Help Wanted: Lured By A Killer // Dark Summer Series

Written By Kaelyn Moore

Margaret Ellen Fox was just 14 years old when she decided to look for a job in the summer of 1974. 

School had recently gotten out in their New Jersey community when she and her 11 year old cousin, Lynne Park had an idea. They were going to take out an ad in the local paper to let the community know they were babysitters and they were looking for families to help. 

So the freckly faced tween asked her parents if they could place the ad. They reluctantly agreed, they were nervous for her, but they also knew that she was responsible and was looking for more independence. Plus, their small suburb of Burlington New Jersey was safe and quiet, they basically knew all of the neighbors. She could take out the ad but It’d have to be as short as possible and get the message across quickly. These ads in papers charged per word, after all. 

And so, in the June 18th edition of their local paper, Margaret and Lynn placed an ad that read “Experienced Teen Girls. Love Kids. Work at your house. Call…” and then two phone numbers were listed.  

I’m sure many of us have been in that situation, I know I have. When you’re growing up the summer can be a great time to make some money which can give you a little bit of independence. And for Margaret, who was the only girl in a family of 5 children, she was ready for that. 

But that newspaper would have been distributed to hundreds, if not thousands of families across new Jersey, not just in the Fox families neighborhood. You could never really be sure who was picking up the paper, flipping to the ads section, and deciding to call. And so Margaret didn’t know that placing that ad for a summer job would be the worst decision she’d ever make.

This is heart starts pounding, and I’m your host, Kaelyn Moore. In today’s episode I want to tell you two stories. Two tales of people who were searching, like so many of us have, for a summer job, and the horror that ensued. 

Our first is Margaret’s, about her search for a babysitting job. And our second is about a man who found himself in a bar one night, sitting next to a stranger who offered him some work for the summer.

But before we jump in, let me say, if you’re new here, welcome to our community of the darkly curious. I put out new episodes of horrors, hauntings and/or mysteries every Wednesday, around 7pm EST here in the US, that’s 9am on Thursdays AEST for those of you listening in Sydney or Melbourne or elsewhere on the east coast of Australia.

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Now, we’re going to take a quick break, and when we get back, we’re going to dive into Margaret’s story. 

It’s strange, in today’s world, to hear that two girls so young were allowed to advertise their babysitting services in a paper. I mean, Lynne was just 11, she was barely out of elementary school. I’m honestly surprised she was even allowed to babysit let alone advertise her services publicly.

And even though Margaret was 14, she still looked like a kid, with her crooked smile that wasn’t yet full of adult teeth, and her freckly face. She was also only 5 foot 2. As I reread the ad they took out my stomach knots up a little. “experienced teen girls”. But, this was the 70’s. it was a different time, and ads like this were surprisingly not that uncommon. 

The next morning, Lynne got a call on her house phone. When she picked up, a man was on the other end of the line. He said that his name was John Marshall, and he had a 5 year old son that he was looking for a sitter in the mornings in Mount Holly, about 7 miles away. 

Lynne was excited her ad had worked so quickly, and she ran to ask her mother if she could do the job, holding her hand over the receiver so the man on the other end couldn’t hear her begging. 

But Lynne’s mother had her reservations. She didn’t want her daughter working for someone so far away. She thought it would be better to find someone in their community, ideally that Lynne could walk to. Call it luck, or call it a mother’s instinct, but she told Lynne no.

Not long after Lynne hung up the phone, two doors down at Margaret’s house, the land line rang. Margaret held her ear to the phone to hear the same man’s voice on the other end of the line. He told Margaret the same deal, he had a 5 year old son, and starting June 21st he and his wife would need help in the mornings.

Margaret asked her mother, who seemed skeptical about the job and insisted she ask her father. Margaret asked. Her father reluctantly agreed, and so Margaret confirmed the details with John Marshall.

He said he’d need her in the mornings, from 9:30am to 1:30pm. He’d pay her $40 a week ($250 today), and buy her a one way fare back home. He or his wife would be able to drop her off after her shift by 2:30pm. He also had a pool she would be allowed to use, so make sure to bring a suit, he insisted. 

To meet up, he suggested Margaret take a bus to Mount Holly, where she’d get off at the corner of High and Mill street. There, John’s wife would be waiting in a red Volkswagen.

Margaret wrote down all of the details on a piece of paper near the phone.

