Richard Colvin Cox Richard Colvin Cox ( 25 July 1928 – last seen 14 January 1950 ) was a second - year military cadet whose disappearance from the United States Military Academy at West Point , New York , in 1950 is still unsolved . He is the only West Point cadet who ever disappeared without being found dead or alive . Background . Cadet Cox was born in Mansfield , Ohio and graduated from high school in 1946 , a year after World War II ended . The following year , Cox served in the Sixth Constabulary Regiment of the United States Army , situated at the time in Coburg , Germany . He was in the S - 2 ( intelligence ) section of Headquarters Company within the Constabulary . Located near the recently created border between West Germany and East Germany , " the Constabulary ' s job , " according to a military journalist and 1949 West Point graduate named Harry Maihafer , " was to man border posts and run patrols . Across the border , just beyond the barbed wire and minefields and less than a football field away , were frowning East German and Soviet troops , armed with submachine guns and constantly watching the Americans through binoculars and telescopic sights . " Also serving in the S - 2 section at the time ( 1947 ) was a mysterious army official who later used the name " George . " Later in 1947 , Cox applied for and received his appointment to West Point , arriving at the United States Military Academy Preparatory School ( then located at Stewart Field near the academy proper ) in January 1948 . A mysterious friend named George . At 4 : 45 pm on Saturday , 7 January 1950 , a man telephoned Cox ' s West Point classmate Peter Hains , the Charge of Quarters in Cadet Company B - 2 ( part of the North Barracks ) who answered incoming calls for company members . Hains said later the phone caller ' s " tone was rough and patronizing , almost insulting . " After Hains told the man that Cox was not in his room , the man replied , " Well , look , when he comes in , tell him to come on down here to the hotel . . . . Just tell him George called – he ' ll know who I am . We knew each other in Germany . I ' m just up here for a little while , and tell him I ' d like to get him a bite to eat . " Later that evening Cox got the message , signed out in the Company B - 2 Departure Book indicating he would have dinner off - campus , and met " George " in the visitors ' area inside Grant Hall . The two men went to George ' s car , which was parked on the West Point campus , and drank from a bottle of whiskey while sitting inside the car . Cox returned to B - 2 , signed the Departure Book , took a shower , and slept off the effects of the alcohol . ( His two roommates later revealed this . ) At an indeterminate time that evening , Cox altered the military time he had written in the Departure Book , changing " 1923 " to " 1823 " to make it look as if he had attended the 6 : 30 p . m . cadet supper formation . In fact , he had skipped the formation . This detail was not discovered until two years later , when an agent of the U . S . Army Criminal Investigation Command had the Departure Book examined in a laboratory . Cox remained at the military academy for a week without anyone ' s noticing his offense ; if anyone had , Cox could have been charged with violating the Cadet Honor Code and likely expelled . " George " made a second visit to Cox on Sunday , 8 January , the day after their drinking bout . If Cox consumed alcohol on that occasion , no one noticed it and he never admitted it . ( On Sunday morning before " George " arrived for the second time , Cox admitted to his roommates that he had drunk whiskey with his friend the previous day . ) According to Harry Maihafer , one of three people who investigated the case decades later , " During the next few days , Dick Cox mentioned his visitor a few times , but never by name , even when asked . . . . The man , Cox said , was a former Ranger , who liked to brag about having killed Germans during the war . He had even boasted about cutting off their private parts afterward . Another story he had told Cox was about having gotten a German girl pregnant and then murdering her to prevent her from having the baby . " Around 6 p . m on Saturday , 14 January 1950 , when " George " paid Richard Cox a third visit , the two men left the grounds of the academy and vanished without a trace . Throughout the 1950s the American media considered this one of the most mysterious missing persons cases in history . Richard Colvin Cox was declared legally dead in 1957 . The Jacobs Investigation . Harry J . Maihafer ' s book " Oblivion " ( 1996 ) documents the investigation conducted by Marshall Jacobs of Cadet Cox , who " vanished without a trace " from West Point in January 1950 . Jacobs , a retired history teacher , began his research on the Cox disappearance in 1985 . The more involved he became the more intrigued Jacobs became with Cox and the prior inconclusive investigations . It was inconceivable to Jacobs that after 35 years this mystery had not been solved . Jacobs thoroughly investigated the case , traveling all around the country following up on new leads and revisiting old leads . He interviewed Cox ' s family , friends , service pals , and classmates ; CIA , FBI , and CID agents ; and West Point and Army officials . He researched West Point ' s archives and the files from the FBI , CIA , and CID investigations of Cox ' s disappearance , which he gained access to under the Freedom of Information Act . Jacobs conducted a comprehensive and thorough investigation that took him over eight years to complete . When he was ready to reveal his findings Jacobs , admittedly not a writer , contacted Maihafer with hopes they could collaborate on a book . They did and the Jacobs investigation is revealed in " Oblivion . " Maihafer writes : " Jacobs decided he had learned all he was going to , and he accepted the fact that neither he nor anyone else would ever know the full story . It was gratifying , nevertheless , to know that Cox had lived an honorable , patriotic life in the service of his country . Richard Colvin Cox was a complex , talented individual , and Jacobs would have liked to have met him and to have had a long talk . This was not to be . All the same , the research project , which along the way had turned into an obsession , could justly be called a success . Marshall Jacobs had " found " Dick Cox and brought him back from oblivion . The files could be closed . "