THE HORRIFYING CASE OF THE ASHCROFT SISTERS

          This is only a story.....Riverbrook, Oklahoma does not exist.....two sisters in their late 20s, Eleanor and Margaret Ashcroft disappear from their family property......The following narrative has been pieced together from fragmented sources, local newspaper clippings from the Riverbrook Gazette, police statements, personal correspondence between family members that surfaced decades later.....  
          In the summer of 1921, the disappearance of the Ashcroft sisters sent shockwaves through Elmore County, Oklahoma.  This story began as a missing persons case, but would unravel into one of the most disturbing documented incidents in the state's history. 
          According to police reports filed on June 19, 1921, on the evening of June 17, the sisters had gone on their customary evening walk.  When they failed to return for supper, their father Thomas Ashcroft, a respected physician in the community, reportedly searched the property before alerting neighbors.  By nightfall, a search party had been organized, but yielded no results.  The official search lasted for three weeks before being formerly abandoned.  What makes the case particularly unsettling is not merrily the disappearance itself, but the circumstances surrounding it.  The inexplainable behavior of the family in months leading up to the event.  The contradictory statements from witnesses, and the discovery made in 1967, would cast the entire narrative in a different light. 

          
          The Ashcroft Family had been residents of Riverbrook since 1914, when Dr. Thomas Ashcroft had relocated his medical practice from Tulsa, Oklahoma.  His wife Virginia, was described by neighbors as reserved but polite.  The two sisters Eleanor 28, and Margaret 26, lived with their parents despite being of marriageable age.  This was something that generated mild gossip in town, but was explained away by their devotion to their ailing mother.  The Ashcroft property was notable for its isolation.  The nearest neighbor's home was over a mile away, but the two properties bordered each other.  The Ashcroft house itself, was surrounded by a thicket of elm trees that obscured it from the main road.  Visitors to the Ashcroft home were rare, thought Thomas's position as the only physician in town, meant he was well respected and frequently called upon to attend to the 412 residents. 
          In the months before the disappearance, several town's people reported changes in the Ashcroft household.  Virginia, who had occasionally attended church services at the Riverbrook Methodist Church, stopped attending all together.    Thomas began closing his practice early on Thursdays and Fridays without an explanation.  Perhaps most notably, the sisters who had previously been seen regularly in town purchasing supplies or borrowing books from the small community library, became increasingly reclusive.  Meredith Wilson, the Ashcroft's closest neighbor, told Dr. Holloway in 1962, something changed in the household around March of 1921.  She said the curtains of the house were always drawn.  Thomas stopped acknowledging neighbors when he'd pass by in his automobile, and the girls, who used to be so young and lively women, seemed to age years in the span of weeks.  Eleanor in particular.  The last time she saw Eleanor, she wouldn't meet her eyes. That was so sad because she had been so confident before. 
          The day of the disappearance had been unusually warm for June.  According to meteorologist records, temperatures reached 92 degrees F.  According to Thomas Ashcroft's statement to Sheriff Miller, he indicated that he had been in town attending to a patient with pneumonia and returned home at approximately 6:30 p.m.  He found his wife asleep in her bedroom and no sign of his daughters.  Thomas also claimed in his initial statement, the sisters often walked along Blackwater Creek in the evenings, so he assumed they had lost track of time.  It wasn't until darkness fell that he became concerned.  By 9:45 p.m. he had walked to the Wilson residence to require if they had see his daughters.  
          The search that ensued was initially focused on the creek area with locals speculating that perhaps one of the sisters had fallen into the creek, and the other one attempted to rescue her.  However, the creek was shallow in June, rarely exceeding three feet in depth, making drowning unlikely for two adult women.  No signs of struggle were found along the banks.  No personal items were recovered, and tracking dogs, brought in from the county seat lost the scent approximately half a mile from the house, at a point where the sisters' path intersected with an old logging road.  
