Adele Marie Wells: Michigan Child's 1958 Disappearance Still Unsolved
A child vanishes after leaving her grandmother's home
Child Vanishes During a Walk
On the morning of November 21st, 1958, 7-year-old Adele Wells vanished after leaving her grandmother’s house. She was supposed to return home for lunch and then go to school that afternoon, but never made it to either location. Despite a number of disturbing accounts and eyewitness reports, no solid evidence to explain her disappearance was ever discovered.
What happened to Adele Marie Wells?
Adele Marie Wells
One of seven children, Adele Marie Wells was born on January 1st, 1951, to parents Martha and Karl. The large family resided in Flint, Michigan. Karl was employed by the Chevrolet Engine Plant and Martha stayed at home to care for their children. Karl reportedly mismanaged the family’s money at times, to the point of leaving them poor.
Trusting and kind, Adele was a wonderful child who was very much loved by her family. Her younger brother John, who was only five years old when she went missing, would later say that she had been his best friend.
Adele Stays Home From School
Due to a cold, Adele was feeling under the weather on November 21st, 1958, and stayed home with her mother and younger sister instead of going to school. However, within hours she was already feeling better and was eager to attend class that afternoon.
Martha had styled Adele’s hair for her the previous evening and now helped her get dressed for school. She asked Adele to stop by her grandmother’s house (which was just down the street) and show her how adorable she looked in her dress.
She did as her mother asked and visited her grandmother. After that, her plan was to have lunch at home and then go to Jefferson School, which was located less than half a mile from her grandmother’s house. Before Adele left, her aunt Rachel said “goodbye” to her, unaware that she’d never see the child again.
“I thought about it every time my children left and went somewhere,” Rachel said later. “I don’t ever tell them ‘goodbye.’”
Where is Adele?
When her daughter didn’t return for lunch, Martha began to worry and sent one of Adele’s sisters out to look for her. Since Adele was no longer at her grandmother’s residence, it was assumed that she’d decided to go directly to Jefferson School.
Yet after classes had ended for the day and Adele’s siblings arrived home, she wasn’t with them. By this point, Martha knew that something must be wrong. She phoned Karl at his job and told him that she didn’t know where Adele was.
She was reported missing at 5 p.m. The Flint Police Department dispatched officers to the Wells home to speak to her family. Afterwards, a search of the neighborhood was carried out but they found no sign of the second grader anywhere.
Over the next two days, an extensive search was conducted—on land and in nearby bodies of water—by more than 1,200 people, including officers, firefighters, detectives, and volunteers, but no clues as to the whereabouts of the missing girl turned up. Investigators visited the homes of friends and other family members as well, but no one seemed to know where the child might be.
No one close to Adele believed that she had run away and it seemed clear that she must have been abducted. But by whom?
Disturbing Sightings
In the wake of Adele’s disappearance, a witness came forward to report having seen a black man with a light complexion carrying a small girl—who resembled Adele—to his black Chevrolet. The distinctive vehicle had a damaged fender and was parked on a street near the river. Law enforcement regarded this sighting as credible.
After this account became public, several children who lived in the area stated that a man had attempted to lure them into his black car days before Adele went missing. The stranger’s identity remained a mystery, unfortunately, and it doesn’t appear that he was spotted in the neighborhood again after these incidents.
Another eyewitness claimed to have seen a child who looked like Adele getting into a vehicle with two men near the school.
Most disturbingly of all, one of Adele’s classmates said that she’d seen a girl–possibly Adele–being beaten by a man in the woods near Jefferson School.
Additionally, a couple had heard a young girl screaming off in the distance while staying in a cottage at Wamplers Lake. They attempted to investigate, driving to the area from which they believed the yelling had come, but didn’t see anything suspicious.
Reports and tips of a similar nature to those previously mentioned continued to come in, but ultimately none of these accounts could be substantiated.
Aftermath
Adele’s disappearance left her family heartbroken. Karl moved out after his marriage to Martha fell apart and the two divorced.
Martha, a devoted and loving mother, was devastated by the loss of her daughter. It was a deeply traumatic event from which she’d never fully recover. Her mental health suffered and she spent a number of extended stays in mental hospitals, during which her children lived with their grandparents.
“My mama was a happy homemaker,” remembered Adele’s sister Karol. “She didn’t ask to have that happen to her. It kind of destroyed her.”
Sadly, Adele’s siblings were eventually removed from their grandparents’ home by social workers and placed in foster care.
Current State of the Investigation
While leads and evidence remained elusive, people speculated about who might have taken Adele.
One persistent rumor was that a family member had sold the girl. Yet nothing to support this theory has ever been found.
Even in her final months, Martha was still thinking about Adele and hoping for the best possible outcome—that she was still alive and would return home one day. She hoped that Adele had been abducted by someone who just wanted a child and that she'd been loved and cared for.
Martha died of heart failure in 1987, at the age of 57.
Karl seems to have mostly ceased contact with their children following his divorce from Martha. Adele’s brother John attempted to have a relationship with him years later, but things took an unsettling turn when Karl shot him in 1992. What precipitated this incident is unclear, but John didn’t want to see his elderly father go to prison and pleaded for leniency on his behalf.
Karl was ultimately charged with a misdemeanor and put on probation.
In 2016, someone contacted the authorities to say that she believed her aunt (who had been abducted as a young girl) might be Adele. Although the woman in question didn’t believe herself to be Adele, she agreed to submit to a DNA test. However, DNA analysis would reveal that she is not, in fact, Adele Wells.
There have been no further updates or developments.
The case of the disappearance of Adele Marie Wells remains open and unsolved.
(A special thank you to true crime YouTuber Gabulosis, who kindly provided most of the information I used in writing about this case.)