Joyce Drake

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Morgan County Sheriffs Department (AL)

Offense Location:

Falkville, Alabama

Summary:

Joyce Drake, 20, a wife and mother of two from Falkville, Alabama, was found stabbed to death on a snowy embankment only a few miles from her home. Drake, 20, was found stabbed to death on a snowy road east of Falkville on Jan. 7, 1970. The case remains unsolved.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Offense:

Drake was alone when she left her parents' store at about 10:30 a.m. for the bank. Investigators said robbery was a motive because she had cashed about $400 in checks for her father, who operated a store in the Cole Springs community. Several witnesses told investigators they saw a man in the truck with her after she left the bank. In the late afternoon of Wednesday, January 7th, 1970, townsfolk banded together to begin looking for Joyce and her pickup truck. Early that evening, after the sun had set, Joyce's truck was found along Union Hill Church Road, a small little two-lane expressway surrounded by woods. The truck was abandoned about 10 miles from where investigators found Drake's body, and her empty money bag was located on a rural road near Cole Springs. Her body was found the same day she went missing off a roadside embankment in Eva, Alabama. Some reports indicated that Joyce's hands had been left clutching tiny red hairs, and that there was apparent evidence of skin under her fingernails, indicating quite a struggle had taken place. However, detectives - aided in their hunt once again by state investigator Bob Hancock - stated that there was no sign of a sexual assault, and that the motive for the crime had likely been robbery.

Additional Details:

Bob Hancock, a former Alabama Bureau of Investigation agent, has been collecting evidence in the slayings of 34-year-old Mary Faye Hunter in 1967, Juanita Acker, 41, in 1969 and Joyce Drake, 20, in 1970. A little over two months after her murder, in fact, multiple papers reported that a Morgan County Grand Jury was nearing a decision to indict a man for the crime. This story, published on March 10th, 1970, referred to this young man as the "prime suspect," and made it clear that first-degree murder charges were expected in the pending trial. These reports stated that this man had been originally held by police for misdemeanor charges, before "jumping bond" and running off to a northeastern state. From there, he was recaptured and detained by police, and then returned to a Madison County jail in Huntsville, Alabama. On the two-year anniversary of the murder, investigators said they had a list of good suspects, including a local man who had moved out of state. Authorities, however, determined that the man was not in Alabama at the time Drake was killed. The ABI gave polygraphs to two men in 1970, and both passed. A student at nearby Eva High School, named Stanley Hall, came forward and told investigators that on the day in-question - January 7th, 1970 - he had picked up a hitchhiker that matched that description. He stated that this red-haired young man, who looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, stood around 5'11" and weighed around 160 pounds. Stanley had also apparently picked him up not too far away from where Joyce's truck had been found, along Union Hill Church Road. People in the area have long suspected relatives of Joyce, including a distant cousin who lived in the vicinity with red hair, but nobody has been officially charged or indicted in her murder. Corley said investigators face an uphill battle because the original case files are missing.

Case Last Updated:

Jul 01, 2026