Later that night, the phone rang again. This time, Margaret’s dad answered. Once again, it was John Marshall. Margaret’s dad listened as John explained that his mother in law had passed away suddenly, and they were going to need to push the start date to June 24th. Margaret’s father said he’d let her know, and then hung up the phone. 

On June 24th, Margaret’s younger brother, Joe walked her to the bus stop near their home. He was the youngest of the 5 children, all boys except for Margaret. Call us when you get there, please! Margaret’s mother shouted as the two left the house, and Margaret shouted back that she would. 

Joe watched as Margaret clutched her bag and got on the public bus. She must have looked so small compared to all of the adults getting on to commute to work.

The ride to Mount Holly would just be 20 minutes, and she boarded the bus at around 8:40am, wearing a blue blouse, hexagonal glasses she always wore, and flared maroon jeans with a yellow patch on one of the knees. Her swimsuit was in her bag, along with a kit for her glasses. It was everything she’d need for the day.

Back at home, Margaret’s mother got the house in order as she awaited her daughter’s call. She was expected to arrive at the Marshall’s by 9:10ish, but when she glanced at the clock, it was already 9:30. Her daughter’s day was supposed to be starting, but she hadn’t called yet.

Well, perhaps the bus got delayed, or she had trouble finding the Marshall’s red Volkswagen. She went back to doing her chores, but more and more time passed, and no call came in from her daughter.

By 2:30, Mrs. Fox anxiously waited by her front door for her daughter's return. She was going to let her have it for not calling her that morning. It nearly gave her a heart attack. But Margaret didn’t show up. 2:45, 3:00, 3:30. Still no sign of Margaret. 

The whole family was now worried, so Mrs. Fox went over to the phone where her daughter had left a note with information. It included the number for the Marshall’s as well as instructions on how to meet John at the bus stop.

Mrs. Fox first dialed the number, and a woman picked up. Hello? She asked on the other line, confused. Ah, that must be Mrs. Marshall, Mrs. Fox thought. “Hi, this is Margaret’s mom. I’m just calling to see if she’s still at your house?” 

The woman informed her that she was not, in fact Mrs. Marshall, and Margaret was not there. But what she neglected to tell Mrs. Fox was that the phone number she called did not belong to a personal residence. The woman had been walking past a pay phone near a grocery store that had started ringing and answered it. The number was to a public phone. 

The Fox family started tearing through their phone book, calling anyone with the last name Marshall, but each person was confused by their call, and had never heard of Margaret. Mr. Fox then mobilized his 4 sons to start a search party, and together they roamed the streets in Mount Holly looking for Margaret. 

By Midnight, they call the police and a casefile is officially opened on Margaret as a missing person.

The man assigned to the case was an investigator Leonard Burr, and he starts his investigation by peppering the town with photos of Margaret, and trying to track down anyone who was on the bus with her the morning of the 24th. To do that, he just got on the bus the following morning and started asking people if they knew anything. 

And that’s how he finds two women that remembered seeing Margaret on the bus. One woman was sitting behind her the morning she disappeared. Her son had pulled on Margaret’s long, brown hair, but it didn’t upset Margaret. Instead, she was smiley and chatted with the woman for a moment before getting off at the Mount Holly stop. 

Another witness told investigator Burr that she watched as Margaret got off at the stop and then began talking to a young man with a red sports car. This was good information, so Burr thanked the woman and then started looking in the mount holly area for a red sports car.

The man was eventually found to be a 20 year old who lived in the area. He told police that Margaret approached him to ask if he was John Marshall, but he told her he wasn’t and she went on her way. He was cleared of any wrong doing, though it doesn’t seem like he gave much info as to where Margaret went after she spoke to him. 

Mr. Fox remembered what the voice of John Marshall sounded like. He said “There was no accent, but no emotion, either. He knew exactly what the devil he was saying. He was very convincing — it just never entered my mind that anything was wrong." And overall that the man was calm, precise — like with a military level of diction, that almost had a slight British affect.  but still somehow sounded like a Jersey local. It’s such a specific description of someone’s voice.

The police made a note of that, but they still felt like the man had used his real name. So Other men named John Marshall were questioned, which all lead nowhere. But then, one day, an officer goes back to the grocery store where the payphone was. And as he’s inside, as he’s talking to employees about what they saw, the owner comes out and introduces himself to the officer. As John Marshall.

