Jane Carlton Verdrager was 3 years old when her father vanished.

Douglas Carlton was a butcher and meat salesman who worked for the City Packing Co., in Wayne, Mich., 30 miles west of Detroit. On the day he disappeared, he’d been doing his regular delivery run to small grocery stores and households. Nothing out of the ordinary, except that he never came home. The next day, Aug. 5, 1949, Verdrager’s mother, Arlene Carlton, six months pregnant and 26 years old, reported to the police that her husband of six years was missing.

Douglas Carlton was 23, blue-eyed and blond-haired, approximately 5 feet, 10 inches tall and around 175 pounds, according to a story in the Aug. 17 Detroit Free Press. He wore glasses. The company truck he’d been driving was later found in Detroit. Residents of the neighborhood had seen a short, dark-haired man walking away from the truck, but that description did not match Carlton. Also missing was approximately $2,000 that Carlton had collected on his route. A warrant was issued for his arrest on the charge of embezzlement.

Carlton had been an inveterate gambler. He’d frequented a “blind pig,” Detroit slang for a speakeasy or illegal gambling operation, that was run by a paternal uncle right across the street from Carlton’s house. He’d also amassed large debts. The family’s assumption was that the Detroit mob had killed him, but there was no trail of evidence. A statewide hunt turned up nothing. All inquiries hit dead ends.

In the…