          Virginia Ashcroft, bed ridden with what Thomas described as nervous exhaustion, was never formerly interviewed by authorities.  Her absence from the investigation raised a few eyebrows at the time.  Women of her standing were often shielded from distressing matters, but would later become a point of contention among those who revisited the case.  By early July, the disappearance of the Ashcroft sisters had been regulated to occasional mentions in the Riverbrook Gazette.  The prevailing theory became that the sisters had voluntarily left town, perhaps to seek opportunities in one of Oklahoma's growing cities or even to travel west to California.  This theory was bolstered by Thomas Ashcroft himself.  In late July he told Sheriff Miller that he had discovered come of his daughters' clothing and personal items missing, suggesting they had packed before leaving.  This explanation satisfied most Riverbrook residents.  Many young people in the post war years, left their communities for urban opportunities.  Yet there were inconsistences that troubled a few observers.  Neither sister had accessed their modest savings accounts at the Riverbrook bank.  No train station within 50 miles reported selling tickets to women matching their descriptions.  Neither had collected the mail order packages that arrived at the post office on June 21st, according to the post master's wife.  Then for two years life in Riverbrook continued on as if nothing had happened.  
          Thomas maintained his medical practice, though he became increasingly selective about which patients he would see.  Virginia was rarely spotted outside the home.  In September of 1923, the Ashcroft's sold their property and relocated reportedly to Arizona due to Virginia's health issues.  The Ashcroft house remained empty for almost a year before being bought in 1924 by Martha Johnston, who would own it until 1958.  The case might have been forgotten entirely if not for a severe storm in April of 1967, which caused significant damage to the old Ashcroft property.  By then it was owned by a retired couple named Davis.  The storm uprooted one of the massive elm trees that had stood for generations near the eastern side of the property approximately 200 yards from the main house.  
          On April 17, 1967, Mr. Davis was cleaning up after the uprooted tree and discovered what appeared to be human remains.  The tree roots had torn up a significant portion of earth, revealing what would later be identified as skeletal remains.  He notified the office of Sheriff Walter Pruitt.  The Sheriff filed an official report which stated that the bones appeared to have been in the ground for many years, and noted that the remains were found alongside deteriorated fabric consistent with women's clothing from the 1920s era.  
          Subsequentially investigations were done and the long dormant case was reopened.  Forensic examination confirmed that the remains belonged to at lease one adult female in her late 20s at time of death.  The cause of death could not be conclusively determined due to the condition of the remains.  The medical examiner noted unusual markings on the cervical vertebra consistent with potential strangulation, perhaps most disturbing was the discovery of a small metal box buried alongside the remains.  Inside was a journal, its pages largely destroyed by decades of exposure to the elements.  However, several passages remained legible and the handwriting was confirmed by former neighbors to belong to Eleanor Ashcroft.  one of the few complete entries dated May 3, 1921 reads, "Mother's condition worsens daily.  Father says the newest treatment will help, but I have my doubts.  The basement room is prepared, Margaret doesn't know yet.  I cannot bear to tell her what I've heard at night".  Another fragmented entry dated June 1,  "the sounds from below are unbearable.  Father says its necessary.  Says mother needs complete isolation for the treatment to work.  Margaret has begun to ask questions.  I've told her nothing, but she suspects the locked door, the trays of food that return untouched.  The final legible entry was dated June 15, just two days before the disappearance of the sisters, "I found the key.  Tonight when father leaves for his meeting in town, Margaret and I will see for ourselves whatever is happening in that room and it must end".  These fragments transformed the understanding of the case entirely. 
          Local authorities attempted to locate Thomas and Virginia Ashcroft only to discover that Thomas had died in 1946 in Phoenix, Arizona.  Virginia's fate was less clear.  No death certificate was found and no records of her existed after the family's departure from Riverbrook.  In Arizona it was discovered a Virginia Johnson was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and her husband Thomas Johnson came regularly to visit her.  A nurse made some comment about Virginia and after that Thomas Johnson stopped visiting her and she was eventually moved out of that hospital.  There is no proof of this incident ever happening. 
          The investigation that followed revealed several disturbing facts that had been overlooked in 1921.  Thomas Ashcroft's medical credentials, which had never been questioned during his time in Riverbrook, proved to be impossible to verify.  The basement of the Ashcroft home was examined in 1967, which contained a small room with unusual modifications.  A heavy door with external bolt locks, and walls that had been lined with some form of padding were now largely rotted away.  Most telling were the statements from the Ashcroft's nearest neighbor, Meredith Wilson, and other neighbors who recalled that Virginia Ashcroft had begun to display unusual behavior, which Thomas had explained to concerned friends, that his wife suffered from female hysteria and required his specialized care at home.  No one had seen Virginia after February 1921.  Thomas assured the community that she was recovering slowly under his constant attention.  
