Margaret Ellen “Maggie” Fox, born February 4, 1960, lived in Burlington, New Jersey. She had a large family and lived a "average" life.
According to her younger brother Joe, the Fox family was extremely close, and the siblings were each other’s best friends. But as Margaret entered her teenage years, she began developing interests common to girls her age — clothes, fashion, makeup, and accessories. She didn’t have sisters or many close female friends to share those interests with, which often left her feeling isolated.
Joe also explained that Margaret was frequently bullied at school. She would sometimes come home in tears after classmates picked on her. In one incident, a group of kids threw snowballs at her as she was leaving school and continued doing so along part of her walk home.
That June 1974, Margaret and her cousin Lynn Parks (age 11) decided to take advantage of their summer vacation by finding a small job. They placed a babysitting ad in local newspapers, offering childcare services.
On June 19, 1974, a man calling himself “John Marshall” responded to the ad. He called the number in the newspaper — which belonged to Lynn’s house — and claimed he and his wife needed a babysitter for their 5-year-old son.
He lived in the nearby town of Mount Holly, but because Lynn was only 11 and would need to take a bus alone, her parents did not allow her to accept the job.
That left the opportunity open for Margaret. For a 14-year-old girl, the job sounded perfect:
$40 a week — very good money for 1974
access to the family’s swimming pool
and a chance to earn independence during the summer
After a few postponed meetings, “John Marshall” arranged to meet Margaret in person on June 24, 1974.Although it was reported that Margaret’s father did have contact with “John Marshall" through phone calls, "John" never provided his address or any additional details about his life.
Disappearance
On June 24,1974,Margaret woke up excited for her first day. Her younger brother, Joe Fox, walked her to the bus stop and saw her board the 8:40 AM Transport of New Jersey bus toward Mount Holly. She wore a light blue floral shirt,brown bell-bottom jeans,a navy-and-white checkered jacket tied around her waist,a gold necklace and bracelet with blue stones and she carried a brown backpack with her swimsuit and her eyeglasses case.
Her parents had asked her to call once she arrived at John’s house — but the call never came. At first, they assumed she simply forgot. But when 2 PM passed… then 2:30… then 3 PM, panic set in.
Margaret’s mother called the number John had given. After many rings, a woman answered and said no one named John Marshall lived there. A second call was answered by a man, who explained that the number belonged to a payphone. Realizing something was terribly wrong, Margaret’s parents immediately contacted police.
Within hours, family, neighbors, and police began searching Mount Holly. Detective Leonard Burr canvassed the area near the bus stop, showing Margaret’s photo to about 200 people.
The next morning, Burr rode the same 8:40 AM bus Margaret had taken. Two women recognized her:
They both said Margaret got off at High & Mill, exactly where she had been told to.
One woman remembered Margaret smiling at her baby when he pulled her hair.
Both confirmed her outfit and described her as a small girl with bright blue eyes and many freckles. A second witness said she got off the bus with Margaret and saw her approach a man in a red car, asking if he was John Marshall. The man, later located and cleared, told police he said no, she apologized, and walked away. His car was not a Volkswagen Beetle. This was the last confirmed sighting of Margaret.
Police traced the phone number "John Marshall" had given — it was indeed a payphone inside a supermarket in Lumberton, a town beyond Mount Holly. Investigators quickly determined the circumstances were highly suspicious and likely involved kidnapping.
Once Margaret’s disappearance hit the news, several parents contacted police to report that a man had recently tried to lure their daughters using fake babysitting job offers. This strongly suggested the crime was premeditated, and that the perpetrator had been calling multiple girls. Margaret was likely not a targeted victim — she was the one who answered the bait.
The FBI joined the investigation soon after.
Margaret Ellen Fox has never been found, and her case remains open.
While the FBI pursued its own investigation, the Burlington Police Department continued running their parallel inquiry. Detectives interviewed every owner of a red Volkswagen Beetle they could find in New Jersey, as well as every man named John Marshall. Several of these individuals briefly became persons of interest.
One of the first was a real John Marshall who worked at the supermarket where the payphone used by the caller was located. His connection to the location made him a natural suspect — or an incredibly unlucky man.
On the 45th anniversary of Margaret’s disappearance, June 24, 2019, the FBI publicly released a short audio clip from a ransom call made to the Fox family — a call in which the supposed kidnapper demanded $10,000. The clip was posted on the FBI’s website in hopes that someone might recognize the man’s voice, manner of speaking, or the peculiar phrase he used.
In the recording, the caller says: “Ten thousand dollars might be a lot of bread, but your daughter’s life is the buttered topping.”
After that, Margaret’s mother can be heard asking who is speaking. Only this brief portion of the call has ever been released.
Margaret’s parents have been deceased for several years. Her siblings are still alive. What I find strange is that the police took 45 years to release the call made by the supposed kidnapper. But if they released it and asked for help with the identification, it’s possible that they really believe it may have been the kidnapper.
SOURCES-
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/chilling-ransom-call-released-14-year-girls-decades/story?id=63955063
https://detetivedosofa.com/2021/03/29/margaret-ellen-fox-um-emprego-de-baba-nada-perfeito/
https://detetivedosofa.com/2021/03/29/margaret-ellen-fox-um-emprego-de-baba-nada-perfeito/
This case is very local to me, I grew up in 70’s 80’s hard to explain how different it was, we were really free range kids, luckily for me anything we got into didn’t end up too serious, but there were some dicey situations that easily could’ve ended up differently. This poor kid and her family.
I babysat in the 1980s, my parent still needed to MEET the parents I was babysitting for and they needed to know the address and home phone number.
I don't care that it was the 1960s you don't let your kid take a bus to meet an unknown parent without going with your kid FIRST and getting the address and phone numbers.
Says her father spoke with the man on at least one occasion. Either the dad & mom were too trusting, or I don't know, this John Marshall put on a good act to gain this dad's trust. This is especially surprising, as it was 1964, a time when ppl would have been less trusting than even just a few years later. I was around then, and as the 60s, early to mid-70s progressed, things in America got real loose.
With it in mind that Maggie's siblings may be reading this whole post, first, I'm so, so sorry for your grief and years of wondering. Second, all it takes is one lapse in judgement to lose a life. Certainly had her parents known this would be the outcome, no way would they have let her out of their sight. I'd bet the parents became overly watchful of her siblings after this event, which probably deeply impacted them permanently. One idea is to examine unclaimed Jane Doe websites. And upload DNA everywhere, esp. GedMatch. What a devastating case. Just terrible. I think of all the risks I took in Jersey in the 70s hanging out with boys or men I didn't even know. The times we picked up hitchhikers. Or hitchhiked. You just never know. RIP, Maggie.
She was 14, not 10. We were completely latch key at that age.
You meant this in reply to some other comment.
It was 1974, not 1964
If the dad actually DID talk to someone on the phone and he was calling from a supermarket wouldn't you think the dad would be able to tell it wasn't a private phone? Supermarkets are noisy, even back then they were noisy.
Back then we had phone booths around a lot of public pay phones.
Yeah, and that's what phone booths were for too. Privacy and to block out surrounding noises. I think they started getting rid of them because homeless people would move into them and no one could use the phone so they weren't making any money and people would frequently vandalize them. By the 90s and early 2000s they were just phones posted up out in the open... Until cellphones became common. But, in the 70s pretty much all pay phones were in phone booths, even if they were inside a building.
Yeah, I'm kind of rembering that now..
I’m with you. I’m also a child of the ‘70s/‘80s. My parents were super protective and I wasn’t allowed over to anyone’s home if my mom didn’t know them. Mom was ahead of her time, I suppose, but it pissed me off when I wanted to go play at the home of someone I’d just met.
Poor Margaret. She was young and innocent and only wanted to earn some money while gaining self-reliance. This case is near to where I live.
Yeah this is pretty crazy to me. I'm not that old so I can't say for sure but this seems really irresponsible even for the time. The parents really failed her.
