ST. LOUIS — Elizabeth Ann Gill was 2 years old when she disappeared from the front porch of her family’s southeast Missouri home in June 1965. Her family always believed she was snatched and, 45 years later, the FBI has reclassified her case as a kidnapping and reopened the investigation.
Until last week, authorities considered Gill’s disappearance in Cape Girardeau a missing- child case.
Rebecca Wu of the FBI office in St. Louis said Thursday that the agency had reclassified the case but would not say whether there was any new evidence.
Relatives and friends have refused to let the case die, hosting vigils, balloon launches and other events in Beth’s honor. About 100 people gathered Saturday to mark Beth’s 48th birthday.
Her sister, Martha Gill Hamilton, 60, said she remains hopeful Beth is alive.
“I think somebody picked her up, someone who wanted a child, or (who) picked her up and sold her,” Hamilton said. “I don’t think she wandered off.”
Beth, the youngest of 10 siblings, disappeared June 13, 1965. Police and more than 200 volunteers searched for her for days.
Some wondered whether she fell into the Mississippi River near the family home. Hamilton said that was unlikely because the toddler would have had to cross streets and railroad tracks and make her way down a bluff.
Roger Graham of St. Louis, a family friend who has been part of the fight to keep the case open, said four Gypsies were in the city at the time of the disappearance, staying at a motel directly behind the Gill home and selling purses in the neighborhood. Some suspected they might have abducted the girl.