          Harold Jenkins, who had worked briefly as an assistant in Thomas's medical practice in early 1921, provided a telling statement to investigators in 1967.  Dr. Ashcroft was very secretive about his wife's condition.  He said Ashcroft mixed strange compounds in the back room, things that he had never seen used in standard medical practice.  Once he heard sounds coming from the doctor's bag, like glass vials clinking together, and the doctor became very agitated when Jenkins mentioned it.  He was then dismissed the following week with no explanation.  The investigation could not conclusively determine that the remains found in the tree roots, belonged to Eleanor or Margaret Ashcroft.  Nor could it locate the remains of the other sister.  The case officially remains unsolved, classified as a suspected homicide with no possibility of prosecution due to the presumed death of all parties involved. What happened in the Ashcroft home during those spring months of 1921 still remains a mystery. 
          The prevailing theory developed by investigators in 1967 and expanded upon criminologist Dr. Rebecca Hayes in her 1968 analysis, "Domestic Shadows:  Hidden Crimes of Rural America", suggests a disturbing scenario.  Hayes insists that Virginia Ashcroft may have been suffering from a legitimate mental or physical condition that her husband attempted to treat using unorthodox, possibly experimental methods.  The basement room, she suggests, was a makeshift treatment room.  She also suggests that it evolved into a prison.  The sisters upon discovering their mother's condition, threatened to expose Thomas's activities.  The psychological profile that emerges from Rebecca Hayes says Thomas Ashcroft was a man whose professional identity was inextricably linked to his ability to cure his wife, when conventional treatments failed.  He likely turned to more extreme measures, possibly influenced by the controversial psychological practices of the era.  The sisters discovery presented an immediate threat both to his professional standing and his freedom.  Whether Virginia was already deceased by June of 1921, remains unknown.  The journal fragments suggests she was alive but in distress. 
          One theory proposes that Thomas murdered one sister, likely Eleanor, based on the journal ownership and forced Margaret to assist in the burial before later disposing of her as well.  An alternative suggests that Thomas may have convinced Margaret that Eleanor's death was an accident, maintaining control over Margaret through manipulation or threats until they left Riverbrook, at which point Margaret may have met a similar fate.
          The Ashcroft case exemplifies how rural isolation can conceal tragedy in a small community, where a doctor's word was rarely questioned, where women's nervous conditions were accepted without scrutiny, and where the disappearance of adult women could be explained away as voluntary  departure.  The truth remained buried quite literally for decades. 
          The property changed hands several times after the 1967 discovery.  Locals reported that no owner has stayed longer than 5 years.  The house itself, was demolished in 1972 after repeated failures to sell it.  Today, the land remains undeveloped, a conspicuous empty space among the otherwise populated area that Riverbrook has become.  In 1969, a memorial stone was placed in the Riverbrook cemetery for Eleanor and Margaret Ashcroft, though no remains are interred there.  Local residents occasionally leave flowers an acknowledgment of the communities failure to protect two of it's own.  The most unsettling aspect of the Ashcroft case is perhaps not what we know, but what remains unknown. 
          The full contents of Eleanor Ashcroft's journal, the fate of Virginia Ashcroft, the exact circumstances of the sisters' final moments, these details are lost to time, buried effectively as the remains beneath the elm tree.  Dr. Hayes in the conclusion of her analysis, offers this sobering reflection.  The walls of the Ashcroft home contained secrets that the community chose not to see.  This willful blindness, this collective explanation, rather than confront the possibility of horror occurring in their midst enabled Thomas Ashcroft to literally get away with murder. 
