Phyllis Corbin
Missing From: St. Louis, Missouri
Missing Since: November 1, 1963
Age: 16
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 155
Case Number: 1334372
Summary
Phyllis was placed at the House of Good Shepherd at 3800 Gravois Ave., St Louis, MO. While she was there in the fall, beginning of November of 1963, she met another young lady and they ran away together. She was given a ride to the bus station where reportedly they were heading to New Orleans. The home supposedly reported her missing but family hasn't been able to confirm. It was originally believed the other girl may have returned three weeks later but that too is not proven.
spent the better part of the day learning about the story of Phyllis Marie Corbin and I think its a story that extends far beyond her missing persons poster.
Starting out, she was first listed in Namus in 2018 by her niece April who really has been the driving force behind trying to find Phyllis. She was never reported to the police prior to 2018.
In Phyllis youth, she had some behavior problems at the home, likely exasperated by some physical abuse she endured at the hands of her parents. She was twice sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, the first time it was her parents who sent her there and 2nd time it was because of a court order. On the 2nd time that she was sent there, she was there from July 1963 until September 29th 1963. From there, her movements are questionable until 1965.
The House of the Good Shepherd never wrote down a release date for her and its unknown if she left because her time was up or if she ran away from there. Either way, according to her brother Mike (deceased 2018), she came home and went to Johnnys Bar (owned by the Corbin Family). At that bar, she got some money from Mike and told him that she and another girl who she knew from the House of the Good Shepherd were going to go to New Orleans. Mike (14 at the time, he was a shoe shiner at the bar) gave her the 5$ and he, an older unidentified adult and the two girls drove to the bus station, dropped the girls off. According to Mike that was the last confirmed sighting of Phyllis Marie Corbin, which would place the date at the first of October 1963. The date of November 1, 1963 only came about when Mike was talking to the detective, it was a loose date at best.
This where the story of what happened to her starts to become foggy. You see, Mike was known to have alcohol and drug problems, and it sounds like that his recollection of what happened that day is not believable in the slightest. Police do not even believe his story.
Regardless, following her disappearance, Phyliss was not talked about in the family anytime afterward, no one bothered to look for her and every time April would try to ask about her, she was told to just let it go. Mike supposably went to the police early on which proved to be false. Phyllis mother supposably went to New Orleans, which also proved to be false. April asked her grandfather on his deathbed, what happened to Phyllis through which she was told to just let it go.
It was found that no one outside of Mike actually saw Phyllis after her release from the House of the Good Shepherd, so its questionable whether she even went home or not. (Phylis had 3 other siblings beside Mike)
So we have her movements up until she supposably got onto a bus and even that is not confirmed or is it…In 2024, a break in this case came, when the identity of the girl that was with Phyllis came to light and she confirmed that she and Phyllis ran away together and ended up in New Orleans. Police records show that she was arrested for Vagrancy in January of 1965. After that point, the girl that Phyllis ran away with went into another direction with her life. The rest of her life is a mystery past January 1965.
Side note-
I cant imagine what April and the rest of the family have gone through over the years, the uncertainty of not knowing where Phyllis is at. Most of information came from Namus, a youtube video with April (wonderful podcast from 4 years, its worth a listen) along with the Phyllis Corbin Facebook page. Also I did reach out to them, so they are aware of this posting on here.
For me, I really hope that she is out there living her best life and I hope she is at the peace that she so wonderfully deserves.
Thank you Matt Turner for the research
Your very welcome,
I do want to add more to this, since some news has come out recently in her case. For the last couple of weeks, I have been in pretty daily contact with Donna her niece and it was confirmed that she did runaway to Gretna, Louisiana (suburb of New Orleans). As recently as late last year, Donna had been in contact with a detective in St. Louis, that detective while following leads, found an arrest record for a Phyliss Sommers in Gretna. Sommers is an alias of Corbin and the girl that Phylis was with (unnamed) is still alive but in poor health. What was found was pretty incredible considering its been over 50 years. But Donna showed me the arrest record for Phyliss, she had gotten in trouble at least twice, once for prostitution which the charges were dropped and the other for Vagrancy through which a guy (presumably her pimp) payed 50$ to bail her out of jail. On the arrest record Phyliss wrote Sommers but, you can actually see where she almost wrote a C instead of an S. If she had wrote “Corbin” and actually put her real age on the arrest record, then the police would have held her until her parents came and got her.
