🕯️ The Hollow Girl of Harmony Township
The candles went out. But she never came home.
By RICHIE D. MOWREY for The Sassy Gazette
(Dicking Around With Richie: A True Crime Feed)
“They said she was a runaway. But we all knew better. You don’t leave your shoes and your voice behind.”
Former Harmony Township Choir Director, 1996
In the dying light of November 3rd, 1987, Cora Lenz, age 11, vanished into the silence of Harmony Township. She was last seen leaving St. Gabriel’s Chapel, a small Lutheran church tucked into the woods near Mercer Road. She’d just finished children’s choir practice.
She never made it home.
But something else did.
📁 Cora’s Final Path: What We Know
Cora was wearing a navy blue coat, white tights, and Mary Janes. Her hair was pulled back in a red ribbon. According to her choir teacher, she left the chapel around 5:42 p.m., walking the short path home less than half a mile.
By 6:15 p.m., her mother called the police.
By 6:27 p.m., two officers were at the church.
By sunrise, they had found only this:
- A broken hymnal lying on the chapel steps
- A faint trail of melted candlewax leading toward the tree line
- One of Cora’s shoes, resting in the hollow of a rotted sycamore stump
No footprints. No screams. And no Cora.
🔥 The Satanic Panic and the Cult Flyers No One Claimed
1987 was peak Satanic Panic in Western Pennsylvania. From Youngstown to Harmony, rumors of cults, sacrifices, and ritual abuse floated between PTA meetings and town barbershops.
But Harmony had something darker.
In March of 1988, janitors cleaning out the church’s sealed basement discovered a set of photocopied flyers, protected in ziplock bags and stashed in a rusted filing cabinet. They contained:
- A hand-drawn pentagram centered in an eye
- The words: “The Hollow Girl Returns. Make Ready.”
- A schedule of ritual dates including November 3rd
- A final handwritten message in red ink: “She sings in silence. We open the way.”
The church called it a prank. The town paper never ran the story. The flyers vanished from the evidence room in 1991.
🧓 Interview with the Original Lead Detective (Ret. Det. Glenn Morris, age 80)
Glenn Morris now lives in a trailer outside of Oil City. He didn't hesitate to speak:
“That girl didn’t run. She was taken. Or worse she followed something.”
Morris said pressure from above forced the case to be labeled a runaway within 48 hours. But he recalled details that still disturb him:
- He once saw a shadow flicker in the choir loft with no lights on
- Cora’s red ribbon reappeared on his desk in 1989 years after being sealed in evidence
“I didn’t quit the force because of Cora. But I didn’t sleep right after that either.”
🌲 2023: The Girl in the Woods
On October 14th, 2023, local hunter Marcus Brandt reported seeing a barefoot girl in a navy coat with a red ribbon, standing silently near the tree line behind the chapel ruins.
She didn’t speak. She didn’t move. And then she was gone.
Police found:
- No tracks
No accelerant was found.
🕯️ What the Community Believes
Every November, locals leave candles on the church steps. Some say it’s to guide her home. Others say it’s to keep her from coming back.
Legend now calls her: The Hollow Girl.
- She’s said to hum at dusk
- To stand in the old sycamore stump
- To wear the same dress she vanished in
And parents still warn their kids: Don’t sing alone in the woods.
🕵️ Richie’s Final Word
I’ve requested the original case file. Still sealed.
I tracked down one of the original flyers lost in the mail.
And I stood on those steps. Cold wind. Burned wax. And silence that felt aware.
They called her a runaway.
But the candles still burn.
And somewhere in the trees...
she still sings.
📰 Dicking Around With Richie: A True Crime Feed
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