And the officer gets this horrible feeling deep in his stomach. What if the perpetrator walked into the grocery store, read the owners nametag, and just used that name on the phone. What if they were chasing their own tails?  

They must have felt like they hit a dead end. But that’s when the phone starts ringing at the Fox residence.

On June 28th, four days after their daughters disappearance, Margaret’s family receives an alarming call. It  was recorded at the behest of the FBI, but they believe that the man on the other end of the call was the man responsible for Margaret’s disappearance. And in the recording, he’s asking the family for ransom for Margaret’s return. 

I’m going to play you a small portion of the call now so you can hear what he sounds like, compared to the description that Margaret’s dad gave. Remember, sounds like a jersey local, maybe vaguely british, and military like diction.  And as you listen, I want you to think about if it sounds like anyone you’ve ever come into contact with, even years ago. Here it is

On the call, the man states that “$10,000 might be a lot of bread, but your daughter's life is the buttered topping”. 

In my opinion, just from what Margaret’s father said, it doesn’t really match the description of the voice. It sounds like a jersey local but he’s missing the diction. And the FBI agreed

Initially, This information was not released to the press until weeks later because the FBI was not sure the lead was real. The call came after the media had latched onto the case, and there’s sickos out there who would make this kind of phone call just to play with the family. But it was ultimately decided, by law enforcement, that this was probably John Marshall’s voice. 

After this call, the Fox’s went to the bank and withdrew their life savings in order to pay the ransom. However, the caller never called back with any  further instructions. 

Instead, the next day they received a letter with the same strange message “$10,000 might be a lot of bread, but your daughter's life is the buttered topping”. Again, this letter was never followed up with any instructions on how to pay the ransom, and this time it was signed as if it was from the Symbionese Liberation Army, a small home grown American terrorist organization,  the same organization responsible for the highly publicized kidnapping of Patty Hearst four months prior. The group was not active in New Jersey at the time, so it’s most likely that again, this was just some sicko messing with the Fox family.  

I know the police thought this was potentially John asking for the money, but I just don’t know why he would ask a willing family for ransom and then never try to collect it. The letter was kept for hand writing analysis, but there was another big clue from it. authorities lifted a fingerprint off it. 

As girls in the area read Margaret’s story, something struck a chord with them. Some of them had also seen a man in a orange/reddish volkwagen driving around, asking them if they were babysitters. He gave them a lot of the same details about the babysitting job, and occasionally even used the name John Marshall. 

In August of 1974, Police released a sketch of the man, who was described as a white male between the ages of 35 and 40, about 5 feet 10 inches tall and 200 to 230 pounds, he was said to "have very blue eyes, light blond or reddish hair worn in a crew cut, graying with very noticeable even white teeth

It’s important to note here that at the time, there was not much communication across police precincts, and even though the FBI was now involved with the case, they described having to BEG other counties for information regarding Margaret.

So even after that detailed of a description, a specific car to look for, and a great description of a man’s voice, not many other leads come in. and by the end of the 70’s, the case is cold. 

Today, the investigation would have probably gone a lot differently. we have DNA, we have databases where we can search owners of specific cars. And I’m not saying this to excuse any of the flaccid investigation that occurred, I think I’m just saying it to make myself feel better that something like this wouldn’t happen today, even though it very well could. 

Over the years there have been a few false leads that haven’t really gone anywhere, like a man who confessed in 1976 to abducting Margaret but ultimately was playing a hoax. There was also a body found in Monmouth county New Jersey in 1991 that matched margaret’s description down to the clothes she was wearing. But ultimately, it was ruled not to be her, though I haven’t been able to find a concrete reason why. Other remains were DNA tested to not be Margaret, but it was never said why the Monmouth county remains weren’t her. 

The case is still open, and a new officer, Michael Delisio, thinks there’s one lead from around the time of the trial that needs to be pursued further. There was someone from the casefile that wasn’t pursued all that hard in the 70’s, but in hindsight, looks like he could have had something to do with the disappearance. After a short break

In 1978 police investigated a 66-year-old Mount Holly sex offender who was charged with “lewdness and assault on a minor” in 1975. This man was a former soldier who worked at the military academy until the 1940s when he was found out for his previous conviction of “sexual contact with a minor”.

