James/Jimmy McQueary jr

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Fairfax Police Department (OH)

Missing From:

Fairfax, Ohio

Summary:

James A. McQueary Jr., known as Jimmy, was a 9-year-old boy missing since October 15, 1964, from Fairfax, Ohio. He disappeared while walking home from Frisch's restaurant on Wooster Pike with his best friend John Hundley. Neither of them have been heard from again. Authorities believe their bodies are probably somewhere in the Fairfax area.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

On October 14, 1964, the boys got into trouble for playing around a neighborhood sewer system under construction. Playing in this area would have been dangerous and unsafe for children. Jimmy's father became angry when his son came home covered in mud and instructed him to come straight home after school the next day. Jimmy returned home on October 15, but then he left with his friend Johnny. The boys had gone to the Frisch's Mainliner restaurant to settle a bill. A week earlier, they ordered food and did not pay for it. Jimmy's parents gave him money to pay the bill. The boys were last seen walking to John's Fairfax, Ohio home from the Frisch's restaurant in the 4700 block of Wooster Pike in Cincinnati, Ohio at 4:00 p.m. on October 15, 1964. They were reported missing at 10:30 p.m.

Additional Details:

Operating on the idea that they had hopped on a freight train and ridden out of town, the local police alerted law enforcement across the nation. A four-year-old girl disappeared from Fairfax in August 1964, two months before John and James, and was found murdered a few days later. Three years after John and James disappeared, a seventeen-year-old Marine stationed in California confessed to their murders. He had lived in Fairfax in 1964 and said he stabbed the boys to death and buried their bodies. A 17-year-old Marine private named Gary Lee McKee said he had killed them. McKee, who grew up in Fairfax and was living there when the boys went missing, confessed to a minister in San Diego, where he was stationed. The suspect later recanted his statement and said he'd made up the story to get out of the military. He passed a polygraph and still maintains his innocence. Their disappearance remains Cincinnati's oldest unsolved missing-children case, and complicating matters further, the original investigators have all since passed away. Several people came forward and said that they seen them over across the street, down the street from here at the schoolyard, and about three blocks over there. Wilson described her brother as a boy who 'liked to dress nice,' and said, 'He liked sports, he liked school.' Deania Wilson, McQueary's sister, fought back tears as she talked about her younger brother, also known as 'Jimmy.' As the older sibling, she said she was her little brother's caretaker.

Case Last Updated:

Nov 02, 2026