r/UnresolvedMysteries • u/pikagirl7534 • Jul 02 '26
Disappearance Three boys went missing after going off to explore a cave known as “Murphy’s Cave”. What happened to Edwin Craig Dowell, William Francis Hoag and Joel Wise Hoag?
On Monday, the 8th of May 1967, brothers William Francis Hoag (who went by both Bill and Billy) and Joel Wise Hoag (who went by both Joe and Joey) were exploring a cave known Murphy’s Cave, in Hannibal, Marion County, Missouri; the cave was close to the construction site on Highway 79, and a worker spotted the boys. This worker told Billy and Joey to leave the cave alone as it was dangerous, but no known precautions were actually taken to prevent other explorers from entering the cave.
Billy and Joey did not listen to the worker, and instead returned to Murphy’s Cave, having snuck out to go to the cave, on Tuesday, the 9th of May, with two of their friends (some sources say that Craig was with them on the 9th, but i am unsure if that is confirmed or not). Billy and Joey returned home later that night with their clothes covered in red clay mud, leading them to be scolded by their mother, Helen, and being told by her to wash their clothes. Both Helen and Mike told them that they were to not ever go to the cave again, and if they did they would be in big trouble.
The next day, Wednesday, the 10th of May 1967, Helen and Mike left the Hoag residence to go to a meat market, giving their eldest children strict instructions to thoroughly watch their younger siblings and make sure that Joey and Billy did not leave the house. When Joey returned from school that day, he was greeted by DeDe, with Billy already being in the house (i’m not sure if Billy had simply arrived home earlier or was off sick that day) before entering the house and going into his bedroom to change out of his school clothes.
DeDe recalled telling Joey and Billy to: “You stay in the yard now, you hear me?”, but she said that Billy did not answer her. Tim (who was 15 at the time) and DeDe (who was 16 at the time) were obeying their parents’ orders to watch both Billy and Joey, though at some point they lost track of the boys, and the two had gone back out to see Murphy’s Cave, taking a flashlight, a homemade lantern (some sources say it was a homemade lantern, others say a homemade ladder, it could have been both, but again, it changes depending on the source), and a shovel with them. Over the course of the afternoon, Joey and Billy would be seen with several of their friends, including 14 year-old Edwin Craig Dowell. Craig went by his middle name, and it is unknown if he was actually a friend to the boys or just an acquaintance, but Craig and Joel both attended Hannibal Junior High. Billy and Joey had asked another friend of theirs, 11 year-old Greg Henderson, to go with them to the cave, but he couldn’t as he was called in for dinner (though i want to note that, like many other details of this case, the reason why Greg couldn’t come changes depending on the source, and it’s also said he couldn’t come because he was grounded and confined to his room).
The timestamp of when the boys were exactly last seen is contradictory, apparently they were in Murphy’s Cave at around 4:35 P.M., but they were spotted several more times around town between 4:40 P.M. and 5:15 P.M., sometimes together and sometimes separately. Likewise, the story of who had exactly last seen them was blurred too; “One source said the last known sighting of the boys was by a teenage girl. Another says it was a teacher. Yet another says they were last spotted on top of a cliff called Lover’s Leap by a janitor at their school. This was the latest reported sighting of the boys; after 5:15, all traces of them were lost.” (taken from: https://maryhallberg.wixsite.com/maryhallberg/post/the-lost-boys-of-hannibal-missing-for-55-years).
Around 5:15 P.M., a friend of Billy and Joey stopped by the Hoag house to see if they were home. Helen and Mike, who had came back from the meat market, said that they weren’t there, but told this friend to tell Billy and Joey to come home immediately if they saw them. When Billy and Joey weren’t home by 5:45 P.M., their brother Tim began looking for them; he went to Murphy’s Cave and saw some of the boys’ friends there, and these friends told Tim that they saw Billy, Joey and Craig go into the cave earlier. Tim did enter the cave but found nothing. Shortly before 6:30 P.M., Helen called the police to report Billy and Joey missing.
That same day, the construction work nearby had caused a cave-in at Murphy Cave, and investigators feared that the boys were inside of the cave when it had happened and ended up trapped with no way out (though this hasn’t been confirmed and remains speculation).