I'm shocked that the father didn't even get the home address. I used to go to summer camp, my parents wrote to me a few times a week.
I don't know this family but I can't help but wonder if dad is the culprit and this is just a cover story. Because it's pretty ridiculous. There's no way my parents would have agreed to this.
I know there are numerous sightings of her afterwards, but this is very common for missing persons. Sometimes they're legit sightings, sometimes not.
I find it interesting that in the market where the calls were made there was a real John Marshall. To me, the perpetrator was someone from that environment who wanted to frame a colleague/coworker for the crime.
Or just happened to have seen/heard the name and decided to use it in the moment.
I’d believe this except for the fact that this John Marshall owned a red Beetle. (OP clarified that the caller told Margaret he would be in a red Beetle)
Given that, I think the person had to know this John Marshall at least enough to know what kind of car he drove, assuming it wasn’t actually that John Marshall himself. I’d have been checking out his colleagues very carefully - not because I think they were out to get him personally, but because they’re the ones most likely to have used his basic info right outside the store.
Where did you read that the A&P grocery store employee named John Marshall owned a red Volkswagen Beetle? I'm the person OP responded to and I didn't interpret what they wrote the same way as you.
The most detailed article I found stated he was ruled out in part because he had an alibi that he was working at the grocery store at the time. In that article it states "As the investigation continued, Burlington City police interviewed all of the drivers of red Volkswagens they could find as well as all of the area's John Marshalls, some of whom became persons of interest.", but it doesn't state that the one who worked at the grocery store drove a red Beetle, which would be an odd detail to leave out given how much info is packed into the article.
See https://www.burlingtoncountytimes.com/story/news/2017/09/10/the-mysterious-disappearance-margaret-fox/16783782007/
Was 40 dollars a week pretty good for watching a kid from 9:30 to 1:30. I watched my cousin in 1996 for about 12 hours a day. I made a 75 dollars for an entire summer. It was my cousin but still I feel like 40 dollars a week plus transportation fees would be a lot in 1974. Sorry for that rant.
I thought it was saying a John Marshall worked at the nearby A&P. They are looking for John Marshall’s with a red/orange Volkswagen. The pay phone was in front of or near the store. I don’t think that John Marshall was responsible. This is so sad and I really go on a rabbit hole with this case. It seems like there was a guy asking girls to babysit for him. Also other girls that advertised were called and he either canceled or the parents wouldn’t let them go.
I was think it’s kind of weird they didn’t ask for an address. Margaret was one of 5 or 6 kids. There was no google maps back then. You could make up an address or use a real address just one you didn’t live at. It would be similar to the pay phone. I feel like the more kids you have the more relaxed you are about things and maybe don’t have the time to drive around looking for a fake house.
$40 in 1974 is equivalent to approximately $262.86 today.
4 hours a day times 5 days equals 20 hours.
Comes to $2/hr for babysitting, including access to a pool according to the post. In 1974, I would think that would be pretty good – especially if you were using the pay offer to entice young girls into a situation where you could potentially kidnap them (or worse). Enough to make the job attractive, not too high to make it too good to be true.
It’s almost too good to be true. A 14 year old who came from a large family this would be a dream job with dream pay. I don’t know if a live in nanny got paid that well or someone who worked for 8 or more hours watching a kid. For a 14 year old that’s amazing pay and you work maybe 20 hours a week. You are home by the late afternoon. That’s very tempting!
Right! I used to make 50 cents an hour babysitting then.!
Yeah, it was minimum wage back then but back then babysitting wasn't considered a real job. And getting minimum wage for a babysitting job where you got free food and access to their pool would have been a very appealing opportunity. There were adults supporting a family on $2/hr back then.
Great point. I earned an average of $1.50 per hour babysitting 15 years later when minimum wage was $3.35. A year after that I made $4.50 per hour in the kitchen at a fast food restaurant. Today I live in a similar cost of living part of the US and fast food workers here average about $14 and high school age babysitters average about $17.
Currently, Daycare in my (rural area) is $285 per week. Also back in 1975-78, I made $1.00 per hour for babysitting. So, the $40 per week would have been fairly accurate, maybe a little bit more than the going rate.
My thought is the perp made the generous offer as a way of enticing more potential victims without making it so high people would question it.
After all, if the perp's intent was to kidnap (and likely murder) young girls, it's not like he was planning to actually pay the money anyway.
In 1975-78, I made one dollar per hour for babysitting. So 40 hours per week at a dollar per hour would be approximately the going rate at the time.
From this part of the OP:
I think I see how you concluded OP meant the supermarket John Marshall owned a red VW Beetle, but I think you misinterpreted what OP stated.
The detectives interviewed owners of red VW Beetles (group 1), as well as individuals named John Marshall (group 2). It's unclear based on what OP stated and what's written in articles whether there were any individuals who were both in group 1 and group 2.
I think OP just meant that one of the first people interviewed was the one who worked at the A&P supermarket where the payphone was located - not that this John Marshall owned a red VW Beetle.
Good point. Man, I’d never have thought of that.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe the real Mr. Marshall is the perpetrator. There would be evidence beyond just the name if that were the case - and I’m sure he was investigated.
That would also explain the bread/butter quote (I feel like that’s something someone who works at a grocery shop or maybe even the bakery part would or could say)
Saw the name tag.
I can see this. One of the sources mentions that there were multiple public buildings named John Marshall (after the Founding Father) in the area.
Yeah that was possibly a missed avenue by investigators. It seems decently possible that the perpetrator might have used that name because he knew that someone who worked near the payphone had it. Which means the perpetrator spent some sort of time around that store in some manner at some point. I say "possibly a missed avenue" because I don't know: Maybe investigators did pursue it.
They were comfortable with the area. They must have blended in enough that people didn’t notice him. He might have been a former acquaintance of John Marshall that worked at the store. It could have been a coincidence, that sounds rare but possible. It could have been a customer of the store. I feel like most liars use some truth in their lies. Maybe he didn’t live in the area when he kidnapped Margaret Fox, he might have previously lived there. I went down a rabbit hole about this case I grew up in PA. When I was on the newspapers website I think I saved articles about this case or any mention of people luring babysitters or other things where someone used the newspaper classifieds to harass young teens or if they called young girls. I don’t know where I saved them.
If you're the same user from Websleuths, I appreciate that you posted some of those saved articles there. I think Teresa Caseiro's murder in nearby Willingboro in 1973 could possibly be linked under that MO. Her family's house had a "For Sale" sign out front but surely a house for sale would've been advertised in newspaper classifieds or somewhere else publicly accessible. There was also that creep pretending to be a photographer for a Maple Shade model agency cold-calling young women a month after Margaret's disappearance. Willingboro, Maple Shade, Mount Holly, and Burlington are all within 10-30 minutes of each other, so maybe there was one man in particular involved in these acts. Hard to say whether these are connected though when it seems like the 70s was a golden age for perverts and violent misogynists to act out in relative anonymity.
So I did post them to Websleuths. I think I saved them to a computer broke. I have been using my IPad I don’t know if everything is stored things in the cloud. I’m definitely on Webslueths and I think I have almost the same name on most platforms.
The 1970s was really a time when people were trusting and there wasn’t nearly as much security in the way of cameras or even stranger danger that I grew up with in the mid to late 80s into the 90s. There is actually a documentary about Ted Bundy but it talks about how the 1970s saw expansion in highways, women were hopeful about their rights and felt like they had freedom to go to school or work and killers prayed on the ability to be mobile and the trust of others. They also show an interview with convicted rapists saying you are safer if you just go along with the rape. That was also shown in the documentary about the Golden state killer “I’ll be gone in the dark”.
Thanks for reminding me of that.
100 percent. Someone used that guy as the fall guy. Look around him find the killer.
Unfortunately it's been over 50 years, what is the likelihood the supermarket even still exists?