The police ended up collecting her fingerprints so we have that in file now as well. Now here where the story gets even weirder. Her occupation she listed it as a barmaid and her residence is listed as 335 Lafeyette Street in Gretna. It was thought by Donna that Phyliss and her friend put down a random address. However, I was curious so I contacted the Gretna Historical Society and one of its members named Stephanie sent me an email back and stated that the location in 1965 was called Buellers Palace and across the street was a place called Jenes Palace, aka they were both gentleman’s club. Once we found that info out, I sent it on to Donna and we both agreed that she was likely living and working at that location. Also I do a sanborn map of that location (old school city map). The area was a dangerous area back then, but in the early 70s the clubs were destroyed by the city and eventually houses would go up in the empty lots.
So now what? Well the police detective in St. Louis interviewed her pimp and while he is still alive, he is in his late 80s and was no help. If I remember right, he didn’t remember much about Phylis regardless. The detective in the case was reassigned, so Donna has been trying to piece together the rest of Phyliss life. We know that her SSN has not been used and we know from her friend, that Phylis was a smart girl who would not get into trouble. Her friend moved west after she was arrested. So we have Phylis confirmed to be at Gretna as late as January 25th 1965, but nothing else.
Donna and I both have 2 different theories as to what happened next. It is thought that maybe Phyliss ran into trouble and went back to Missouri and likely died in one of the many homeless camps in St. Louis. Indeed Donna did submit a Jane Doe to Namus and we are waiting to hear back. My thinking was that if she was involved in gentleman’s clubs, then my thought is that she stayed in Louisiana and likely died in the late 70s. When I did a Namus search, I did find a Jane Doe, aged 15-30, white, Caucasian, but I think the person was becoming skeletonized by the time it was found. That Jane Doe was found in Jefferson Parrish Lousiana which is in the same area that Phyliss would have been. I sent it over to Donna and she has submitted it to Namus.
https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/6942
Something to note on her case, so because of the passage of time, portions of her Namus are incorrect as far as physical features go. Only two known photos of Phyliss exist and they are both black and white, Donna had to use Debbie (Phyliss sister) and Mike (her deceased brother) memory to go off of. Good thing we have her police report.
Something that I thought of, so in her case the leading agency investigating it is the St. Louis PD. Since we have physical evidence of her in Gretna, Louisiana and we have nothing that has her going back to Missouri. I almost think that it should be New Orleans PD or Gretna PD investigating her case.
Update:
I spent the majority of the day talking to Donna, the two Jane Does that Donna submitted a while back have not been acted upon by Namus. Go figure. Namus rarely responds to emails. Their is however another Jane Doe out in California. This Jane Doe is known as the Alameda Jane Doe from 1969 and she was killed at the St. Louis Hotel in Oakland California, now known as the North Alameda Police Station by Taylor Morris Teaford who was a Serial Killer and is still a most wanted fugitive by the FBI. Unlike most cases, where we dont have actual photographs of the person post mortem in this case we do. The similarities between Phylis and the Jane Doe is uncanny. and even Donna her self had a forensic artist come in and compare the two and the artist stated that an investigation should take place (this was in 2024). When Donna talked to Alameda, they were interested in helping, however, they had lost the human remains of the Jane Doe and needed to find them, they had fingerprints for the Jane Doe but not for Phylis and were sad that they didnt have them. Until now. The fingerprints for Phylis from her arrest in Louisiana were sent to the Alameda Sheriffs office this afternoon.
https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/CaseReport#/10945
Update: February 10th 2025
1. Phyliss Namus has been updated to reflect the original fingerprints from her arrest. We are kind of happy that she did get busted, because its a bit easier to track her now to other Jane Does.
2. Speaking of other Jane Does, the head of NCMEC spoke with Donna today and they have a facial match that they are going to be comparing fingerprints for. Its out of Alabama from a Jane Doe found in 1982 UP#61157. The only thing in this case that does not match is the eye color, though it really is unknown that eye color Phylis had, it could have been brown, it could have been blue or even Gray were just not sure.
3. Alameda did recieve her prints and are comparing them to the Jane Doe there. Also we have another Doe in Lousiana that I am going to be contacting the coroner about.