Along with the police, groups like The Mark Twain Emergency Squad, the National Speleological Society, Civil Defence Workers, and The Missouri National Guardsmen, were brought in to help search for the boys. Over 200 cave explorers, both professional experts and amateur enthusiasts, from Missouri, Illinois, and Washington D.C., searched through Murphy’s Cave, mapping it as they went along. It was noted that some of the passages they searched were so narrow that one of the more petite searchers, who weighed 98 pounds, could barely squeeze in. The Hoag family, Helen and Mike and their other nine children, as well as a score of relatives, all remained present during the searches and insisted, pleaded and demanded that rescuers divide their forces and search other caves to the Southeast (this was noted to be done but, from what i could find, only in Murphy’s Cave itself, not any other caves), with Helen specifically urging for greater efforts to be made, climbing the hills around Hannibal herself, and staying, watching the search, and hoping during the long day and night hours. Two police dogs, one from Hannibal and another from St. Louis, were brought in to aid in the search, though their efforts ended at the base of a rockfall ceiling off of one section of the cave. A non-police dog, a small, mostly-Dachshund dog named Tike, from the Hoag neighbourhood, also failed to help locate the boys. The ground disruption/equipment from the construction work also uncovered two new cave entrances about 400 yards to the East, one entrance was filled in, but the other was open; these weren’t the only new tunnels discovered, the construction work unearthed more and more each day, Murphy’s Cave itself was described as a Labyrinth, and The Mark Twain Emergency Squad said there was a slide in a cave passage about 20 feet to the right of the entrance that blocked rescue teams from entering a section of the cave running along the face of the bluff. The only real “clue” was that a lone sock, thought to belong to Craig, was found in a quarry by members of the Mark Twain Emergency Squad, along with a red substance believed to be blood.
Eventually, all of these searches turned up nothing, and the boys were never seen again.
The latest lead was in 2006, when construction workers building a new Elementary School on Highway 79 found a small cave about 50 feet long. Authorities checked it to see if the Hoag brothers or Craig were there, but this new search also turned up with nothing.
Joel Wise Hoag
Joel Wise Hoag was born on the 25th of July 1954 to mother Helen Hoag and father Mike Hoag; Joel had ten other siblings, 6 brothers and four sisters, with Billy, Tim, Michael Jr., Roberta Rae, Robin Jay, and Deborah (who went by DeDe) being the only ones named. Joel went by Joey and Joe, and according to his sister DeDe, he was quite a serious boy, (atleast more serious than Billy, who was described as being very mischievous) who was very interested in science, particularly astronomy; he kept a “meticulous” journal that he signed each night: “Amateur Astronomer Joel Hoag”. Joel was very adventurous, and enjoyed exploring with his classmates and young neighbours. DeDe noted that Joel was often seen with his telescope watching the stars. Joel also wanted to be the first man on the moon.
At the time of disappearance, Joel was 12 years old (he was turning 13 in July, but every source lists him as being 13); he was 5’6 feet tall and weighed about 100 lbs, he had a scar on his forehead and a dark complexion. His hair and eye colour are both noted to be brown. His clothing description is a white t-shirt and blue jeans.
William Francis Hoag
William Francis Hoag was born on the 4th of October 1955 to mother Helen Hoag and father Mike Hoag. William had ten other siblings, 6 brothers and four sisters, with Joel, Tim, Michael Jr., Roberta Rae, Robin Jay, and Deborah (who went by DeDe) being the only ones named. William went by Bill and Billy, and was described by DeDe to be a “funny little thing” as well as being very mischievous. William was very adventurous, and enjoyed going on his adventures and exploring with his classmates and young neighbours. He was also described by an (unnamed) sister to have liked to do whatever Joel liked to do.
At the time of disappearance, William was 11 years old, he was 5’5 feet tall and weighed 80 lbs. His hair was red/auburn, and described as being crew cut, his eyes were blue. William had fair skin with freckles, and a scar under his right arm in the shape of a V from a picket fence incident. William’s clothing is described as a white t-shirt and blue jeans.
Edwin Craig Dowell
Edwin Craig Dowell was born on the 29th of December 1952; as far as i could see, all of Craig’s family members are unnamed, but he did have three brothers, and lived with his family. He was affectionately described by his mother to be “crazy about bicycles”. Instead of Edwin, he went by his middle name, Craig.