 Because of his military service, this man had an “almost British sounding” accent, which harkened back to the way Mr. Fox described the voice on the phone. He even drove a red Volkswagen. But despite all of this, he was eventually cleared by Burlington County PD and the FBI. When investigators went to go check on him, he had moved to another area and had begun a job as a radio DJ. He produced logs that showed he was on the radio at the time of Margaret’s disappearance. His fingerprints also weren’t on the ransom note. Investigator Leanord Burr and Burlington PD considered him involved but the investigation stopped pursuing him because of FBI direction.

However, this man didn’t exactly match the description of the man who was driving around asking for babysitters and sometimes using the name John Marshall. This man was described as older than that man. 

Dalesio think that this man might have had something to do with Margaret’s disappearance and needs to be investigated further. The ransom note was most likely not from John Marshall, so it wouldn’t matter if his fingerprints weren’t on it. As for the radio logs, well, are there any witnesses that can PROVE he was on the radio that day? Who oversaw the logs, did he just sign in himself? It’s disappointing to hear this lead wasn’t investigated further.

As for Margaret’s family, her parents have since passed away, but her younger brother who walked her to the bus on the day she disappeared is still alive. He said that over time, he lost hope that she would miraculously appear one day or call him. Police have told him that she’s never used her social security number for anything, never opened a bank account or applied for a job, and it’s not likely she just ran away. 

Margaret vanished without a trace that day, and now, what little remains of the case is locked in a file inside a police precinct. Including the ad for two girls who just wanted a little bit of work that summer. 

Our next story brings us up to the northern part of British Columbia in Canada, 15 years after Margaret’s disappearance. 

The summer air had just cooled off from the sun going down, as a man pushed through the door of a local dive bar. 

It was August 1st, 1989, and the man’s name was Ronnie Jack. He was a 26 year old father of 2 who lived in the area. The bar was nestled in a bright purple strip mall containing a grocery mart and liquor store, it was tacky and stood out in the Canadian suburb it sat in. But, it was only four blocks from Ronnie’s house so, it would do. 

This part of British columbia was in between rural and suburban. Homes weren’t packed as tightly together as they were in some suburbs, even the duplex that the Jack’s lived in. A majority of people worked laborious jobs in forestry and oil refining. The area was also home to various first nations, which Ronnie and his family were a part of. 

Ronnie had a few reasons he may have wanted a drink that night, things had not been going too well in his life. He had two young sons, a 9 and a four year old that he and his wife were having trouble caring for. Currently, the family was on welfare, and it was hard to feed two growing boys on what they were given. 

Ronnie wasn’t working at the time, but he liked to work, and he was looking for a job. He had recently worked at a Saw mill but had hurt his back and that was making keeping a job hard. But he was determined to find something else that he was physically capable of doing to help his family. 


that night, as he sat at the dark bar under neon signs, a stranger approached him. 

He was the opposite of Ronnie in every way. His red hair and pale skin contrasted Ronnie’s black hair and tan skin. The stranger was big and burly, like a lumberjack. He towered over Ronnie. 

But The two got to talking, when all of a sudden the stranger said something that seemed to answer Ronnie’s prayers. He said he had a job for Ronnie if he wanted it. There were actually a couple of open jobs at the logging ranch about 40km away, there was probably something there for his wife as well. 

Ronnie looked embarrassed. I don’t have a car, he said. “Oh that’s no problem, I can drive you all”. Ronnie told him that he had two sons that would need to be watched, and the stranger told him he was in luck. There was child care available at the work site. Who was this person sent to solve all of Ronnie’s problems? An angel?

When do you need us to start? Ronnie asked The stranger said he could bring them over now, actually, if they wanted to go. 

The sun had set hours ago, and his children were asleep in their beds, but Ronnie and the stranger went to his home, where he told his wife what was happening. They woke up the boys and told them to start packing.

Somewhere else in British Columbia, a phone rang out in a pitch black house. An older woman got out of bed and wiped the sleep from her eyes. As she did, she caught a glimpse of a clock. 1:30 am. Hello? She asked

On the other line was her son, Ronnie. He told her about the job and the kind stranger who offered it to him. He let her know they’ll be back in around 10 days and he’ll call her then. 

And with that, the family grabbed their bags and jumped into the kind strangers' dark pickup truck out in their driveway. It peeled off into the night, bringing on a new beginning for Ronnie and his family. 

