Few Clues Surface in Case of Woman Missing 7 Weeks

When pretty, 19-year-old Joyce Walcott left two girlfriends on a busy Reseda street, she promised to be right back.

It was just past noon on a Tuesday. Walcott was looking for a job. She said she was going to walk to the Sav-On, a few paces away, drop off a job application and then rejoin her friends.

They waited in a doughnut shop. She never came back.

A witness later told police that she saw someone who fit Walcott’s description talking on the pay phone outside the Sav-On on Sherman Way in the heart of the Reseda shopping district.

Almost seven weeks later, police still have no other significant clues in the disappearance of the young woman with long auburn hair who came from her home in New Mexico less than a year ago to live with her aunt in Reseda.

Case Is Different

Although most adults reported missing eventually turn up safe, police have thought almost from the beginning that Walcott’s case is different.

“She just up and disappeared,” said Lt. William Gaida, commanding officer of the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley detective bureau. “Her clothing and all her property are intact. No contact has been made with relatives. That’s highly unusual.”

For police, that spells a mystery. For friends and relatives, that mystery has turned into a life of strained waiting in which weeks go by without a piece of new information arriving.

“That’s the hardest part, not knowing,” said Walcott’s aunt, Irene Lickiss.

Lickiss took her niece into her Sherman Way apartment last July when the young woman wanted to get away from her home in the small town of Farmington, N.M.

Now she feels like she’s lost a child.

“It isn’t a matter of finding her and bringing her home,” Lickiss said. (As an adult, Walcott could stay away if she wanted.) “We want to know that she’s alive and on the earth.”

1,400 to 1,600 Missing

Walcott is one of from 1,400 to 1,600 adults reported missing each year in Los Angeles, said police Detective Steve Brazner of the missing persons detail downtown. However, a very small percentage remain missing as long as she has.

More than 90% of missing persons turn out to be voluntary departures, “people who left because they wanted to be someplace else and later contacted the family,” Brazner said. About 5% are found dead.

“It’s actually less than 1% that turn out to be long-term missing,” Brazner said. “We have about 80 cases of adults who fit this category, going back 10 years.”

Brazner, the primary investigator on the case, has no theory about what happened.

Several Theories

“There was no unusual activity seen in the area, no evidence of her being grabbed or kidnaped into a car,” Brazner said. “What it boils down to is a strange disappearance that, according to friends and family, is totally out of character for the young lady. Although there is no indication of foul play, we certainly cannot discount that possibility.”

She could also be under involuntary confinement somewhere or a victim of amnesia or one of the 90% who leave with no word, he said.

Lickiss and Walcott’s boyfriend, 21-year-old Scott Noone, however, said they can’t imagine her doing that.

“She’d never do anything like this to hurt her family,” Lickiss said. “She’d have let somebody know by now.”

“There was no reason for her to take off,” Noone said. “She was really happy that day.”

Both said they believe that Walcott was on an upswing after experiencing several disappointments in the months after her move from New Mexico.

Walcott enrolled at Reseda High School in the fall, hoping to earn a diploma. But two minor traffic accidents, in both of which she was a passenger, changed that plan. Though Walcott was not seriously hurt, a medical examination turned up evidence of a possibly congenital separation between her skull and spine. After corrective surgery in November, Walcott had to wear a neck brace.

‘Couldn’t Handle School’

“She tried to go back to school in February,” Lickiss said. “With the brace on she just couldn’t handle sitting in school.”

During her recovery, Walcott met and began to date Noone, who lived with his brother in the same apartment complex.

In March, she moved from her aunt’s apartment to Noone’s. Soon she began thinking about work. She picked up job applications at several stores, all within walking distance of the apartment.

On the afternoon of April 29, Walcott went out with Noone’s sister and his brother’s girlfriend to return the applications. Wearing a blue and white striped cotton shirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes, Walcott walked to the 7-Eleven store, the Von’s market and the Winchell’s Donut House, all on Sherman Way in the block west of Etiwanda Avenue. The two other women stayed at Winchell’s while Walcott went on to the Sav-On next door.

Uncharacteristic Behavior

When Lickiss, a computer programmer, and Noone, a shipping clerk, returned from work and Walcott had not been found, they went to the West Valley police station to file a report.

They were told they could not file a report until 24 hours after the disappearance. At noon the next day they returned.

The police warmed to the case slowly, they said.

“In the beginning it was the same story,” Lickiss said. “Maybe she just took off. I think now they believe it was foul play.”

Since then, police have conducted extensive interviews in the neighborhood and have distributed a photograph of Walcott to police agencies throughout the western United States.

On their own, Lickiss and Noone distributed flyers throughout the West Valley and as far away as Bakersfield and New Mexico. Friends, and even strangers volunteering help, have carried flyers across the country.

That effort has produced only a few calls.

No New Leads

Recently, Noone said, a man said he saw Walcott later that same day sitting on a bus bench on Reseda, crying. Somebody else reported seeing Walcott waiting tables in an Encino restaurant.

Both leads turned up dry and the investigation has leveled off.

Lickiss keeps after Brazner to renew his efforts.

“But if they don’t have any leads, there’s not much they can do,” she said.

Last week the case received a minor spark when the body of 22-year-old Mary Duggan, who lived only a few blocks from Lickiss, was found naked in a car in Burbank.

Police have found no connection between the two cases. However, because of the coincidence, they are comparing the investigations for other similarities.

“It may be just a coincidence but, then again, it’s something we have to look at,” Lt. Gaida said.