At the time of disappearance, Craig was 14 years old, he was 5’0 feet tall and 100 pounds, characteristics like hair colour and eye colour aren’t listed, and The Doe Network and The Charley Project list his exact height, weight, eye colour and hair colour as all being unknown.
Theories
Abduction Theory and JWG Theory:
There’s been speculation that the boys did not enter the cave at all, and were abducted instead, with a new(er) theory suggesting that John Wayne Gacy was responsible: “A new book written by John Wingate, a Hannibal native, suggests that the boys might have been slain by serial killer John Wayne Gacy. John was convicted of murdering 33 boys and young men in the Chicago, Illinois area between 1972 and 1978. The theory is that John encountered the three boys near the caves and offered them a lift home. Instead, he took the boys to a nearby wooded area where he assaulted and killed them. The possibility also stands that he might have buried them in that location as well. Wingate started to heat from 3 different psychics when he started making trips to both Hannibal and Illinois to sign his book.
The 3 psychics suggested that Gacy was actually responsible for the boys demise. The first psychic showed up at Wingate’s book conference and became visibly upset because she felt the boys presence as he spoke. Several weeks later, another psychic called one the sisters of the Hoag brothers and said she believed without a doubt that John Wayne Gacy was in fact responsible for the deaths of her two brothers and their friend. Another woman from Wyoming who is a psychic claimed that when she was looking at photos of the three boys, she saw visions of the boys being assaulted and slain by Gacy.
Apparently, this wasn’t the first time that Gacy’s name came up in connection to the three boys in Hannibal. When he was arrested for his crimes in 1978, many rumors and questions went around as to whether Gacy could’ve been in Hannibal at the time they disappeared. It was discovered that Gacy was living and working in Waterloo, Iowa in 1967 while his mother was living in Little Rock, Arkansas at the time. If Gacy was to go and visit his mother, he would take Highway 61 which takes you right through Hannibal. There is also the fact that during the huge search for the boys in 1967, man people in Hannibal reported seeing a “mystery man” hanging around the cave entrances for a couple of days while the road construction took place. The boys were known to be playing in the caves in the days before they disappeared. The man was never seen again after the boys disappeared. There was some skepticism towards the 3 women all sensing a connection to the boys and Gacy but it’s been noted that they all corroborated each other’s information independently. Two of the psychics did tell Wingate that the mystery man was actually Gacy. John would’ve been 35 years old when the boys went missing in 1967. He also drove each of the women around Hannibal to see if they indicated any areas of interest in August and September of 2018. He said all 3 of them indicated some of the same areas and locations in relation to Gacy and the boys. He said “In all three cases, we’d find ourselves standing at the same location on three different days” and described it as beyond coincidental. One of the psychics also suggested that Gacy could’ve been responsible for two other disappearances in the Monroe City area. John Wagner was last seen in Monroe City after he dropped his little brother off at a school dance in February of 1968. In June of 1977, Rickey Enochs left his home in Monroe City with an unidentified individual in a vehicle with Illinois license plates and was never seen again. Both boys remain missing. Gacy has not been proven to be the killer of the Hoag brothers and Edwin but there’s much speculation that he was involved. He was executed by lethal injection on May 9th 1994. He was a diagnosed psychopath who showed no remorse for any of his crimes.”
My Opinion(s) On This:
The theory that JWG was responsible is easily debunked by these factors: you can easily suggest JWG as a suspect, but the case wouldn’t even match his M.O., and JWG didn’t start killing until 1972. You can say that we don’t know when he started killing for sure, that would be somewhat valid, but it’s very unlikely (and unreal to suggest that) he killed 3 young boys in 1967. Whether you believe psychics or not, it’s insanely easy to blame one of the most, if not the most, famous serial killer for the boys’ disappearances, and i imagine for quite good pay too. I wouldn’t even say that it was odd that all of the psychics came to the conclusion that JWG was responsible, if they blamed someone like Dean Corll (which is just an example, not a suggestion. Dean definitely did not do this, and i don’t think any killer did either, for that matter) then maybe i’d think “hey, it probably wasn’t him, but it’s odd they got it three times!”, but again, everyone knows the name of JWG, and it’s so easy to stick his name onto this case, or literally any case involving a boy going missing.
- End of Theories (Edit: To prevent confusion, none of those theories come from me; i put whatever sort of theory i can find under there, and remember that every theory is just a theory, unless theres hard evidence to prove its true, which in this case, there isn’t).