He could have been a customer or someone that was family with the area and maybe the A&P John Marshall or a family member of his. It could have been random. Some of the things he said might have been partially true or signs he knew the area. He likely had access to a reddish Volkswagen if that’s how Margaret would know which car to get into and who he was vs a creepy stranger. He actually was a creepy, kidnapping stranger. I realized that as I typed it. It might not have been his. Did someone lend their friend or family member a reddish VW? Did someone leave a house or car with that description alone with a male relative or someone that had access to their home and car. Could someone have worked on cars? Did anyone notice something weird with a man in their life or something weird in their car?
I think it’s more likely that they saw/heard the name at the supermarket and decided to use it. It’s just generic enough to blend in.
I wonder if the same name was used during the other fake babysitting gigs?
It really seems like a local who frequented the supermarket - or work colleague - used the name John Marshall in an attempt to frame him.
Does anyone know if the police searched homes in the area at the time?
At the time, I believe not. However, in an online comment on a video about Margaret, if I’m not mistaken, a woman said that police showed up at her house (I think in 2019) in relation to the Margaret Fox case.
That's interesting, if true. Really makes it seem like they had some sort of new lead then.
Someone has said multiple public buildings in the area were named after a local citizen whose name was John Marshall.
OP, you mentioned a Volkswagen Beetle twice (excerpts below), but there's context missing. Was Margaret seen getting into a red Volkswagen Beetle? Was she told by John Marshall to meet him near the bus stop and that he'd be driving a red Beetle? Something else?
Unless OP says otherwise I'll assume she was told to meet him near the bus stop and that he'd be driving a red Beetle. If so it's possible that was a ruse to gain her trust and that he arrived in a different vehicle or on foot. Even if he didn't know what she looked like he'd just have needed to approach any girl roughly that age who was looking around for the car and seemed confused. He would have just needed to give his name and a plausible reason he arrived on foot or in a different vehicle.
Yes, he said he would meet her and that he would be driving a red Volkswagen Beetle — I forgot that detail, sorry.
Thank you, I was wondering about this also!
Yes, I was thinking he didn’t really show up in a red beetle but would see a girl her age looking around at that corner and couldn’t easily spot her. Her being young and gullible, he could have easily driven right up to her in a different car and said, “sorry, I drove a different car today”. I’m wondering if they investigated the area he called from.
The man in the red car would be my prime suspect. He said no, and the police accepted that?
It's worth noting that per the FBI's 2019 update Reward and New Information Offered on the Anniversary of a Burlington County Cold Case, the recorded call to the Fox family home demanding ransom was in the hours after she was reported missing.
It would be helpful to know when that call was received in relation to her disappearance, word spreading within the community, and initial media reports of her disappearance. It's possible it was the same day if local police quickly involved the FBI who set up the recording equipment inside the home. That would help us gauge whether it was almost certainly John Marshall or an accomplice or whether it could have been a hoax.
Also, I wonder what the rest of the call said. It makes little sense to release the call decades later unless the FBI thought it was credible. If so, it begs the question whether instructions were shared and what occurred afterwards.
ETA: I found a 2017 article which went into more detail about the ransom call and two ransom letters sent by the same person/group. Per that article, "The call came the day after the case was first reported in the press. A letter with the same demand arrived at the family's home the day after the call." The call was June 28th - 4 days after Margaret boarded the bus. The second letter arrived June 30th and said the deal to release her in exchange for $10,000 was off. Investigators collected latent fingerprints either from the letters, the payphone, or both (the article is unclear). See my comment.
That article was excellent, thank you for posting it!
Regarding the ransom calls/letter, the fact that the first call didn’t occur until 4 days after she was taken and 1 day after this hit the media, AND the fact that the final letter was written as if from the SLA, AND the fact that Patty Hearst’s abduction by the SLA was a huge news story at the time… AND the fact that, it doesn’t seem at all like this particular family was targeted but that the abductor put out an ad and took the first girl who showed up… makes me think this wasn’t ever a kidnapping for ransom and that the ransom most likely had nothing to do with the actual kidnapper. Could it have been “John Marshall” trying to confuse the investigation? Maybe but…. he would be risking helping the police ID him more than he would be helping his own case… and since this part didn’t start until after the case hit the media, and since this wasn’t a wealthy family that was specifically targeted…. I just think, based on what we know, that the ransom stuff was most likely someone inserting themselves into the case. But who knows. And I mean I can certainly see why the authorities would want to know who did the ransom stuff and why they did it. And of course there could be more to it that hasn’t been publicly disclosed that would make it seem that the ransom stuff was truly associated with the actual kidnapping. But with what we know now, it seems doubtful to me.
I know parenting was much more lax back in the day but it blows my mind that they would just send her by herself to meet a man they know nothing about without meeting him in person with her.
Yes, and the parents didn’t even ask for his address; he probably would have given a fake one anyway, which would have been useless for investigative purposes, but I found it strange.
Yeah I get that things were different, but the seeming comfort the parents had with sending her on her own without even knowing the address is kind of surprising. Even if times were different, that's a level of caution that I'm sure some other parents at that time would have had. To just know the address. Even to meet the guy and verify it a little at least. That's possible and not terribly inconvenient, even in the 70's.
I babysat a lot in that era and my mom never asked me any questions about where I would be. I guess the assumption was that I would be fine.
Thank God you were. But I get it. I'm from the 80s, was a kid in the 90s, and my mother let me go free as well. 15/20 years later...
It definitely seems like the 90's were the last era of that level of letting kids go out without knowing much at all about where they might be. I think the big change (in the US at least) was due mostly to cell phones becoming cheap enough where most families could afford to get one for their teenage kids. When I first entered high school in '96 in rural america, a kid with their own cell was fairly rare and it was sort of like "they must be wealthy". By the time I was graduating, it felt more like over half the kids I knew that age had a cell phone and was starting to be just a common thing. A couple years later, it was flipped to where it was kind of weird if a teenage kid didn't have a cell phone.
Yes! Same here. And with that, mom's and dads worried about their children and. The one thing I don't get is how criminals still don't face a harder time doing their criminal stuff... I mean, now it seems, at least here in my country, people are more in danger on the streets... It doesn't make sense to me
These things that can helps us stay safe also create new dangers. With cell phones and a constant connectivity to social media, letting people know where we are and what we're doing is trivial. That helps generally keep us safe in the immediate moment, with people who care about us. But it creates a whole new set of information that people with nefarious intentions can use to their advantage as well. The only thing that remains the same is that the most vulnerable are the kids.
Yeah I’m from that era and my mom was weirdly overprotective. She wouldn’t let my brother and I walk home from elementary - about 2.5 miles bc we ‘could get kidnapped!’ - although it’s rare that 2 kids go missing (it does happen but it’s rare). She forbade me from buying from or even eating the candy the ice cream man sold for…reasons? (I never had enough $ to buy ice cream, but I probably wouldn’t have been allowed to eat that either). Riding the bus to meet unknown strangers? Yeah right. Apparently she once read an article about a beautiful straight A 13 yo who was late for cello lessons so she decided to hitchhike and was never seen again. From that she decided the world was full of predators waiting to scoop her kids up - an odd reaction for the 70s
Good for your mom, because I was that child a man tried to abduct as I walked to elementary school. Thank the stars above I got away.
Right. And your mom's level of concern is similar to many people I've encountered. I think it's pretty common.
Not in the 70s. Everyone else I knew was completely free-range
I may get shit in for this, but I think the parent’s were kinda dumb even for the time. Her cousin’s parent’s wouldn’t even let her go to babysit this guys kids for valid reasons.
It’s the downside to “free range children.” Some people like to promote this as some kind of glory era for having children, and while children do need outside exposure and a certain amount of independence, it was pretty clear in hindsight this was going too far in the other extreme. Child predators, murderers, etc, have always existed, and probably loved living in this era.