          The case files, including photographs of the remains and the journal fragments, were archived in the Oklahoma State Police records in 1968.  A fire in the records department in 1969 destroyed many of these materials, leaving only photocopies of select documents.  Dr. Holloway's manuscript, which contained the most comprehensive collection of witnesses statements, was never published due to his sudden death in 1964.  His research notes were donated to the University of Oklahoma at Norman's, historical archives and  were reportedly misplaced during the departments relocation in 1965.  This pattern of lost evidence has led some to suggest that the full truth of the Ashcroft Case was deliberately obscured.  While there is no concrete evidence of such a conspiracy, the timing is certainly for anyone who might have wished the case to be unsolved.  What we know with certainty is limited.  Two women vanished vanished in 1921.  Human remains were discovered in 1967.  A journal suggested troubling circumstances within the Ashcroft household and a doctor with questionable credentials created a prison within is own home for at least one family member. 
          The town of Riverbrook has since been absorbed into the expounding boundaries of a larger neighboring city.  (what city?)  Few residents today know the story of the Ashcroft sisters.  The elm trees that once surrounded the property have mostly been cleared for development, though locals claim that one particular section remains persistently undeveloped due to construction complications.  In 1968, an elderly woman appeared at the Riverbrook Cemetery, placing flowers at the newly installed memorial stone.  When approached by the groundskeeper, she identified herself only as a former friend of the Ashcroft family.  She was described as well-dressed with a notable tremor in her right hand.  Before leaving, she placed a small object beside the flowers, it was a tarnished house key.  The groundskeeper, finding this behavior unusual, noted the woman's license plate and reported it to Sheriff Pruitt, who discovered the car was registered to a Margaret Johnson of Amarillo, Texas.
          The investigators traveled to the address listed, but found the house vacant.  Neighbors reported that an elderly woman had indeed lived there briefly, but had moved out suddenly the previous week, leaving no forwarding address.  The investigation into whether the woman might have been Margaret Ashcroft, somehow survived the events of 1921, was never concluded as resources were diverted to more pressing cases.  The possibility that Margaret Ashcroft survived, perhaps coerced into assuming a new identity and living with the knowledge of what had happened to her sister and mother, adds another layer of horror to an already disturbing case.  Is she was indeed the woman at the cemetery, what prompted her to return after nearly 50 years of silence?  And why did she disappear again so quickly?  In the absence of definite answers, the Ashcroft case has become a cautionary tale about the darkness that can exist behind respectable facades. 
          Thomas Ashcroft, by all accounts, was a trusted figure in Riverbrook, a physician who held the community's health in his hands.  That such a man could potentially orchestrate the imprisonment and likely murder of his own family members while maintaining his standing in society speaks to the dangerous power of authority and isolation.  The house, itself, according to those who lived there after the Ashcroft's, always felt wrong.  Martha Johnston, who resided there from 1924 to 1958, told investigators in 1967 that certain areas of the house, particularly the basement and the eastern side of the property, felt inexplicably cold, even in summer.  She described a persistent nightmares during her first years in the house, often featuring a woman standing silently at the foot of her bed.  While such accounts might be dismissed as the product of suggestion after learning the property's history, the consistency of such reports across multiple residents  is notable.   
          The Davis Family, who discovered the remains, had already planned to sell the property before the discovery, citing an oppressive atmosphere that had affected their sleep and general well-being since moving in.  The elm tree that concealed Eleanor Ashcroft's remains for 46 years, was estimated to be approximately 40 years old when it fell, suggesting it had been planted shortly after the burial, perhaps to mark or obscure the site.  The location, relatively distant from the house, but still within the property boundaries, indicates premeditation rather than panic.  The shallow depth of the burial suggests haste, but the inclusion of the journal, which directly implicated Thomas, remains puzzling.  Was it an oversight, or did Thomas believe the journal's degradation  would be complete long before discovery, if a discovery ever occurred. 
          The most complete theory of events, as reconstructed by Dr. Hayes and supplemented by Sheriff Pruitt's investigation, suggests the following time line:  Virginia Ashcroft began exuberating symptoms of an unidentified condition late in 1920.  Thomas, perhaps out of genuine concern, initially treating her at home as her condition deteriorated or as his treatments caused further harm.  He converted the basement room into a confinement space, effectively imprisoning his wife under the guise of medical necessity.  The sisters, initially accepting their father's explanation grew suspicious as months passed with no improvement in their mother's condition.  Eleanor discovered evidence of questionable treatments or perhaps confirmed that Virginia was being mistreated.  She documented her concerns in her journal and planned with Margaret to investigate further, during Thomas's absence. 

