Joyce Irene Walcott: California Woman Still Missing
Joyce left home to drop off job applications and vanished before she made it to her last stop of the day
Job Seeker Vanishes Without a Trace
On April 29th, 1986, 19-year-old Joyce Walcott was dropping off job applications that she’d filled out. After a recent run of bad luck, she was ready to get into the workforce and start planning for her future.
She had just one job application left to drop off that day—at the Sav-On drugstore nearby. She departed from Winchell’s Donut House, leaving two friends behind and promising to meet up with them after she was done. But she would never return. Aside from a few scattered unsubstantiated sightings, her trail went cold.
What happened to Joyce Walcott?
Joyce Irene Walcott
One of five children, Joyce Irene Walcott was born on January 5th, 1967, to parents Danny and Helen. Her father passed away when she was only nine years old, and the family eventually relocated to Farmington, New Mexico.
For reasons that are unclear, Joyce—whose nickname was “Sneezie”—wanted to leave New Mexico. In 1985, the teenager moved nearly 800 miles to live with her Aunt Irene and cousin Jason in Reseda, California, where she planned to finish out her senior year of high school. Irene enjoyed having Joyce there and came to view her as a daughter.
That same year, Joyce was in two automobile accidents, both times as a passenger. She wasn’t seriously injured either time, but after the second accident she went to the doctor and an examination revealed that she might have a congenital separation between her skull and spine. Shortly thereafter, she underwent corrective surgery.
She started dating 21-year-old shipping clerk Scott Noone, who lived in the same apartment complex. Joyce wished to return to school and obtain her diploma, but wearing a neck brace made this too difficult.
“She tried to go back to school in February,” Scott explained. “With the brace on she just couldn’t handle sitting in school.”
Things began to get serious between Joyce and Scott, and she moved into his apartment in March 1986. By April, she felt ready to start working and began picking up job applications from local businesses.
Joyce’s Disappearance
On April 29th, Joyce decided to drop off her applications. Sources vary on this, but she was either accompanied by Scott’s sister and the girlfriend of Scott’s brother until she left the donut shop or she had been on her own until she came across them at Winchell’s Donut House.
She stopped at 7-Eleven and Vons supermarket that morning before arriving at Winchell’s Donut House around noon. All of these businesses were located on Sherman Way—the same street she lived on. She had one application left to drop off: at the Sav-On drugstore next door. She told her friends that she would rejoin them as soon as she was done.
Strangely, though, Joyce never came back. Her friends found this odd, but assumed that she’d simply gone somewhere else and didn’t investigate further.
Scott returned home from work later that day and immediately noticed that Joyce wasn’t there. Irene hadn’t seen her either. Both were concerned, because this was very uncharacteristic behavior for the reliable Joyce.
They went to the West Valley Police Department and attempted to file a missing persons report. They were met with an air of indifference by the police, who assumed that Joyce had left of her own free will and would be back. Irene and Scott were told to wait at least 24 hours for her to return before making a report.
Detective Steve Brazner would later explain the reason for this by stating that approximately 90% of missing persons cases involve people who chose to leave and aren’t due to foul play. Law enforcement believed that Joyce’s disappearance was another such case, even though she had no history of running off with no explanation.
After a full day had gone by with no sign of the missing 19 year old, they were finally able to file a missing persons report. However, it appears that investigators still didn’t take her disappearance seriously and continued to believe that she’d return on her own. There was no sign of foul play, they said.
Yet there was no evidence of anything, really, foul play or otherwise. Joyce had simply vanished and no one seemed to know why or where she might be.
Scott and Irene were determined to locate her and distributed missing persons posters to many places in southern California and even as far away as her family’s city of Farmington, New Mexico.
Her loved ones were certain that she hadn’t run away. She also hadn’t taken anything with her that day, aside from her birth certificate and the job applications. All of her other belongings remained in the apartment.
“There was no reason for her to take off,” Scott said. “She was really happy that day.”
Irene made a similar statement:
“She’d never do anything like this to hurt the family. She’d have let somebody know by now.”
Strange Sightings
As the weeks went by with no sign of Joyce, law enforcement started to consider that she may have been abducted.
With that in mind, they began questioning people in the area. They quickly eliminated Scott as a person of interest, as he had the verifiable alibi of having been at work that day. They went to Sav-On and spoke to the manager and employees there, none of whom remembered seeing Joyce come in. Additionally, her job application had never been brought in.
So it appeared that whatever had happened to Joyce had occurred within the brief window of time from when she left Winchell’s and walked the short distance to Sav-On. Had someone approached her in the parking lot and forced her into a vehicle?
Multiple sightings of the missing young woman came in. One witness claimed to have seen someone who resembled Joyce speaking on a payphone outside of Sav-On that day. Another eyewitness said they saw her sitting on a bench nearby and crying on the day she went missing.
Someone else stated that she was working as a waitress in a restaurant approximately five miles away.
Ultimately, none of these sightings could be substantiated and the potential leads went nowhere.
Joyce’s Disappearance Possibly Connected to Serial Killer?
On June 9th, 1986, the body of 22-year-old Mary Duggan was discovered in the trunk of her car, just a few blocks away from Joyce’s apartment complex. Mary had been raped and murdered.
Given the proximity to where Joyce lived and was last seen, investigators wondered if the as yet unknown perpetrator could possibly be the same person responsible for her disappearance.
“It may just be a coincidence but, then again, it’s something we have to look at,” said Lieutenant William Gaida of the LAPD’s West Valley detective bureau.
Mary’s case would remain unsolved for decades, until a resolution was finally obtained using genetic genealogy.
In 2019, a man named Horace Van Vaultz was arrested and charged with killing Mary. DNA evidence also tied him to the 1981 murder of 21-year-old Selena Keough. Van Vaultz, who still maintains his innocence, was charged with two counts of first degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison, with no possibility of parole.
Though DNA had also connected him to the 1986 rape and murder of 25-year-old Janna Rowe, he couldn’t be charged with this crime as he had already been acquitted for it in 1988. During his original trial, his ex-wife had testified that Van Vaultz was abusive to her and would also boast of having raped and murdered many local women.
During a search of his home, law enforcement found a collection of pictures of teenagers and young women, some of whom they believe were likely victims of his. However, at least two of the women have since been located and are still alive.
It has never been said that any pictures of Joyce were discovered among his possessions, but some speculate that she might have been one of his victims as well.
Cold Case
Sadly, her mother and two of her brothers have since passed away.
To this day, Joyce Walcott has never been found and her case has grown cold, due to a lack of evidence or viable leads. However, her surviving loved ones are still hopeful that one day it will be solved.