There are so many missing children cases from the 80s and earlier, and I have no doubt many of them were due to abductions that were never solved.
That said, I also recognize there’s also been plenty of media campaigns that have often oversold the dangers of letting children be outside alone. So it’s a tricky subject to balance for sure.
It’s definitely “naive parenting”. They allowed their teenage child to meet a man that the parents themselves had never met. The parents should have went with her to see who he was. They may have noticed things she was too inexperienced to catch on to. I’d never be so trusting to let a teen girl meet up with a grown man I don’t know.
Having read more about the case I wonder whether the original
placeplan was for one of the parents to join Margaret during the initial visit planned for a Friday. "John Marshall" cancelled it via phone call the day before and told Margaret's father that was because of a death in the family. It's possible that was to get her parents to let their guard down, build trust, and maybe even reschedule it for Monday with prior knowledge that neither parent could join Margaret then.A few minutes ago I posted a link to a really detailed 2017 article on the case that goes into more detail, but doesn't go into detail about the original planned Friday meeting.
Either way it’s a sad case. I’m sure those parents felt immense guilt and sadness after losing their child. Hindsight is 20/20. The what ifs and would have, could have and should have thoughts.
Yeah, the comments here judging them are pretty gross
It might have been to test them too. He might have worried they would go with her or take her there. It changes the plans. It also allows him to talk to a parent and get a sense of them. If they ask for an address or say they have to drop her off the first time that would probably have scared him off. Just because there is a bus doesn’t mean a parent wouldn’t drop their child off or go with them or have a sibling go on the bus make sure they get off at the right stop. Some parents might have concerns if the parent looking for a sitter doesn’t want to meet first or make sure she is able to watch their child. I think he wanted to highlight that he had a wife by mentioning a mother in law dying. He wanted to switch things up but also get a read on the parents. What a sicko!
Yeah, for sure. Bad parenting for sure in that case. Doesn’t matter if it was the 1950s, 1970s, or today, you never let your kids meet random strangers without going in person. (Just like you shouldn’t buy things from eBay/Facebook from a stranger unless they agree to meet in a public place like a mall or in front of a police station).
I do wonder how much of their being trusting of the world played a role, though. It’s not like predators didn’t exist, but unless they were local, it probably didn’t make the news as often. Probably leading to an assertion that no one would do harm to their child. I’m not sure how much “stranger danger” awareness existed back then.
It existed in families who had prior exposure to actual danger, like mine. But the general public, no, not unless something dreadful like this has already taken place in their town or area. Some stranger danger was in the public consciousness, but nothing like today. Only bc my mother herself had been attacked in the 1940s as a teen did it occur to her to teach me to avoid men in general as I grew up. Otherwise I certainly wouldn't have known. School didn't have that in any lesson plan.
It sounded like he has been contacting other young teens or girls for “babysitting” jobs and either parents didn’t feel comfortable. I think Margaret’s cousin posted an ad but she was younger and not allowed to take a bus alone. No one complained about a guy asking people to babysit or calling girls until Margaret went missing. People thought another person with kids or a kid was safe.
That's a really good point about kids. It's an assumption made across the board that a man or woman can't be all that bad of they either say they have kids or have kids with them. It's a kidnapping ruse as well just in general. Or to use a woman to lure kids. Yeah
We were almost treated as adults at that age, my parents went to Disney with my older sister and her kids, I was 15 at home for a week, I wasn't scared. Now, I have a 15yr old kid, we barely leave her at home for an hour and that's with our 100pd German Shepherd haha! Growing up like that has made us Gen X parents soft. But I can see how it was for the parents, oh job offer, cool, no one would think how diabolical some people can be sadly.
I had a 'job offer' was standing on corner waiting for my friends, guys pulls up, says he has a boat, looking for someone to work, go on charter trips, etc., I thought man that would be great, but I already had a summer job. I didn't think anything of it, I was 13, but adult me would've had the FBI investigate the guy if he asked my kid, bahahaha! He could've been Ted Bundy. It's sad how 24/7 news cycle has warped our minds. We are relatively safe, but we don't feel like were are.
I mean I know the media is fear mongering a lot, but i dont think Gen X parents and even parents after that are necessarily being "soft" across the board. Ive paid enough attention to cold cases from the 60s, 70s, 80s where people romanticize the "freedom" and parents not being helicopter parents but the reality is that there is a lot of survivorship bias ("i was in a sketchy situation but it worked out so it really wasnt that bad"), there are so many cold cases and unreported or unknown missing children to know that just being completely unaware and assuming that no one would do horrific things to their child or them and just letting kids do whatever with adults with no knowledge about who theyre communicating with isnt the answer either.
And now with social media, yeah, it makes sense to border on overprotective sometimes because of the sheer amount of creeps and predators online, with access to kids and teenagers 24/7 from anywhere in the country, not just your local weirdo anymore.
I dont have kids but I take certain precautions in my life just after looking at actual stats and facts and understanding the dark parts of human nature. I definitely do more than an adult woman in my position 30-40+ years ago would do but it doesnt stop me from living my life. I think its good to be aware and take certain precautions that may seem irrelevant or inconvenient at times, I'd rather err on the side of caution than not. Especially if I did have children.
We just flat out didn't report back then. I've met so many men and women my age (60s) who narrowly escaped creeps in cars but it literally never occurred to us to go ahead and phone up the police. Why bother? We got away, right? Even with my abduction attempt in elementary school, we didn't call police. In fact, I barely mentioned it to my parents either that night or a few days after. Because I got away. I know this is a bizarre mentality today, 2025, but that's just how it was. Sort of the school of hard knocks. If something didn't kill you, you were alright. Why whine about it? (For a million reasons, like oh, I don't know, public safety for one).
"it literally never occurred to us to go ahead and phone up the police. Why bother? We got away, right?"
Exactly! "Everything's OK so there's no problem." Also, any kid who DID report a creep in those circumstances would be blamed for being stupid and irresponsible. Who would want to go through that? Few people ever talked about things like rape, and general creepiness was often passed off as "Oh, it's just Uncle Fred. He's always been like that." I grew up (60s-70s) having a lot of freedom, and my sisters and I all experienced some level of unsettling behaviour from grown men. I think our mother found it all just too embarrassing to talk about, so we didn't. When I was in my 20s my mother told me that she had been sexually molested/fondled by a "friend of the family" when she was a little kid.
I find the helicopter parenting style a bit over the top, but it beats having your kid raped and killed.
💯. Whole different mentality that's incomprehensible to young people today {shakes cane}
This was a major issue regarding female-on-male domestic abuse for a long time. (And maybe still is, I don't know). Police would literally not take men claiming they were attacked by their girlfriends or wives seriously, because they just couldn't believe that some "dainty little girl" could beat them up. It never seemed to occur to people that there are both physically strong females, and anyone is capable of using a weapon or a tool as an improvised weapon.
I remember back in 1993, Lifetime aired the movie "Men Don't Tell," which was about a husband who was being beaten on a regular basis by his wife, and he refused to go to the police about it because he didn't want to be seen as "unmanly." His internal logic was exactly what you described, he was still alive, so it wasn't that bad, right? He would also justify it every time: "well, she had a bad day at work" or "she drank a little too much." The exact same issues people use today to justify domestic abuse.
Oh, my wife and I are soft lol! I get it though, there is some truth in both the romanticizing the freedom back in the day and lamenting now of helicopter parenting. It's a tough thing and I think, as a boy, it was different for me and my group of friends.
Sadly the world is a much more dangerous place for girls, so many creeps out there. I did enjoy the freedom and had some awesome times, but for sure I count my blessings, the 80's murder rates were much higher than today's as well. But you make a good point about the online stuff, so many predators out there and you don't know who the %$$# you're talking too, especially kids. I was in the service and I use a little OPSEC in my life, always aware of my surroundings and I explain the same to my wife and kid, you have to prepare yourself.