          On or around June 17, 1921, the sisters likely confronted their father with what they had discovered.  The confrontation turned violent, resulting in Eleanor's death.  Whether intentionally Thomas buried Eleanor's body or coerced Margaret into compliance, possible by threatening her with a similar fate or by manipulating her into believing she was an accomplist in her sister's death.  For the next two years, Thomas maintained appearances in Riverbrook while keeping Margaret under his control.  Virginia either died from her condition because of Thomas's treatments, or was killed to eliminate a witness.  When Thomas sold the property in 1923, he likely disposed of any remaining evidence and and relocated with Margaret, who either escaped at some point to establish a new identity or remained under his influence until his death.  
          This reconstruction, while plausible, cannot account for all the gaps in the evidence of this case.  The fate of Virginia's body, the exact circumstances of Eleanor's death, and Margaret's subsequent life or death remain speculative.  What this case demonstrates beyond its immediate horror, is how vulnerable women were in the early part of the 20th century in rural America without financial independence, with limited social support systems, and with men like Thomas Ashcroft.  Women like Virginia, Eleanor and Margaret, had little protection against domestic tyranny.  Their community, while not malicious, failed them through its unwillingness to look too closely at troubling signs.  The Ashcroft case is not unique in this regard.  Similar cases took place in other states.  All of these cases share common elements, isolated locations, medical or psychiatric justifications for confinement, and the extraordinary power welded by male authority figures over the women in their care. 
          In 1961, 40 years after the disappearance of the sisters, a storm unearthed Eleanor Ashcroft remains, a journalism student from the University of Oklahoma in Norman named Robert Chambers visited Riverbrook to work on a project for documenting small town histories across the state.  During his research, he reinterviewed several elderly residents including Edith Miller, the 83-year-old widow of Sheriff Miller, who had handled the original disappearance case of the Ashcroft sisters.  According to Chamber's notes, Mrs. Miller shared a detail that her husband Sheriff Miller, had never included in any official reports.  On the night the sisters went missing, her husband came home past midnight, white as a sheet.  He had been searching with others and decided to go and speak to Dr. Ashcroft alone to get more details about when exactly he'd last seen his daughters.  When the Sheriff approached the house, all the lights were off except for one in the basement.  He looked through the window, which was a small rectangle window at ground level.  He saw the doctor kneeling on the floor, scrubbing at something.  The Sheriff then went back around to the front door and knocked.  When Thomas came to answer the door, he was wearing different clothes than when he saw him through the window in the basement.  Thomas's hands were red and raw like he'd been washing them with lye soap.  Miller wondered if it was blood the doctor was cleaning up in the basement.  Since the Sheriff had no proof of anything, just a feeling that something wasn't right, he never put that in any reports.  
          Another tantalizing piece of evidence emerged in 1965, when renovations to the Riverbrook Post Office uncovered a letter that had slipped behind a sorting cabinet decades earlier.  The envelope was addressed to the Oklahoma State Medical Board and bearing Eleanor Ashcroft's name as the sender and was posted marked June 16, 1921, the day before the sisters' disappearance.  Only the envelope was found, the letter inside was missing.  Presumed to have been removed before the envelope was lost.  That envelope raised more questions about what really happened the night of the sisters' disappearance.  Was Eleanor attempting to report her father?  It was Dr. Holloway's speculation that Eleanor may have been preparing to expose her father's questionable medical practices and possibly the treatment of her mother.  If Thomas discovered the letter before it could be sent, or a similar one had already been sent, could have been the catalyst for more violence toward his daughter.  
