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Unsolved case · 1923
The short answer
Three-year-old Pearl Turner vanished from her family's cabin garden in the White Oak Mountain district of Scott County, Arkansas, on October 19, 1923. Despite a large-scale search and national publicity, she was never found and her fate remains unknown.
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Suggest coverage for Disappearance of Pearl TurnerThe case file
Pearl Turner was a three-year-old American child who disappeared on October 19, 1923, from the garden of her family's cabin in the White Oak Mountain district of Scott County, Arkansas. According to the available record, her disappearance occurred on a Friday in the fall of 1923 while her parents were camping nearby. Pearl reportedly wandered away into the surrounding wilderness.
In the weeks that followed, a large search effort was mounted. Multiple hundreds of people from nearby towns joined the search, which continued for many weeks without success. Contemporaneous press coverage, including reporting by The New York Times, documented the scale of the search effort, describing hundreds of men scouring the Ozark region for the missing child.
Pearl Turner has never been located, and her ultimate fate remains unknown. Some people believe she was kidnapped, though this remains a matter of belief rather than an established finding. No arrests, charges, or convictions related to her disappearance are documented.
The case has attracted enduring public interest in the decades since. Books have been published about Pearl's disappearance, and it has been the subject of missing-persons-focused YouTube videos. The case is also referenced in broader compilations of unsolved historical disappearances, including lists of people who disappeared mysteriously between 1910 and 1970.
Because Pearl Turner has never been found, this case remains classified as unsolved. The passage of a century since her disappearance, combined with the absence of any confirmed leads, means this case is likely to remain permanently unresolved absent new information. Researchers and family historians continue to reference the case as an example of an unsolved child disappearance from the early 20th century in rural Arkansas.
2 dated entries · 1923
Pearl Turner, age three, disappeared from the garden of her family's cabin in the White Oak Mountain district of Scott County, Arkansas, while her parents were camping.
The New York Times reported on the large-scale search effort, describing hundreds of men scouring the Ozarks for the missing child.
1 named in this file
Victims first. Every legal label is set from public records and court outcomes, not from the prose.
Three-year-old child who disappeared from her family's cabin garden and was never located.[3]
3 cited
Coverage is not a source: every fact in this file rests on the records below.
PressEncyclopedia of ArkansasAccessed Jul 11, 2026
PressThe New York TimesAccessed Jul 10, 2026
EncyclopedicWikipediaAccessed Jul 10, 2026
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