I think the one benefit of being old lol and of that generation is we are much more FAFO, like ready to rumble types. We had to be always on when we were roaming about the countryside so to speak. No phones, no gps, no money and sometimes far away from home in a tough spot.
It hardens you to some extent. I don't wish for my kid to experience that, but sometimes I wish these kids would have some common sense, they just don't get much because we do everything for them practically.
That’s the issue. Romanticizing the past. We still have this belief that nothing bad ever happened “back then.” But it’s just not true. There were murderers, creeps, abductions, just like today. Indeed, finding a balance is hard. Obviously, having completely unsupervised children isn’t good. And it wasn’t good back then, either. But keeping them in the house and never letting them do anything on their own isn’t good, either. Even if it’s done for the right reasons (being fearful of abduction, etc.) Finding the balance has always been a challenge when it comes to parenting.
As a 90s kid I got a little bit of both. For the beginning of my life there wasn't really much internet other than basic search engines and email and some games but connections were dial up and slow, and even though I was in AOL chat rooms I never felt the need to give out my personal info as my family kept me pretty isolated outside of extracurricular activities and were very private, naturally I just picked up on that. I also got the experience of having to entertain myself outside of the internet as a child (which is funny because as an adult I could be considered chronically online).
When I eventually do have children I want to be able to give them a similar balance while keeping them somewhat aware. I know that's gonna be a hard balance to strike especially with AI becoming more normalized, predators can do their thing as easy as just calling a random house with a teenager and luring them out or picking up a runaway hitchhiker in the 70s-80s. The balance seems super tough in execution, as a childless woman I can only imagine. And its frustrating because ive tried to warn family members of basic online safety, theyre good with the kids in public but wont take me seriously because I dont have children when I say things (to my nieces and nephews parents) like "its not really a good idea to post your children on your social media" and "maybe dont give the kids unlimited access to the smartphone because youtube kids isnt 100% as kid friendly as you think" they get upset and tell me I can't tell them anything so I stay out of it now, and just watch the kids go in their room with their phones for hours giggling and doing god knows what...
It's hard to balance, even holding out giving them a cell phone was hard. I give my wife a lot of credit, she was very good about working with my kid about online safety, we have been lucky there, but it is terrifying.
One of her friends had no online supervision and was talking to people way older then her, we eventually told the parents after we learned, but the parents were like no, we asked her, she's on kids youtube. Luckily nothing happened.
We are pretty reserved and quiet people so that has rubbed off on our kid as well. Jeez, hitchhiking, I did it once, with two buddies, we ended up in the back of a two door car, we were hitching a ride to a party. The dudes were cool, rocker types, no issues thank god, but terrifies me thinking of it now. They could've taken us anywhere.
This is all true to my experience growing up in the 60s--70s. Far more school of hard knocks than the decades after. I'm glad I got the self-reliance I have now due to being on my own so much growing up, gone all day, parents didn't know where but for a general idea. Unreachable. It was up to us to get home in one piece, if we even had a curfew. Many of us didn't. We just.... roamed.
You’re also speaking from the position of survivorship bias, though.
The reality is right now, 2025, is the safest time ever to be alive. Crime in virtually areas has been on a steady decline since the early 90s, and keeps dropping. Right now, statistically, you are safer than anyone in, say, 1965, would have been. The odds of you being murdered, abducted, kidnapped, are low. The irony is unsupervised children would probably be safer today than “back then.”
But indeed, as I commented before, it’s just weird because we are conditioned that right now is more dangerous than ever. But it’s not. Because when bad things do happen, that’s what the media hammers in on and promotes.
I don’t know if you saw the film “Nightcrawler,” but it has one of the best revelations of any film I’ve seen. The central crime of the film is a normal family in the San Fernando Valley being the victims of a brutal robbery gone wrong. Except, we find out that family were drug dealers, they were dirty and corrupted, and they were killed by rival dealers. When the news network finds out about this, they deliberately bury the evidence and continue to promote the idea that this lovely White family was killed by evil, minority villains. Because it pushes the narrative that their viewers wanted to hear.
Granted, I don’t agree with everything you said. I was left home alone when I was 15, and this was in the ancient times of the mid-00s. So well into the era of 24/7 propaganda, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, etc. And nothing had ever happened to me. Granted, my parents wouldn’t let me stay out all night, or go off hiking on my own, but that’s also something they weren’t allowed to do when they were growing up in the 60s. So it really does come down to parenting style. Even today, some are more lax than others. I think a lot of the dangers are overblown, but they do exist. It’s tricky to find a balance, to say for sure.
That's interesting how much different it was for me, bc I was allowed to go virtually anywhere alone and I was also allowed to stay out all night at my male "friend's" house (I'm female). Same era. Stupidly, my parents figured I had enough smarts and common sense. Sure, I did to a degree. But I'm telling you right now, had Bundy walked up to me with that cast on his arm, I sure as hell would have gone back to his car with him to help him. I have to wonder looking back how many close calls those free range years had.
Yeah, that's why stuff like this is always heavily exaggerated and subject to nostalgia bias. It's like anything else, some parents were lax, some were not. My parents grew up in big cities (mom in LA, dad in NY), and my mom specifically was growing up during the time of Ted Bundy, the Hillside Strangler, etc. So there was most certainly no allowance of unsupervised kids or teens at the time. It was a very scary time for her, she tells me stories how absolutely terrified she was of being outside, because of the two serial killers active at the time and no one had any clue (yet) who they were or when they would strike.
I think the "free roam children" idea is something that probably happened more in small towns, and even today that's probably still in effect. I was vacation in Alaska not too long ago, and there were tons of kids out and about, even late into the night. I think where you live played a much bigger role rather than the specific decade.
And of course, technology plays a role. There just wasn't a great deal to do inside. Television only had a few channels, you might have had an Atari if you were lucky. You could read, but believe it or not, "excessive reading" was once a thing that parents complained about. So oftentimes being outdoors was really all you could do to pass the time. (When you weren't working a job or whatever).
Kids from small towns are still very free from what i know. I was a "latchkey kid" in 2010s and often looked after my siblings for hours when parents were working when now i see kids that age having babysitter themselves. It seems to be still very similar in small places, people in cities are generally more careful.
Sometimes I wonder if certain crimes were more prevalent in “the good old days” because of things like hitchhiking. You hear some cases that involve victims hitchhiking who were 12-13 years old, which is crazy to me. A woman/girl getting into the car of a man they don’t know should always be considered a potentially dangerous situation
Technology has advanced to the point that it’s hard to get away with certain crimes anymore, and sometimes I wonder if that’s the reason they’ve declined. We do have more mass shooters these days, but I’ve always seen that as more of an “explosion” crime where someone just snaps for whatever reason. Those people aren’t often concerned with getting away
It goes both ways. Coverage of crimes is way up than in the past, creating the perception crime itself is on the rise. Sites Iike Facebook also make it a lot easier to report any local issues, again creating the perception that something “new” is happening, when the more realistic outcome is that that local issue was always happening, it just wasn’t easy to bring up on an instant basis. Which then creates sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Oh no, things are more dangerous than ever, I need a gun!” Then that gun owner gets paranoid and starts shooting, actually raising crime rates.
That said, hitchhiking specifically is one of the most overhyped issues. IIRC, hitchhiking has actually been pretty safe for both the driver and the hitcher. But it’s also one of the easiest “scare crimes” to create, because all it takes is one or two people to get harassed and it comes off as the most dangerous thing in the world. It’s really not something that should be done today with the prevalence of GPS, Uber, etc. But if it’s really someone’s last resource, odds are both players will be fine.
Indeed, there’s a lot of crimes that you can’t get away with today due to improvements in technology. In fact, look up the Stephanie Lazarus case. It’s a double whammy. The only reason she was caught was because in 2009, crime in Los Angeles had declined enough that former cold cases were now being re-examined. And when they investigated her case, the evidence left behind in 1986 was analyzed as best as it could for the time, but when they were able to use modern tools, they got her DNA and she was finally arrested and sentenced to life. (Oh, and she was a police officer, so she was interrogated and arrested by her own peers).
