This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/yYB.2ACI/15126 Message Board Post: WOMAN HUNTS BROTHER SNATCHED AFTER '54 KILLING by Connie A. Higgins, Dispatch Staff Reporter Mary Cole's one wish is to find her long-lost brother. Fifty-five-year-old Cole of Bremerton, Wash., hasn't seen her only brother in more than 40 years. ''The only thing I remember is that Johnny had blond hair and blue eyes. He was fair and really cute,'' Cole said. On this day in 1954, Cole's mother, Elizabeth Batchelor, was found slain in her Columbus apartment. The night before, Batchelor's 26-year-old live-in boyfriend - Sgt. Clifton Dunaway, a military police officer - had pumped five bullets into her and then shot himself in the head, according to Columbus police. Batchelor, who died at age 43, was originally from Harvey, Ill., but had been living in Columbus for about 10 years. When her mother was killed, Cole was 13 years old and living with her father, James Batchelor, in Oak Park, Ill. Her parents were separated, and her brother, John Leonard, then 11, lived with Batchelor and Dunaway in an apartment at 396 1/2 N. Washington Ave. But at the time of the murder, Johnny was staying with a baby sitter who Cole believes took the child. ''Family members have looked for Johnny on and off throughout the years,'' Cole said yesterday by phone from Washington. ''But he's not registered for having a Social Security card or no records under his name. Whoever took him, we believe they've changed his name. The big mystery is, where did he go?'' On Sept. 1, Cole put an advertisement in The Dispatch as part of her search for her brother. She said her mother had been a nun before marrying her father, and the two had a rocky marriage. ''I remember my mother as a strong and loving person,'' said Cole. Her father, who died in the early 1980s, had custody of her and Johnny, but he let the boy live with his estranged wife because he suspected Johnny was not his biological son, she said. ''Father searched for him for a while. He would make comments about the military guy taking his son. He was always vague,'' Cole said. ''I guess he didn't want to talk about it because it was too painful.'' The last time Cole saw Johnny, she was 10 and he was 8. She was staying with her paternal grandmother in South Webster, Ohio. She remembers their mother bringing Johnny to visit, but the grandmother could not handle two children, she said. So for a short period, Johnny stayed with a woman in South Webster, Cole said. ''We were both switched around pretty much from one place to another. ''After my grandmother's death, things went bonkers,'' she said. ''I stayed in boarding schools and foster homes because my father worked a lot.'' Earlier this year, Cole learned a family secret, but it didn't give her any leads to Johnny. She has a half-sister, Ruthann Swindell, who lives in Ludowici, Ga. Batchelor bore Swindell in 1947 at St. Ann's Hospital and soon gave her up for adoption. Swindell learned about Johnny through birth records and found Cole, married and with a daughter, through relatives. The two sisters plan to meet soon. They are still hoping a reunion will include their brother. ''He's my full brother,'' Cole said. ''I pray every day that we all can be together.''