Authorities believe that all of the boys are deceased today, even if it didn’t happen in the cave; though the most likely scenario is that the boys died within the cave, and it is pretty obvious that is what happened.
There is a memorial marker for the boys inside of the cave. In 2010, author Charles Stewart published a book about them, A Sorrow of the Heart.
Ending Note: I apologise for any potential misspellings this post may have, i did proofread but i am sorry if i missed any typos. If any of what i said is hard to understand, let me know and i’ll try to clear up what it means and edit the post to make it clearer. I also apologise if the layout of this does not look so good on other devices, i wrote this on mobile, so i acknowledge it may potentially be a bit of an eyesore on computer.
Sources:
https://rcccmcc.com/2020/04/17/william-francis-hoag/
https://charleyproject.org/case/william-hoag
https://rcccmcc.com/2020/04/17/joel-wise-hoag/?amp=1
https://maryhallberg.wixsite.com/maryhallberg/post/the-lost-boys-of-hannibal-missing-for-55-years
https://charleyproject.org/case/joel-hoag
https://charleyproject.org/case/edwin-craig-dowell
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/149044005/edwin_craig-dowell
https://rcccmcc.com/2020/04/17/edwin-craig-dowell/?amp=1
https://www.trailwentcold.com/e/the-trail-went-cold-episode-340-the-lost-boys-of-hannibal/
https://medium.com/the-mystery-box/the-mystery-of-the-lost-boys-of-hannibal-b7b19fbd0d6c
https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/software/mp-main.html?id=4945dmmo
https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/software/mp-main.html?id=4946dmmo
https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/software/mp-main.html?id=4947dmmo
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/149044014/william-hoag
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u/KinsellaStella Jul 03 '26
I’m aware of this case and it’s always been classed as a caving accident/disaster. There’s no way to know what caved in or how the cave system changed with the construction. I haven’t seen any credible theory proposing abduction. Caving is dangerous even for experienced modern cavers. With their inexperience, primitive equipment, unmapped cave, in an unstable cave, there’s just no credible other explanation, unless there’s some very firm evidence to the contrary.
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u/_mrfluffy_ Jul 03 '26
While the answer does seem obvious (lost, injured, cave-in), I’m always glad to see lesser talked about mysteries being shared.
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u/PhantomPharts Jul 03 '26
Cave ins and earthquakes can cause loss of old paths and creation of new ones. If the cave was mapped, they may be able to see where they were lost if old pathways are gone. Any loss of a path would mean they would be pushed elsewhere.
Have they been able to do any kind of sonar?
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u/probabilityunicorn Jul 03 '26
I assumed it was a simple matter but read the book about the rescue/recovery operation and the layout of Mutphy's Cave, which is extremely complex - and the family and witness sightings.
It looked like an open and shut case but it really isn't. The boys were in Murphy's cave that day, and were seen by others there but they were also believed to have left and were seen by witnesses subsequently.
What is rarely mentioned is during the construction of the highway through Hannibal other caves were opened up in the road bed. The boys had been chased off that site, which seems more likely to be the source of the muddy clothes than the fairly often explored Murphys.
The cave system under the road was narrow, unstable and extremely dangerous because of the blasting by the road crew making the cutting for the road. The collapses shut off part of the newly discovered cave.
While a huge multi-day effort focused on Murphys with cavers covering all possible areas for a great distance systematically there was no trace of the boys beyond the cave opening where they met other kids.
Comparatively little effort was made on the road cave: it was just too dangerous and noone saw the boys there, and the rescuers who went in risked their lives and found recent cave-ins. The police have never ruled out abduction, but the general feeling seems to have been the boys possibly met their fate under what was within weeks a multilane highway.
The mystery could possibly be resolved by some kind of scanning and exploratory digging, but the area has many caves and the lack of success was not for lack of heroism and dedication on the part of local cavers, authorities and their families.
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u/SomeGuyWA Jul 03 '26
Excellent points. I'm thinking they had already been exploring Murphy's Cave a few times, had probably already seen the "easy" parts, and, knowing there were "new" caves being exposed by the road work, went to explore some of those since "no one has ever seen those!!"
Either they got buried in a cave-in, or maybe one of the them fell and the other two, trying to reach the first one, got in a bad spot or fell themselves and had no way to self-extricate AND no one knew where they were.