          In 1967, unusual financial transactions in Thomas's banking records were found.  In April and May of 1921, he made several large withdrawals from his account in the Bank of Riverbrook, but the funds were never deposited elsewhere, that any one had records of.  Was Thomas preparing for the potential need to flee?  Was he converting assets to cash that could not be traced?  Another theory was that he was purchasing supplies or equipment related to his wife's treatment, items he would not want to be associated with his medical practice.  Something else that further complicated the story was a statement provided by Joseph Blackwood, a former railroad worker, who had been employed at the Milford Junction Station approximately 20 miles from Riverbrook, Joseph recalls a man matching Thomas' description arriving at the station in late June 1921.  He was with a woman who appeared to be sedated or ill.  She could barely stand.  Ashcroft said she was his sister suffering rom tuberculosis and they were traveling to sanitarium in Colorado.  Blackwood remembers thinking the man was acting strange.  He kept his hand on the woman's arm the whole time and whenever anyone would approach he would get between them like he was shielding her or preventing her from talking. If that account is accurate, it raises the possibility that Margaret Ashcroft did not disappear at the same time as her sister.  Or could it have been his wife, Virginia?
          What distinguishes the Ashcroft case is the tantalizing possibility that one sister may have survived, carrying the burden of knowledge for decades, before making one brief cryptic appearance in the cemetery of her sister's memorial in 1968.  If this was indeed Margaret Ashcroft, she would have been 73 years old certainly within the realm of possibility.  This action suggests either a deliberate choice to maintain her anonymity.  Her disappearance again, suggests either a deliberate choice to maintain her anonymity or more troubling outside intervention to maintain the case's unsolved status.
          The land where the Ashcroft house once stood remains vacant to this day.  Local development has circled around it, leaving a conspicuous empty space among otherwise developed neighborhoods.  In 1973, a proposal to build a small park on the site, was abandoned after multiple construction workers reported equipment failures and unusual accidents have contributed to the property's ominous repartition.  
           For those who study historic crimes, the Ashcroft case represents a perfect storm of circumstances that enabled domestic horror to remain hidden, with rural isolation, medical authority, social constraints on women and a community more comfortable with simple explanations than disturbing truths.  Dr. Hayes noted in her final assessment of the case, what happened to the Ashcroft women wasn't just a failure of one man's humanity, but a failure of an entire social system.  The very structures meant to protect medicine, community, family, instead concealed and enabled.  That is perhaps the most terrifying aspect of this case, not that a monster existed, but that the world around him was built in a way that allowed him to operate undetected. 
          The final page of Sheriff Pruitt's report dated December 12, 1968, notes that the investigation was being officially closed due to unsurmountable evidential challenges and presumed death of all involved parties.  In a hand written note in the margin of Pruitt's report he adds, "Some doors are better left unopened.  God have mercy on their souls".  The Ashcroft case reminds us that the most profound horrors often occur not in isolated incidents of violence, but in sustained, intimate betrayals behind closed doors.  It forces us to consider how many similar cases may have occurred and may still occur in places where isolation and authority create perfect conditions for concealment. 
          Today, the elm trees that once surrounded the Ashcroft property are gone, the house demolished, the physical evidence largely lost to time.  Yet something of the case persists in local memories.  Residents still avoid the vacant lot after dark.  Parents instinctively guide their children away from its boundaries, and occasionally visitors to the Riverbrook Cemetery report seeing an elderly woman standing silently before the memorial stone, though she vanishes when approached.  Whether such sightings are genuine or merely the product of a community still processing decades of old trauma.  It is impossible to determine.  What is certain is that beneath the surface of even the most seemingly ordinary  communities, darkness can take root and flourish when no one is willing to look too closely at the silences, the absences, and the convenient explanations that don't quite fit the facts.  What still remains unknown is what truly happened in that house  before the sisters disappeared?  What happened to their mother Virginia?  What happened to Margaret?  Did she survive? or meet the same fate as her sister Eleanor. This horrible case is still unsolved.  The one responsible likely lived out his days in freedom.  Thomas Ashcroft the only one who truly knows all the facts, took them to his grave in 1946. 
