Paula Jean Welden

Case background and investigation

On the afternoon of Sunday, December 1, 1946, 18-year-old Paula Jean Welden, a sophomore at Bennington College in southwestern Vermont, told her roommate she was going for a walk. She was last seen on the Long Trail near Route 9, heading toward Glastenbury Mountain. A couple hiking the trail saw her round a bend in the path ahead of them, and when they reached the same spot moments later, she had vanished.

Despite immediate and extensive search efforts—eventually involving hundreds of volunteers, state police, FBI, and even the Army—no trace of Paula was found. No clothing, no footprints leading off the trail, no evidence of an accident or foul play. The search was hampered by approaching winter weather and the dense, rugged terrain of the Green Mountains.

Paula was described as a bright, attractive young woman who had seemed somewhat preoccupied in the days before her disappearance. Her father, an engineer in Stamford, Connecticut, was critical of the Vermont authorities' response, which he considered inadequate and poorly coordinated. His criticism, combined with public pressure, led directly to the creation of the Vermont State Police in 1947.

Paula Welden's disappearance was later grouped with several other unsolved vanishings in the Bennington area between 1945 and 1950, a pattern that author Joseph Citro dubbed the 'Bennington Triangle.' These included the disappearances of Middie Rivers (1945), James Tedford (1949), Paul Jepson (1950), and Frieda Langer (1950, the only one found—months later, though the cause of death could not be determined). No connection between the cases was ever established, and Paula's fate remains unknown.