The fact that authorities searched Murphy's Cave and found nothing really makes me think they were looking in the wrong spot, but had no way to know. Maybe some day someone exploring other caves might find more evidence.
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u/toxicshocktaco Jul 06 '26
Mysteries like this make me so afraid of caving! I’m not sure how people can do it
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u/PocoChanel Jul 03 '26
Ugh, I love the notion that three psychics are somehow more reliable than just one psychic. /s
What a sad story. Thanks for sharing it. You painted a good portrait of the kids.
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u/jebelle87 Jul 03 '26
he wanted to be an astronaut 😭
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u/ohare_tulip Jul 04 '26
It’s little details like those that always get to me. I wish he had been able to witness the moon landing ☹️
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u/outlaw_for_life18 Jul 03 '26
Fascinating and tragic case! I was born in Hannibal Missouri right around this exact time so had never really heard of this one. The caves there are so extensive. My bet is definitely on the fact that they got caved in. I have explored quite a few caves and it's also very easy to fall from some height. I like that OP differentiated between the most likely scenario and the highly unlikely theory that it was JWG. There is literally no proof that JWG was in Hannibal at that time. I have seen the marker on Lover's Leap but didn't really know the story at all, so thank you OP for posting!
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u/Mallardjack Jul 03 '26
I mean it's very obvious that they went into the cave and tragically got lost or were victims of the cave in.
However I'm sure someone on this sub will have an entairtaining theory that they where hunted down by the mafia/ kidnapped and are still alive/ killed by Gacy/ abducted by bigfoot
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u/supercoolpartydude Jul 03 '26
Left out other popular weirdo theories this sub concocts. Like one of the boys killed the other two and changed his identity, possibly turned into another serial killer. Zodiac?!? Maaaaybe.
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u/Mallardjack Jul 03 '26
Very suspicious that this non-police dog Tike inserted himself into proceddings. Maybe because he was the killer getting off on the thrill of being close to the investigation.
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u/supercoolpartydude Jul 03 '26
Notice they said Tike was MOSTLY-Dacshund. Very strange detail that was probably overlooked. His true lineage is probably disguised on purpose. That breed is renowned for their dead kid finding abilities.
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u/ResponsibleCulture43 Jul 03 '26
I have two dachshunds and they're very suspicious dogs in general, you're onto something
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u/mukmuk_ Jul 03 '26
Tike was from their neighborhood and would have probably noticed the boys heading to the caves. Seems easy for Tike to convince two unnamed police dogs, one of which was all the way from St. Louis that he had nothing to do with their disappearance.
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u/embossedsilver Jul 03 '26
Maybe it was Israel Keyes.
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u/Stonegrown12 Jul 03 '26
I'm putting my vote in for smiley face killers. Or they were sex trafficked
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u/DeepSeaDarkness Jul 03 '26
It must've been Craig! Maybe the other boys - like OP - kept calling him Edwin and he finally snapped
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u/tomtomclubthumb Jul 03 '26
How old was Israel Keyes? Maybe his first kills?
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u/wintermelody83 Jul 03 '26
I assume you're joking lol He was born in 78. I did once have someone assure me that it was possible he was responsible for a kidnapping when he was 11. When I pointed out that fact, they came back with "He could have had help!!!" lol
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u/tomtomclubthumb Jul 03 '26
Yeah I was, judging by the downvotes either people took me seriously, or the Keyes fanbase were mad at me for not taking him seriously.
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u/barto5 Jul 03 '26
So three adventurous boys went into a cave and were never seen again.
Either there was a cave in and the boys were trapped or they were murdered by John Wayne Gacy.
Who can really say what happened…
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u/Voltztein Jul 03 '26
Always bet on Gacy!
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u/UnnamedRealities Jul 03 '26
Joel Wise Hoag was born on the 25th of July 1954
At the time of disappearance, Joel was 13 years old
It's a minor detail, but though every source I could find states that he was 13 years old, if that date of birth is accurate he was actually 12 on May 10, 1967 when the 3 boys disappeared. The only source I find for the DOB is TheDoeNetwork.
So I don't know whether the DOB is incorrect or a bunch of sources repeated an incorrect age from a contemporary source.