          In 1982, construction workers preparing the vacant Ashcroft property for development made another disturbing discovery.  While excavating for a foundation near where the original house stood, they uncovered a small metal container buried approximately four feet below ground.  Inside were a collection of personal items, a woman's silver hairbrush with the initials VA engraved on the handle, a wedding band, and several pages of what appeared to be a journal, though water damage had rendered most of the text illegible.  One particular readable passage stated, "Things cannot continue this way.  The treatments grow worse.  He believes he can cure me, but I fear what he's becoming.  If anyone finds this, please know...." the rest of the text was lost to water damage, but the implication was clear.  Virginia Ashcroft had attempted to create a record of her experiences, perhaps anticipating that she would not be able to share them directly.  The location of the the container, buried at a depth that would require deliberate effort, suggests she may have convinced someone to hide it for her, or managed to bury it herself.  
          In 1994 historian Maria Holloway in her notes included the most comprehensive account of the Ashcroft case to date, incorporating previously unpublished interviews and materials from her father's research.  Among those materials was a 1962 interview of Katherine Lewis, who had worked briefly as a housekeeper for the Ashcrofts in early 1921. She was 85 at the time of the interview and died shortly after.  She described witnessing disturbing interactions within the household, Dr. Ashcroft would lock himself in the basement for hours with Mrs. Ashcroft.  She could hear her crying sometimes, begging him to stop whatever he was doing.  Once she saw Virginia afterwards looking like a ghost, barely able to walk with strange marks on her arms.  When Katherine asked Eleanor about it, she just shook her head and said her father knew best, but Eleanor's hands were shaking, when she said it. Lewis reported hearing arguments between Thomas and Eleanor in the weeks before the disappearance.  She had started to question him.  Lewis heard her say once that what he was doing wasn't treatment, it was torture.  Thomas told her she didn't understand medicine and should keep her opinions to herself.  After that, he started locking the medicine cabinet and his office door, even when he was home.  This supports the theory that Eleanor had grown increasingly concerned about her mother's treatment and was compilating some form of intervention.  Thomas became aware of those doubts and had begun taking precautions against Eleanor's interference. 
          The most intriguing development came in 2003, 82 tears after the case.  The Riverbrook Historical Society received an anonymous donation, a package containing a leatherbound journal and a brief type-written note that stated simply, "The final testament of Margaret Ashcroft Johnson, to be opened 50 years after my death."  Forensic analysis confirmed that the journal was indeed from the 1920s era, but the authenticity of its contents could not be definitely established. The  journal began with entries from 1921 describing Margaret's concerns about her mother's condition and her father's increasingly erratic behavior.  Virginia was being kept in the basement room, subjected to various treatments that seemed to be worsening her condition.  Eleanor had discovered documents of these treatments and was planning to contact medical authorities, and both sister had agreed to investigate the basement room in their father's absence. 
          In one journal entry dated June 17, 1921, which was the day of the disappearance, described harrowing details  of what allegedly occurred.  "We found mother barely conscious, strapped to a bed.  She didn't recognize us at first.  There were marks on her arms from injections, and she was so thin, like she hadn't been properly fed in weeks.  Eleanor began untying her while I gathered mother's things.  We intended to take her to the Wilson's farm to get help, but father returned unexpectedly.  He became enraged, when he saw what we were doing.  He struck Eleanor with something I couldn't see what, and she fell against the wall.  There was so much blood, mother was screaming.  He told me Eleanor was dead, and that it was my fault for interfering.  He said no one would believe me, if I told them what happened.  He said they would think I had killed her out of jealousy.  He made me help him bury her body under the elm tree.  He said if I ever told anyone, he would say I had done it all, and he would make sure I suffered the same way mother had. 
          The journal detailed how Thomas forced Margaret to send letters to several acquaintances in nearby towns post dated over several weeks, describing a fictional journey to California.  He kept Virginia heavily sedated and relocated her to a private sanitarium in Arizona in 1923.   
          It is hard to decide what to share of this tragedy.  So many times the case has been reopened without finding what actually happened in Riverbrook, Oklahoma.  Thomas, if he truly did all of these terrible things to his family, can never be prosecuted because he died in 1946.  The timeline of this tragic story will never come to light.  Only the ones that actually went through it, the Ashcroft Family, Thomas, Virginia, Eleanor and Margaret, took all the facts to their graves.  If you want more details on this story go to YouTube and look up the channel Fear behind you: The Disappearance of the Ashcroft Sisters.  Remember this is ONLY a story, not historical facts about the states history. 

shared by *STARLIGHT*
October 2025