An Entire Kindergarten Vanished in 1987 — 27 Years Later, A Sealed Room Was Found Beneath the School | HO

Philadelphia, PA — In the fall of 1987, twenty kindergarteners walked into their classroom at Northwood Elementary School in North Philadelphia and were never seen again. For nearly three decades, their disappearance was treated as a bureaucratic oddity, a tragic but unremarkable footnote in the city’s troubled educational history. But in 2014, a routine insurance investigation led to the discovery of a hidden room beneath the abandoned school—unveiling a chilling truth and forcing the city to confront a crime it had long chosen to forget.

The Day They Disappeared

September 1987 began like any other school year at Northwood Elementary, a crumbling institution in an underserved neighborhood. The kindergarten teacher, Mariah Evans, was a young woman of 25, idealistic and determined to make a difference for her twenty students—children who, by all accounts, were bright, joyful, and full of promise. Among them was Jamal Carter, a quiet boy with a gift for drawing, and Kesha Jones, whose laughter filled the halls.

But by late October, everything changed. Evans was called away suddenly when her mother suffered a stroke in South Carolina. She left a note for her class, promising to return soon. Two weeks later, grieving her mother’s death, she returned to Philadelphia—only to find her classroom empty. The principal and the school psychologist, Dr. Edward Cole, told her the children had been withdrawn, their families having moved away or transferred schools. There was no forwarding information, no phone calls, and no explanation.

“I don’t believe you,” Evans recalled telling them. “Parents were happy. The kids were thriving. Where did they go?”

The answer, she was told, was simple: in a poor, transient community, these things just happen.

The Official Story: Poverty, Race, and Indifference

The police report, which Evans would later fight to see, was barely a page long. It echoed the school’s narrative: no evidence of foul play, likely a series of unrelated family relocations. The disappearance of twenty Black five-year-olds was treated with less urgency than a missing bicycle in a wealthier neighborhood.

No search was launched. No Amber Alert. The janitor, Mr. Henderson, a surly man with a reputation for racist outbursts, quit his job and moved out of state that same week. The incident was noted, but not pursued.

For 27 years, Evans lived with the silence of that empty classroom. Each year, she called the police to ask about the “Northwood 20.” Each year, she was met with indifference.

The Discovery: A Sealed Room and a Shocking Truth

In 2014, the forgotten tragedy was thrust back into the spotlight. Arthur Finch, an insurance investigator, was reviewing old claims from the Archdiocese that owned Northwood Elementary. A massive payout had been issued in 1987 for emergency foundation repairs and asbestos abatement. Finch found the paperwork suspicious—no detailed invoices, a rushed approval, and a single wall in the basement that didn’t match the blueprints.

A court-ordered inspection was granted. When engineers broke through the wall, they found a room that wasn’t on any map. Inside were the skeletal remains of twenty small children.

The insurance investigation became a homicide case overnight. Detective Isabella Rossi, a veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department, took the lead. For the first time, Evans was treated as a witness, not a nuisance.

The Perfect Scapegoat

The investigation quickly zeroed in on Mr. Henderson, the janitor. He was a bitter, reclusive white man who had openly despised the Black children he was paid to clean up after. He had left town days after the children vanished, and had died of a heart attack in Florida years earlier.

The story was neat, simple, and believable. The media ran with it: a racist janitor, finally unmasked as a mass murderer. Even Evans, for a time, believed it.

But a drawing by Jamal Carter, found in Evans’ attic, gave her pause. In it, the children were holding hands in a circle. Under a desk, a monster with sharp teeth was labeled “MRH”—the janitor. But next to Evans’ figure at the chalkboard was another man, smiling, holding a child’s hand. “Dr. Cole,” Jamal had written.

The drawing haunted Evans. The official story was too simple. She began to suspect that the real monster might have been hiding in plain sight.

The Teacher’s Investigation

Evans began her own investigation, focusing on Dr. Edward Cole, the respected school psychologist. Cole had always advocated for special “private assessment sessions” with Evans’ students, arguing that their backgrounds made them ideal for a new approach. He had convinced the principal to give him a key to the classroom.

Evans tracked down some of the children’s parents. Most were reluctant to talk, but Kesha’s mother remembered Dr. Cole well. He had told her that Kesha was “perfect for a special observation group.” The program took place after school, without Evans’ knowledge.

Evans brought her suspicions to Detective Rossi, who was polite but dismissive. “We have our man,” Rossi said. “Dr. Cole is a respected psychologist. The janitor fits the profile.”

A Chilling Academic Trail

Refusing to give up, Evans dug deeper into Cole’s career. She found a conference program from 2014 where Cole was scheduled to speak. His keynote: “Feral States: Unlocking the Primitive Mind in Socially Isolated Children.” The language was chillingly clinical.

She attended the conference, confronting Cole after his speech. For a moment, his mask slipped. He referred to Jamal Carter as “a fascinating subject.” Evans realized she was speaking not to a grieving professional, but to a man who saw children as data points.

In the University of Pennsylvania archives, she found an anonymous 1989 academic paper: “Stress-Induced Social Regression: An Unauthorized Observational Study of 20 Urban Pre-Adolescents in a Controlled Isolated Environment.” The methodology described placing 20 children in a soundproofed subterranean room, observing their social dynamics under extreme stress, and an “unforeseen experimental termination.” At the bottom, a footnote: “Research made possible by the Finch Cole Institute for Youth Development.”

Cole had not only conducted the experiment—he had funded it.

The Smoking Gun

Evans needed hard evidence. She combed through city archives, searching for building permits. She found a work order, dated to the week she left for South Carolina, authorizing the installation of “specialized ventilation, soundproofing, and closed-circuit audiovisual wiring for a newly established subterranean psychological observation room.” The signature: Dr. Edward Cole.

She called Detective Rossi, who finally realized the magnitude of the crime. “Mariah, you did it. Stay where you are. Don’t go home. And do not try to contact him.”

But as Evans returned to her house, she saw Cole’s car parked outside. He was waiting for her.

Inside her living room, Cole calmly admitted everything—not as a murderer, but as a scientist whose experiment had gone wrong. “Those children were a unique opportunity,” he said. “Their deaths were an unfortunate contamination of the data. The true tragedy was the loss of the research.”

At that moment, Detective Rossi and two officers burst in. Cole was arrested, his mask of control replaced by rage.

A City Forced to Remember

The trial that followed was a national sensation. The evidence was overwhelming: the work order, the academic paper, the testimony of Evans and the parents. Cole was convicted of twenty counts of manslaughter and unlawful imprisonment. But for Evans, and for the city, there was no real closure.

A memorial now stands where Northwood Elementary once did: twenty small bronze plaques, each bearing the name of a child the city had once chosen to forget. “The system didn’t see them as children,” Evans said at the dedication. “It saw them as statistics. Their race and poverty made them invisible. But I never forgot. I was their teacher. I was their witness.”

For 27 years, the disappearance of the Northwood 20 was a story of indifference, institutional racism, and the dangers of unchecked authority. Their names are now remembered—not as data points, but as children whose lives mattered.