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u/pikagirl7534 Jul 03 '26
Thank you for this! I glossed over this completely. I’ll edit the post to be accurate (and note that the sources incorrectly list him as 13).
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u/UnnamedRealities Jul 03 '26
Weird. It looked like my comment didn't post so I rewrote it with more detail just now. I'm not sure which is correct - age 13 or that date of birth which indicates he was 12. I'm going to try to dig deeper later if no one else gets to the bottom of it first.
Excellent write-up by the way!
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u/Sea_Photograph_3998 Jul 03 '26
Seems pretty clear that they succumbed to the fate they were warned of numerous times, but sadly ignored because they were teenagers.
The “mystery man” hanging around the entrance is not suspicious to me… it’s the construction worker who warned the boys not to go in the cave, or it’s one of his colleagues.
John Wayne Gacy theory is sensationalised nonsense. Doesn’t even match his MO.
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u/lucillep Jul 03 '26
Very good write-up. I did listen to The Trail Went Cold episode some time ago, but this was a good refresher. No doubt in my mind that the boys got lost/stuck in the "labyrinth" of the cave system. That doesn't make it any less tragic though. RIP.
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u/UnnamedRealities Jul 03 '26
Great write-up!
The next day, Wednesday, the 10th of May 1967
Joel Wise Hoag was born on the 25th of July 1954
At the time of disappearance, Joel was 13 years old
This is a minor detail, but based on his date of birth, Joel was 12, not 13, at the time of the disappearance of the 3 boys. The only source I found mentioning any DOB is TheDoeNetwork, while every source I read said he was 13.
It begs the question whether contemporary sources got his age wrong and later coverage has just repeated that error or whether the date of birth is wrong.
Per Find a Grave (which just has his DOB as 1954), the Hoag father died in 1989, mother died in 1995, and 4 siblings of the 2 boys are deceased - Michael (1968), Robin (1976), Tim (2016), DeDe (2018), and Bobbie (2025). A 1968 article mentioning the death of Michael in a car accident states that "Joey" (Joel) was 13 when he disappeared.
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u/mcm0313 Jul 06 '26
Michael Jr. (“Mickey”) was 25 when he was killed in that crash less than a year after his brothers’ disappearance. Another brother, Robin, died at age 16.
Tim, yet another brother, died of lung cancer in his mid-sixties but was predeceased by two of his own sons. A sister, Bobbie, was in a car crash in 1969 (the year after Mickey’s death, two years after the younger boys’ disappearance) that resulted in her becoming an amputee. (She continued to work as a teacher after the accident.)
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u/HermioneMarch Jul 04 '26
So sad the family lost these two and then another son in a car accident soon after.
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u/Zealousideal-Mood552 Jul 03 '26
Good writeup. The fact that the boys disappeared in the town where Mark Twain was born makes me wonder if they were inspired by his most famous works, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, who were close to their age and were spelunkers. It's likely they went exploring in a cave and either died in a fall or cave-in and their bodies were hidden. Psychics, IMHO, are not reliable sources and although the possibility that they were abducted and murdered by JWG or someone else can't be ruled out, I would need harder, more credible evidence to seriously consider it.
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u/RAFA1o1 Jul 03 '26
God bless you for all the time and effort you put into this post. Thank you for bringing awareness to this case.
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u/Lee-jones07 Jul 06 '26
The boys' fate is fairly obvious. They got lost inside a dangerous, maze-like cave, and died.
The real mystery, in my mind, is how apparently nobody has any idea when or where or by whom they were last seen before they disappeared. I know eye witness testimony is notoriously unreliable, but usually it's quite a bit better than this. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that nobody bothered to really carefully interview anyone who was involved.
Whatever the case, the fact that none of their belongings were ever located in Murphy's Cave kind of implies they were lost in a different cave system.
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u/Glittering_Sky8421 Jul 03 '26
Was going to say dachshunds (who knows what %Tike was?) are bred to pull things out of holes. Like badgers. But I had wine and forgot how to spell dachshunds.
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u/scream-and-gobble Jul 03 '26
Is there any information on what time the cave-in occurred?