The best when she starts taking in the interview, what an evil B-EYE-TCH
Sorry, I can’t remember her interview that well, it took place a million years ago.
Yep, everybody's afraid of their crimes being filmed. I do think the survey we have now has cut down on crimes against strangers. It's too much of a wild card for perps now. They have to really do some meticulous planning.
I think the increase in mass shootings correlates to the expiration of the assault weapons ban.
Definitely safer today for sure, go look at the murder rates in NYC from 1988-93, like 3000 murders some years, now like 3-4 hundred, but yes it's amplified times a gazillion. When I was 12 a 7yr old kid was murdered not far from me and in HS kid who sat next to me in math class was murdered senior year, both unsolved. Also, a kid I played football with was involved in a kidnap/murder when he was 16. The last two were drug related.
I hear you on narratives, that's what the news is all about, but I know where most murders occur and luckily it's not where I live and I"m not involved in the life as the mob guys, now drug dealers say.
I will say what terrifies me is the amount of murderers and rapists that get out of prison on the regular, not ppl who are/were innocent, I'm talking stone killers and predators, the justice system doesn't care about the victims imho.
I’d have thought you’d at least want to know the address, especially given it’s her first time babysitting for a stranger.
Honestly, having talked to friends and relatives who were around in the 50s-80s at least in their lives times weren’t that different. The general consensus is a family like the Beaumonts (famous Australian case, three kids went missing) weren’t exactly the norm. They were viewed as a bit lax even by 1960s standards.
I really think the "free range children" idea is just overblown in general. I know I have very small sample sizes, but my own parents told me when they were growing up, they still had a lot of restrictions about what they could and couldn't do. For certain, not getting into cars with random people was one of them. They certainly didn't just wander off all day and stay out all night. I'm sure some did, of course. But I think a lot of this comes from nostalgia, and nostalgia is always built on an overly rosy view of the past, often ignoring realities.
It’s simply not true that it’s overblown.
Yes, there was always a range of parenting styles, just as there is now. But it was much more of a social norm to let kids do their own thing, and the idea that something bad could happen to them by someone’s intentional actions was not a norm. That doesn’t mean some parents didn’t have restrictions, of course they did. But overall the average was much, much more lenient.
I think a lot of it might be the same parenting variance you see now. You get parents who are over protective, parents who are (imo) the right amount of protective, parents who don’t care what their kids are up to and parents who actively chase their kids off.
I was 14 when I moved to a faraway town from my parents (we used to live in the middle of the bush) to study in a special school in the capital city.
It wasn't a boarding school; it had no dormitories. I lived on my own and attended classes.
My exact sentiments.
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My local Red Cross ran a baby sitting course that you had to be 11 or 12 to take, and this was the 2000s.
As crazy as it sounds now, I was hired as a babysitter- an actual babysitter, not "mother's helper" with the parents home but busy- at 11 and 12 even in the 90s. I only worked for families my family knew through school and church, but nobody thought it was strange.
I can't imagine hiring an 11-year-old now, although to be fair kids back them were typically given much more independence at an earlier age than now, so we were not as adrift when left in charge of younger kids as a kid who has never been unsupervised would be.
My best friend was babysitting a newborn (whose parents were both doctors) when we were 11 years old. But they lived across the street from her and her mom was usually home if she needed anything. Crazy to think this was very normal in the 90’s!
Same here. I babysat an infant when I was 12. lol
I'm an 80's kid and I was often left in charge of my 1 year old sister and 9 month old cousin for long periods of time when I was 13 or 14. No one thought it was weird lol, and my mom even said it was a weird kind of birth control because after having to actually change diapers and deal with crying babies I would probably think twice about getting pregnant in my teen years. She was right, lol.
I started babysitting for pay at age 10, which was a little early, most girls started at 12 or 13. I was mature for my age and very responsible, so I started early. This was babysitting children, toddlers and infants at their house with no adults present. I started in 1969, and this was extremely common.
I started at 12 (boy) in the late 1980s with no adults present, watching 1-2 kids aged 3-8 for a handful of families known to me and my parents. This was in the suburbs of a city of about 100,000. At most I had a phone number where I could reach one of the parents, but a lot of the time the parents were unreachable.
Even then this wasn't uncommon in my circles, nor was the freedom I had or the degree to which my parents helped me acquire life skills and understand risks and how to respond to them.
Well, not saying parents are to blame, but multiple kids going here there and yonder sometimes, especially back then when communication was different, and it's possible to loose track of who is going where. One time my mother was playing the piano when a friend called and asked if I could come over and spend the night. I asked my mom, she shook her head "yes" and I was out the door. A few hours later the police were canvassing every house in the neighborhood looking for me. So, my mom wasn't really paying attention when I asked her (and I asked at a bad time) but something bad could have happened. I could have agreed to meet someone unknown to babysit, which I did tons of back then, and that would've been the end.
I don’t remember voices from 20 years ago, I don’t understand how someone could remember the voice of a friend/neighbor/colleague from 45 years ago but maybe your brains are better than mine
Only if it was a family member maybe.
I think this would be it. Someone who is say 70 years old when the FBI released the audio, would’ve been 25 at the time of the abduction/recording. If that 70 year old heard this, thought the audio sounded just like their father/uncle/brother/ex-husband and hey, he happened to live near that area in the 70s… that could’ve solved the case for sure. I think it would’ve definitely been more effective had they released the audio earlier into the investigation. I’m guessing a cold case team was reviewing the file and realized that this should’ve been done already and that time was running out so they released that snippet with the hope that someone closely related to the caller was still alive, hears the recording, is able to recognize the voice, and is willing to call in the tip. It’s also the sort of thing though where, had they released it right away or 1 year or 5 years after her abduction, maybe someone would’ve recognized the voice but been unwilling to call… but all these years later, maybe they’re not as likely to protect someone who is already deceased, or who they may have since had a falling out with, a husband they may have divorced, a brother they may not speak to anymore because he’s a creep, etc. 45 years was way too long but I can see the strategy behind waiting a bit. 20th or 25th anniversary at the most.
For sure. Then of course, you gotta keep in mind that one guy who called in saying he was the Yorkshire Ripper. But wasn't. They wasted so much time and effort on finding him, and he even called back saying it wasn't him. Alas, it's not like they're gonna believe him lol.
But it should've been tried at the time for sure. Or like you said even waiting some time, but 45 years. Damn.
Well, and plus voices change dramatically.
That’s what I mean. If, for example, my grandma was a serial killer 20 years ago I would not be able to recognize her voice back then from an audio
I went almost 2 decades without speaking to my mother. Got her on the phone by accident and didn't recognize her voice. She sounded like an old lady, just like my grandmother who was her dead mother. Only.... She was elderly by then. Yeah, voices shake, deepen, vocal cords change for sure.
Yeah… I would remember that voice only if it was last time I heard that. If I was still in contact with that person, the “new” voice would have replaced the “old” voice in my brain. Does it make sense? (English is not my first language)
I think this would be difficult but I guess you just never know and they were desperate, they didn’t have much to go on.
Weird the first woman who answered the phone would say John Marshall doesn’t live here, not “this is a supermarket”.
I had the same thought, but I wonder if she said something like "there's no one here by that name" or whatever and the parents took it to mean "no one named that lives here"
The lady maybe also thought it was a prank, especially with pay phones. As kids, we would get some of the pay phones numbers in hopes of someone answering so we could prank them.
Yeah it's possible that what she said wasn't transcribed and just paraphrased. But if she actually said anything that didn't mention the fact that it was a payphone, that would be highly suspicious to me too. If a payphone rings and you're around and decide to pick it up, I can't imagine a scenario where you would respond to an inquiry for someone by phrasing it in any way that didn't indicate that the caller had reached a public payphone.
