. Turner said.

Clara’s two children have passed away, but her grandchildren are still waiting for answers.

Right now Clara and Albert’s cases are both being investigated as possible murders.

Meanwhile the family of Mary Jane Vangilder, the missing woman from Shelby who started this all, is still waiting for answers.

We’re told an update in her case will be coming next week, we’ll keep you posted.

If you have any information on any of these cases, call Shelby Police at 419-347-2242 or email Det. Turner at adamturner@shelbycity.oh.gov.

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