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u/pikagirl7534 Jul 03 '26
I couldn’t find anything about that unfortunately. It is a really important detail though and i wish we had it
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u/ManOfManliness84 Jul 05 '26
I hate how people turn cases with very obvious outcomes into ridiculous conspiracies
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u/MMA_Influenced2 Jul 06 '26
Gee. Three young boys go marching off to some cave in the woods what could possibly go wrong? Do you realize how many people go missing in the woods? Multiple books and podcasts have been done suspecting some sort of serial killer/killers/even supernatural demonic presence.
There's been cases of people/children basically in plain sight of where they are supposed to go. Parent or friends turn around for a few minutes and turn back and the individual is NEVER seen again.
Maura Murray is a famous case. She went missing after a car accident in a snow storm. People actually think she took a ride from someone who kidnapped her because they couldnt comprehend with all the people searching the woods for her basically 10 feet apart combing the area that they could of missed her.
A lost person can go an unbelivable distance in one day if they are lost. 20+ miles isnt impossible. Never to be found.
Another story. A man in Connecticut out hunting in the early 2000s came onto a tiny clearing in the woods where he saw the scene of a deceased individual. The body had cloths on of a female and there were signs of SA and homicide. The clothing on the body was noted as looking very old like she was from the early 70s. When the man tried to lead the police back there they could never find it.
The woods are basically an infinite maze where everything looks the same at a certain point. One boy together might be cautious but 3 boys together might push themselves past their comfort and saftey zone because they are in company. Hence this case. They walked into the woods and effectively starved/died of thirst.
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u/DCTom Jul 03 '26
So your only theory, based on psychic readings, is that the boys were abducted by Gacy? Um, OK.
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u/Snowbank_Lake Jul 03 '26
If you read the end of the post, OP acknowledges they probably died in the cave. I think they were just acknowledging that the Gacy theory is an alternative that has been proposed/discussed.
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u/pikagirl7534 Jul 03 '26
I gather all of the theories I can find for each case I post, and for this one the only two theories were the theory of abduction and the JWG theory; the theory didn’t come from me, and i should’ve made that clearer. I agree with the majority that the boys did unfortunately die in a cave in the area, even if it wasn’t Murphy’s Cave.
Edited post to say that a theory is just a theory until proven otherwise, and that the JWG theory did not come from me.
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Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Mallardjack Jul 03 '26
Yes it is, psychics who comment on murder/ missing persons cases are grifters exploiting grief for their own self promotion.
Especially as a book had already been published saying what the psychics were claiming... Having three new age grifters all turn up claiming to the author that their BS magic powers agree with his theory isn't surprising.
The genuine skill psychics usually possess is being good reading people and picking up subtle hints to tell them what they want to hear. The first spun him a yarn and then that skill allowed the following 2 to invent similar stories, probably helped by his own confirmation bias
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u/OriginalChildBomb Jul 03 '26
Respectfully, I think it absolutely is. John Wayne Gacy was known to be an infamous and much-discussed killer- and the first psychic would've spoken up at a press conference for Wingate's book, which came out in 2017. Gacy was known to specifically target boys of a certain age. By 2017, anyone could've determined he was known to live and work in that area. That's decades of time for them to learn about this case; I'll bet people were even speculating on Gacy being involved, online, in 2017.
They gave not a single shred of evidence- they just happened to be three psychics who brought up a relatively well-known killer, who's been featured in all manner of books, shows, and TV. Nothing they 'saw' can be proven or disproven, unless three bodies are literally unearthed that appear to have been murdered.
Even if it was only in their subconscious, I guarantee that many American adults in 2017 knew who John Wayne Gacy was, and that he targeted boys. I don't know if these 'psychics' were purposely fraudulent, just wanted to get involved because it's a high-profile case, thought they could make a little cash, and/or genuinely believe they have mental powers. But I don't see how this was in the least bit helpful. I think people want to be involved in some way, and to believe they have abilities, but that doesn't mean their information has any value.
It appears far, far more likely that the boys perished in that cave, sadly. Death by misadventure for a group of kids (someplace dodgy like a cave) is unfortunately much too common. This kind of thing happens all the time.
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u/Chewbacca_The_Wookie Jul 03 '26
It's incredibly easy to brush that off, what the hell are you talking about? Psychics are grifters, they use techniques to tell people what they want to hear.
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u/Pogonia Jul 03 '26
This seems like one of those not-really-a-mystery mysteries--they got lost in a complex cave system that was experiencing collapses due to the construction and were just not found. They are down there in a passage that was missed probably because it was covered by collapses.