Yeah, I can definitely understand it going from “there’s no John here” to “John doesn’t live here”, but can’t imagine saying the first sentence and not explaining “you’ve called a pay phone”’
Maybe it was a sarcastic reply?
It was the era of pay phones and phone books. You could basically call anyone on a prank call. Being an adult now, I can imagine being annoyed by answering a pay phone only for someone to ask for another person that I would have no clue as to who they are and give a short answer and hang up.
Yeah maybe I might be projecting somewhat. I was a teenager in the 90's, so payphones were all over, but their use was definitely declining sharply. I just feel like, if I'm in a public space and the payphone rings, it would be weird to answer it and then get annoyed that someone called. lol
Growing up then, from my experience, people always answered the phone. I think it's because we all had landlines with telephones in our homes and every damn ring, on anyone's phone all sounded the same. We were so attuned to that sound that it seemed ingrained that we had to answer it.
You also always hoped that the call would end up being interesting.
Totally
Why did they only post a small portion of the recording after all these years? Is it to keep only the possible important parts highlighted?
This 2017 article is extremely detailed and well written - The mysterious disappearance of Margaret Fox.
It includes a lot more context about the family, the events surrounding Margaret's abduction, the ransom demand (a call and two letters), the investigation (including why John Marshall who worked at the A&P grocery store was ruled out), evidence (fingerprints, though unclear whether from letters, payphone, or both), clearing of all 12 persons of interest, challenges performing investigations in 1974 as compared to 2017, etc.
It gave me a much more robust understanding of the case.
I never heard of Margaret's case until OP's post, so thank you! I'll read the article now. How awful for Margaret's parents, who spent their lives never knowing if their daughter was alive or dead, or who lured her to meet him, other than a name. Poor Margaret and her family.
The article (in Portuguese) that the OP linked, whose author contacted/interviewed Margaret’s brother, Joe, is also very detailed. I recommend using Google Translate.
the voice call always gives me the creeps. so tragic and frustrating
It reminds me a lot of the case of Kelly Cook in Alberta...
Unfortunately, these ads that enterprising young girls took out in papers, or hung up in public places, were sometimes used by predators to get access to trusting kids...
High profile homicide of Alberta teen Kelly Cook remains unsolved after 35 years | Globalnews.ca
That’s exactly what I came to comment too. I just listened to the Crime Beat episodes about it. Super depressing
Just listened to the Crime Beat podcast about this and I can’t believe how similar the cases are, mind blowing
This really reminds me of the Amy Mihaljevic case, anonymous male caller just trying his luck calling young girls until one of them took the bait.
Well at the very least the abductor was familiar with that supermarket to some degree. To use a name of an employee and the phone number to a pay phone there probably tells us that he was at least there once. Other than that it seems like there is very little to go on, sadly
$263.53 today
A lot for a little girl.
Ideally would have been yet another red flag.
Yes! So many red flags with all of it!
thank you!
That case has been on the FBI Seeking Info page for years right next to Amy Mihaljevic and Morgan Jade Violi and that call was pretty creepy, that guy's voice was distinctive.
This is so sad! She was so excited to start this job only to end up in the hands of someone scary!
Am I the only one surprised police bothered reaching out to all of the John Marshalls in the area? I can’t imagine a perpetrator would ever give his real name.
I mean, sometimes criminals are stupid, and you don't want to be the cop that let him get away because you didn't check the people with that name.
I suppose, yeah. Maybe a better question is whether in any prior cases a perpetrator was ever so stupid to give out his or her real name?
Ted Bundy always gave his real first name.
Every couple of years there's some story about a bank robber who gives the teller their ID or writes the money demand on the back of a withdrawal slip they've filled out with their real name or something
Yep. I feel like this is a common trope in film too, like the bungling bank robber. But in real life it doesn’t strike me as a sign of stupidity necessarily. More like ego/arrogance. At worst, it seems like a deeply sinister sign that they assume the victim will be dead so who cares about fake names (see Ted Bundy).
I forget his name, but I’m pretty sure the man who murdered Cherish Perrywinkle introduced himself to her mom with his actual name.
I assume it’s because every lead is taken seriously even if it’s very unlikely to be of any value
They may not yet have known that the number didn't belong to a house. They had to investigate the possibility that it was a real job offer, and find out if "John Marshall" was as confused by her no-show as everyone else.
They have to do the legwork to make sure it’s not legitimate, no matter how unlikely
Yeah that is surprising. And it's frustrating that it seems like they maybe didn't properly pursue the lead of the guy at the store named John Marshall. Interviewing him made sense, of course. But the real suspicion there, imo, was not that John Marshall might actually be the perpetrator, but that the perpetrator may have had some connection to that store / location and used that guy's name for that reason. They should have dug into that more. Did anyone at the store know of someone who would have access to the information that a guy worked there named John Marshall? Did anyone know or have knowledge of John Marshall who knew that he worked at that store? etc
Depending on where the payphone was located, the guy could have easily seen the sign a lot of grocery stores have identifying their manager and assistant manager and others. If they had an "employee of the month" board he'd have had dozens of names to grab on the spur of the moment.
But did they have such displays back in the 1970s?
We were so naive in the 1970s.
I don't know the percentage but in many of these case, it's a prank call vs the actual killer. People are sick.
So I'd take the the recording with a grain of salt. Seems far too late for the caller to ever be identified anyways.
I agree. I think the ransom call was likely a sick prank. They usually are. I wonder if the FBI has information that makes them think it could be legitimate.
I mean look, I get times were different in the 1970s…but letting your 14 year old daughter get picked up by a man to babysit a kid with no address, never meeting him, and never hearing his wife on the phone etc just really would seem to be some pretty lax guarding even in the most liberal sense of the word.
Like this feels a bit different than “I let my kids play with a group of their friends at the park until sunset”
www.burlingtoncountytimes.com/story/news/2017/09/10/the-mysterious-disappearance-margaret-fox/16783782007
User r / UnamedRealities included the 2017 article link in their comment about Margaret's dissappearance, if anyone is interested. Thought I'd share it.
$40/week was a Lot!
it was. if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. 😞
the high pay for babysitting a single child was a red flag.
This is so unbelievably similar to a 15-year old girl who went missing in small town Alberta, Canada in 1981. Her name was Kelly Cook and a man by the name of “Bill Christensen” hired her for a babysitting job as well. He used a phone at a local gas station to contact her and her parents never met him either. Her remains were found months after her disappearance but “Bill” was never found.
My dad was a corrections officer from 1970-2001. I wasn’t allowed to do anything ever. I laugh about it now at 55 but man I couldn’t fart without him launching an investigation. I was allowed to ride my bike to the pharmacy to pick up his cigarettes and come right back but you could see the pharmacy from our front door. Every house we lived in had a fenced yard with a German Shepherd. As I read these posts, it’s so sad there are so many missing people. Like how? 🤦♀️ I did have tragedy in my family a few times. I also had a cousin killed by a mass murderer.
Did I not read this just a couple of days ago?
You must have seen it! I exceeded the weekly posting limit without realizing it, and it ended up being removed shortly after it was posted.
It may have been deleted for overposting. And then reposted today.
Yeah, I’m having serious déjà vu reading this post and the comments!
A point of interest not included in the OP:
Otherwise a teenage girl named Teresa Caseiro was found murdered in her family home in 1973 in nearby Willingboro, which is south of Burlington and equally close to Mt Holly. Also an unsolved case. Her family had taken a trip up to Maine to look for new houses, but she stayed at a neighbors' house so she could keep working at her summer job. The family house had a "For Sale" sign out front and may have been listed in newspaper classified ads... Every morning she would go over to her family's house to do chores. According to witnesses, she was last seen alive greeting an unidentified man in a red car and escorting him into her family's house. This man likely used a ruse of being a real estate agent or prospective buyer to trick her into letting him enter. He was described as a heavyset 35-45 year old white man with light colored hair, like the man in Mount Holly mentioned above. I was planning to post a thread on that case but my account is too new, so hopefully I can get to that soon.
