Everyone in Havelock believed they knew what had happened on New Year’s Eve 1986. Two boys vanished from a frozen pond in broad daylight while their parents waited inside the community recreation center. Police searched the surrounding woods, dredged nearby waterways, and combed the adjacent military base. Nothing was found. For 18 years, Tyler Cromwell and Jason McKenzie existed only as names in missing-children databases and faces aged forward in forensic sketches posted across North Carolina.
They were not dead. They were living under different names in a beachside Florida town, raised by the people who had taken them, unaware of who they really were. What happened that December afternoon remained hidden until a routine bureaucratic audit in 2004 exposed a paperwork discrepancy that unraveled one of the most unusual child abduction cases in American history.
Tyler James Cromwell and Jason Daniel McKenzie were both 8 years old when they disappeared. On the morning of December 31, 1986, Havelock, North Carolina, woke to an unusual sight. A cold front had swept through overnight, freezing a shallow retention pond behind the Havelock Community Recreation Center into a smooth sheet of black ice. The town, just west of Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, was home to about 15,000 people, a mix of military families and longtime residents.
Frost glittered on the streets. Holiday decorations still hung from lampposts along Main Street. Parents bundled children into coats and mittens, taking advantage of the rare freeze before warmer temperatures returned. The recreation center, a low brick building with a gymnasium and meeting rooms, hosted a free New Year’s Eve party for children ages 5 to 12. Inside, volunteers served hot chocolate and cookies while a DJ played pop music. Outside, the fire marshal had drilled test holes in the pond that morning and measured 4 inches of ice, declaring it safe for skating.
Tyler lived on Pinewood Drive with his parents, Sandra and Michael Cromwell. Michael worked in logistics at Cherry Point. Sandra was a dental hygienist. Tyler had sandy blond hair that fell into his eyes, a gap between his front teeth, and a laugh that came in bursts. He loved model airplanes, baseball cards, and riding his bike until his mother called him in for dinner. He was cautious in new situations but deeply loyal once he trusted someone.
Jason lived four streets away on Birch Lane with his parents, Diane and Carl McKenzie. Carl was an electrician. Diane worked as a substitute teacher. Jason had dark brown hair, freckles across his nose, and an easy grin that won over adults. He was fearless, quick to dare others into races and climbs, and the kind of child who spoke to strangers without hesitation. Tyler and Jason had been inseparable since kindergarten, finishing each other’s sentences, equally comfortable in silence and laughter.
That afternoon, both boys wore matching red windbreakers Sandra had bought on sale after Christmas. Tyler’s had a Velcro chest pocket. Jason’s had a lightning bolt patch. They spent the morning playing at Jason’s house, then rode to the party with Diane McKenzie. Sandra and Michael planned to meet them later.
Inside the gymnasium, the party was loud and crowded. Tyler and Jason spent the first hour racing in sack relays and laughing as they tripped over their own feet. Around 3:00 p.m., Jason tugged on his mother’s sleeve and asked if they could go skate. Diane hesitated, looking out the back windows at the pond, where a dozen children glided across the ice while parents stood nearby near the warming house. A volunteer sat by the gate watching.
The scene looked organized and safe. Diane reminded them to stay where she could see them, avoid the edges, and come inside if they got cold. The boys promised. They grabbed their skates—Tyler’s white with blue laces, Jason’s black with red laces—and ran out the back door.
At 3:15 p.m., a volunteer named Karen Hughes saw the boys sitting on a bench near the warming house, lacing up their skates. She waved. They waved back. By 3:25, they were on the ice, unsteady at first, then gaining confidence. The pond was crowded with children spinning, racing, and falling. Wood smoke drifted from a small fire burning in a metal drum nearby.
At 3:45 p.m., Brenda Keller, arriving to pick up her daughter, noticed two boys in red windbreakers skating near the far side of the pond, close to a service gate that led toward a maintenance shed and a side parking area. She gave them no further thought. Children were everywhere.
At 4:10 p.m., Sandra Cromwell arrived at the recreation center with her husband. She didn’t see Tyler in the gym and asked Diane where the boys were. Diane said they were skating outside. Sandra went to the back windows, scanned the pond, and couldn’t find Tyler’s jacket among the crowd. She stepped outside and walked the pond’s edge, calling his name. Michael joined her. They asked other parents if they had seen the boys. Some said they had earlier. No one knew where they had gone.
By 4:30, a dozen parents were searching. Someone checked the warming house, bathrooms, and parking lot. At 4:45, police were called.
Sergeant Dale Pritchard arrived first and organized the search. Parents checked the woods. Staff searched inside the building. Others walked nearby streets calling the boys’ names. At 5:03 p.m., a volunteer named Tom Eckhart made a discovery that changed everything.
Near the service gate at the far edge of the pond, two pairs of ice skates sat side by side on the frozen ground. The laces were still tied. The blades were clean, as if the boys had simply stepped out of them. Nearby, faint drag marks crossed the thin layer of snow toward the gate, which stood slightly ajar, its securing chain hanging loose.
Eckhart ran to find Pritchard. When Pritchard saw the skates, his face went pale. He studied the drag marks and the footprints nearby: adult boot prints, heavy tread, size 10 or 11, leading toward the parking lot before disappearing on the asphalt. The service gate was positioned out of sight from the main building and screened from the lot by trees. Someone could approach unseen. It wasn’t accidental. It was planned.
By 6:00 p.m., floodlights illuminated the pond and surrounding woods. County deputies and military police from Cherry Point arrived. Search dogs tracked the boys’ scent from the skates, across the ice, through the service gate, and into the parking lot, where it ended abruptly. The conclusion was inescapable. A vehicle had been used.