But 10 days later, when the job was supposed to be over, Ronnie didn’t call his mother. The strangers pickup truck never arrives in the Jacks driveway to drop them off. Friends and family start to worry, but No one is able to get in touch with Ronnie OR his wife, Doreen, and by August 25th, they’re reported as missing people. 

As police start investigating this case, their hearts sink. Because to get to the site where the Jack’s were told they would be working, they’d have to travel on Highway 16, which at the time was referred to as The Highway of Tears.

The Highway of tears refers to a 719 kilometer portion of Highway 16 that stretches from Prince George, where The Jack’s were, all the way west to the ocean. A disproportionate amount of indigenous people, mostly women, have been murdered along this road, starting in 1970 and continuing to today. 

Bad actors, including 3 serial killers, have seem to have been drawn to the area because the soft soil along the road makes it easy to bury bodies, and the surrounding forest is home to carnivorous animals that would eat discarded human remains. 

Just three months after the Jack family disappeared, an 18 year old girl named Marnie Blanchard would be abducted from outside a cabaret club in Prince George, the same area as the Jacks, and murdered by serial killer Brian Peter Arp. 

But many of these cases were ending inconclusively, with not many police resources being allocated. Media outlets hardly covered these disappearances at all, and many remain unsolved, even today.

The Jacks were not an exception to this. Though police got involved immediately, there were no leads found. All they had was a description of the stranger given by witnesses, and so an eerie sketch of a man was drawn and distributed. 35-40 years old with reddish brown hair that went down past his ears and a beard. He was described as being 6ft to 6”6 and between 200 and 275 pounds, wearing “a baseball cap, a red checkered work shirt, faded blue jeans, a waist-length blue nylon jacket and work boots with leather fringes over the toes”

No leads came from this image though. Police did ground and area searches and even asked around at different logging camps if they were hiring. None of them were. 

It would be another seven years before police looked into the case more. 

Because one early morning in January 1996, a man called police in Vanderhoof, near where the Jacks job was supposed to be, and spoke to them for 10 seconds before hanging up. 

All he got out was
“The Jack family are buried in the south end of (?) ranch” It was unclear exactly what ranch he was referring to, but was this the man who did it? Did he feel guilty and call the police?

Soon, the newspapers were running articles from investigators begging the caller to come back. They even threatened to release the phone call publicly if the caller didn’t call back, but he never did. 

Two months later The audio was sent to the University of British Columbia for analysis, while the police traced the call back to a house in Stoney Creek. It was later discovered that there was a house party taking place at the time of the call. I mean, the call was placed at 8:30 in the morning, so I guess the party had gone on long into the next day, though that seems strange. Was this some sick party dare? It’s unclear if the caller was ever identified. 

Police did start searching ranches in the area using ground penetrating radar. Most recently, a ranch on the Saik'uz (sigh-kooz)First Nation Reserve was searched. But nothing was found. 

And so, to the people of Prince George, the Jacks vanished into thin air, no trace of them has ever been recovered. It’s particularly upsetting because again, like in Margarets case, there were so many identifying characteristics of the last person they were seen with. I refuse to believe that there were so many 6’6 red headed men in Prince George that they couldn’t identify the man, they had descriptions of his car as well.

There is a chance that sure, the job was real and the family was maybe in a car wreck. Perhaps their car plummeted into a body of water on the drive there, but for none of the sites in the area to have been hiring at the time is suspicious. And I keep going back to the highway of tears. Dozens of people who looked just like the Jack’s have disappeared without a trace on that road. A few have been found, but usually, it’s just their remains. 

If you have any information about the Jacks, Crimestoppers is still collecting information on the families whereabouts, they haven’t given up yet. I’ll also put information on how to get in touch with the people looking into both Margaret and the Jack’s cases in the episode description. 

If you’re a patreon high council member I’ll be going through more research and photos and videos from these cases in this week’s episode of footnotes. That will come out tomorrow. That’s all I have for this week. Next week is the last episode in our dark summer series and we’re going out in style with one of my favorite types of episodes…Summer Urban legends. So make sure you’re here and until then, stay curious.  

SOURCES

Margaret Ellen Fox Missing Flier from FBI: https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/margaret-ellen-fox

Kaelyn Moore
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