The most heartbreaking and haunting thing - for me - was how optimistically the young girl packed up her swimsuit. I don't know why but this just makes me bawl, maybe because I am also the parent of a teen who loves to swim.
My heart aches for her family. I cannot begin to even imagine the horror, the guilt, the regret and the sorrow they lived/live with.
The 70s were a time when we were more trusting, more naive and less aware of the monsters who live in our midst. I can imagine her parents repeatedly ask themselves why they did not demand an address from "John Marshall", why they didn't call his number before she went to the "job", why they did not insist on meeting him, his "wife" and their "son" in person prior to her first day at "work", why they did not vet him more, why why why why? If he had been trying to lure multiple girls with fake babysitting offers, then just asking more questions and insisting on a personal meeting might have saved Margaret just like it probably saved all the other girls he had tried this sh1t with.
Hindsight is 20/20. It must have been crushing for them to live with not just the loss of your only daughter but to also maybe the weight of that guilt over that one single lapse of judgment on their part that cost their beloved child.
Will she ever get justice? .
Police might want to check out all of the friends / relatives ,/ acquaintances of the real John Marshall. It's way too much of a coincidence that a call from his place of work, using his details (including the car he drove) would be used to lure the teen. Someone just passing by the store and heading his name being called or used would not know what kind of car he owned!!!! It might have someone who even had some personal beef with Marshall. Did the cops follow up this angle?
Note to parents: please please please get anyone who wants to offer your child any job that involves the being inside someone's home or property, even for very short periods of time (including yard work / pool work "out back", housekeeping chores, such as helping them clean / declutter homes, digitizing paper files / photographs, babysitting, etc, UNLESS you know the individual/ family very very very well. Otherwise, your child is better off working as a teen cashier at Walmart.
Similarly, be very very very careful about "sleepovers", esp if you don't know the family well, EVEN IF YOUR KID IS "BEST FRIENDS" with theirs. Just don't. Please.
Monitor your kids' online activity, who they're chatting with and who they are meeting. Yeah, your kids are going to complain that you are "controlling" but your job is not to be their best friend but to be their parent. We live in a vile world, unfortunately.
RIP, sweet Margaret. May you get justice soon
In a similar vein: some parents (even now) are ridiculously lax. I had the opposite experience. I was a bookseller and had a loyal customer come in with her little daughter. She overheard me say that I had worked as a nanny for two years and asked me to babysit her kid. Ms. H knew close to nothing about me (only my reading likes) but hired me on the spot.
I could have been a trafficker for all she knew, but she trusted a virtual stranger with her daughter. I had the job for a year but dang!!!
Automatically sketchy that a father would be setting up the babysitting. That work pretty much always is something a mother would have to do, especially in the 1960s.
I have to disagree, though I can see where you're coming from. Men were still kings over the roost. The mother could have asked her husband to check the guy out on the phone, or the husband could have caught wind of this upcoming babysitting gig and said I'll take it from here
I’d be curious what percentage of men who abducted children had prior criminal records. My guess is a very high percentage. I’d bet this perpetrator has had legal troubles in his life
This kind of stuff still happens today, heck Craigslist has gotten notorious for luring in victims
Just picking up on the use of 'bread' in reference to money, thats a common colloquialism for money here in Britain, not so common now but certainly in the 70/80's.
I think I would be correct to say it's not a common term in the US?
It actually is pretty common in the US
American here. Can confirm that "bread" was commonly used in the 70's and into the 80's, but not so much anymore.
Not sure about the sixties because I was born in '69, but if American movies or television programs are to be believed, it was used a lot then too.
Thanks for clarifying, I wasn't really sure, when I read it I immediately thought "thats used alot here" thought it might be one of the 'more of a British thing' if y'know what i mean, like drinking tea instead of coffee lol.
No worries. I am American but find regional language differences really fascinating, so I'm sometimes also surprised when some slang words are the same across the pond when I'd expect them to be different.
It’s fairly common but certainly more so in the 70s-80s
I don't want to come down too hard on the parents, because they paid dearly. But how did they agree to this sketchy arrangement? 14 year old takes a bus to a different town to meet a stranger in a car for a babysitting job? No, no, no! Red flags all over. The poor kid. I hope whatever happened to her, she didn't suffer too long.
The ransom call is definitely weird. It seems to point to the store "bread and butter). But it could just be another sick weirdo preying on the parents after the case was publicized.
It looks like OP posted some AMP links. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of concerns over privacy and the Open Web.
Maybe check out the canonical pages instead:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/chilling-ransom-call-released-14-year-girls-decades/story?id=63955063
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/margaret-ellen-fox-missing-chilling-ransom-call-released-45-years-after-new-jersey-girls-disappearance/
I'm a bot | Why & About | Summon: u/AmputatorBot
This wasn’t a disappearance. It was a planned abduction.
The offender didn’t know Margaret personally. The babysitting ad was bait, and multiple reports confirm repeated luring attempts. She wasn’t selected — she was the one who responded.
No real address means there was never a house. The plan was a fast pickup with no fixed crime scene. Seconds, not minutes. The use of a payphone is a classic but effective method and shows clear premeditation.
Margaret’s personality mattered. Trust, compliance, and enthusiasm reduce resistance at first contact. This type of offender relies on that.
The red car is likely visual noise. Her focus was narrowed to “John Marshall,” while the real offender observed and intervened later.
The ransom call wasn’t about money. It was psychological dominance, especially over the father — a common post-offense behavior used to assert control and claim a sense of victory after the crime was already over.
The delayed release of the audio suggests investigators suspected someone long ago but lacked the legal proof to act, possibly after the suspect’s death.
Not random. Not impulsive. And very likely not a first attempt.
why are we chat gpt'ing comments now
Did you just feed this post into an LLM and post the response as a comment? Why.
Did you delete your comment trying to claim you wrote this comment
Yes, I deleted the comment. I primarily speak Arabic, but everything I wrote came from my own thinking. I didn’t use an LLM, I only used a site for grammar correction because I can read English fairly well, but I’m not very good at writing it. I hope you understand.
Is there a way to copy the body of OP's post? I tried copying it, but it only copied the post title.
Unfortunately, horribly, it sounds like this John Marshall was looking to lure a young girl for the purposes of abduction, rape, and then, likely murder. It definitely sounds like while Margaret was not specifically targeted, John carefully planned and premeditated his actions; he knew what he wanted, and what to do to get it. He sounds like a Child Predator whose crime was most likely sexually motivated. John probably wanted to lure a girl to abduct and rape her. And then, kill her, either as part of his sick desires, or so that he wouldn't be identified. I hope one day Margaret's remains are found, and John Marshall is identified.
Reading OP's post, I thought of the once-Cold Case of Alison Parrot several times. The post really reminded me of what happened to Alison in July 1986.
Francis Carl Roy called various homes in the phone book, under the last name listing of "Parrott," asking for "Alison." He pretended to be a photographer who wanted to take some publicity photos for Alison's Track and Field team. Her and her teammates names had recently been published in The Toronto Star.
Roy lured her out of her parents Toronto, Ontario, Canada, home with this explanation. Alison, 11, called her mother at work for permission to meet him. Her mother said yes because she believed this was a legitimate photo session with Alison's teammates. Alison left, took the subway heading to Varsity Stadium by the University of Toronto, and then disappeared.
Unlike with Margaret, Alison's body was found two days later. Years later, Roy was identified, charged, and convicted of having lured, abducted, bound, and raped Alison, and then strangling her to death. Like John did, Francis Roy appeared to premeditate his crime. But he also targeted Alison Parrott specifically, and Margaret is not thought to have been targeted.