Detective Raymond Howell arrived shortly after 7:00 p.m. and began documenting the scene in detail. His notes described the unlocked gate, the boot prints, the drag marks, and the absence of screams or witnesses. Over the next several hours, he interviewed everyone he could find.
Karen Hughes described seeing the boys happily skating earlier in the afternoon. Brenda Keller said she had noticed them near the service gate around 3:45 p.m., skating alone. She also recalled a distant figure near the tree line but couldn’t describe them. Another parent, Robert Tindle, said he had noticed the service gate standing open around 4:00 p.m. and had considered closing it but didn’t.
No one had seen the abduction itself. The window was narrow, roughly 25 minutes. It was enough.
The search continued through the night. Military police used portable lighting and thermal imaging. Divers searched nearby Slocum Creek. Nothing was found. By sunrise on January 1, 1987, the urgency had hardened into dread. Fourteen hours had passed. Every statistic worked against the boys.
Howell built the case file methodically. Tyler Cromwell: blond hair, blue eyes, small scar on his left knee, red windbreaker with Velcro pocket, white skates with blue laces. Jason McKenzie: brown hair, brown eyes, freckles, birthmark on his right shoulder, red windbreaker with lightning bolt patch, black skates with red laces.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was notified. The FBI was contacted under the federal kidnapping statute. By January 3, federal agents were involved. The working assumption was clear. The boys had not fallen through the ice. They had been taken.
Investigators interviewed family members. Diane McKenzie said she had checked on the boys twice from the window and seen them skating. Michael Cromwell insisted Tyler would never willingly go with a stranger. Both boys had been taught to avoid strangers and memorize their addresses. Howell noted that voluntary departure was unlikely unless the boys had been deceived or overpowered.
One early suspect was Gerald Simmons, a recently fired maintenance supervisor who had access to the facility’s gates and a criminal record. He was interviewed, searched, polygraphed, and monitored. Nothing connected him to the crime. He was cleared.
Another lead emerged when a neighbor reported seeing a gray panel van parked near the service gate around 4:00 p.m. on December 31. She described it as an older model, possibly a Ford Econoline. The FBI issued regional bulletins. Dozens of tips followed. Every lead was investigated. None held.
By late January 1987, investigators had interviewed 150 witnesses and pursued 73 leads. The families went public, pleading for their sons’ return. Reward money reached $25,000. Psychics called with visions. Conspiracy theories circulated. Nothing produced results.
By the mid-1990s, the case was cold. The FBI closed the active investigation in 1995, though the file remained open. Detective Howell retired in 1998, still haunted by the boys he never found. Tyler Cromwell and Jason McKenzie became part of Havelock’s collective memory, a cautionary story whispered to parents.
Eighteen years later, in a windowless office in Tallahassee, a Florida Department of Health employee named Ellen Marsh was digitizing pediatric records. On March 12, 2004, she noticed something odd. Two boys listed as twins, Brian Michael Hol and Kevin Anthony Hol, born December 14, 1978, had no medical records before January 1987. Their birth certificates were filed on January 6, 1987, eight years after their supposed birth.
Hospital records showed no such births. Marsh flagged the records for possible fraud.
The case was assigned to investigator Marcus Webb, a former police detective specializing in document fraud. Webb discovered that Walter and Susan Hol had appeared in Florida in late 1986, purchased a house with cash, enrolled two boys in school with no prior records, and filed delayed birth certificates. Everything about the family felt constructed.
Webb forwarded the case to the FBI. Special Agent Lauren Vega recognized the pattern immediately. Two 8-year-old boys vanished in North Carolina on December 31, 1986. Two 8-year-old “twins” appeared in Florida days later. Vega contacted the Havelock Police Department.
Detective Kevin Marsh, who had inherited the case, requested DNA from the families. Samples were collected in May 2004. Agents then quietly approached Brian and Kevin Hol in Sarasota and obtained voluntary DNA samples.
The results were conclusive. Brian Hol was Tyler Cromwell. Kevin Hol was Jason McKenzie.
On June 4, 2004, FBI agents arrested Walter and Susan Hol at their Sarasota home. The house was ordinary, filled with family photographs showing the boys growing up. In a locked cabinet, agents found forged birth certificates and preserved newspaper clippings about the 1987 disappearance.
Susan Hol confessed. She said she and Walter had been unable to have children and rejected by adoption agencies. On New Year’s Eve 1986, while visiting North Carolina, they attended the recreation center party. She watched Tyler and Jason skate for over an hour and imagined them as her own. When she mentioned it to Walter, the idea took hold. They noticed the unlocked service gate and the lack of supervision.
Walter approached the boys near the gate and told them their parents had sent him. They followed him to the van. Susan waited inside. They drove south, crossing state lines within hours.
They kept the boys isolated, told them their parents had died, showed them fake newspaper clippings, and gave them new names. Tyler became Brian. Jason became Kevin. Within weeks, they were enrolled in school in Florida under false identities. Over time, real memories faded.
Walter showed no remorse during interrogation. Susan wept and said she had loved the boys. Both were charged with federal kidnapping and fraud.
On June 6, 2004, Tyler and Jason were told the truth in a carefully controlled meeting. At first, they didn’t believe it. Then agents showed them photographs from 1986. Tyler recognized a sweater. Jason remembered ice, cold, and falling.
Reunions with their biological families followed. They were emotional, cautious, and incomplete. Tyler reclaimed his birth name. Jason kept Kevin in daily life while acknowledging Jason legally. Both began therapy.
Walter Hol was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. Susan Hol received 15 years. The judge stated that love did not excuse abduction.
In December 2005, Tyler and Jason returned together to the Havelock recreation center. The pond was frozen again. They stood at its edge, remembering not the abduction, but the skating, the cold air, and the sound of laughter. Then they turned and walked back toward the parking lot, where their families waited.
