Tonight’s After Dark episode takes us back to Christmas Eve in the year nineteen thirty-three, when a young red-haired woman stepped off a bus into the snowy streets of Willoughby, Ohio. She spoke to no one. She carried a small suitcase, wore a blue coat, and seemed to move with quiet purpose. She bought a ticket to Corry, Pennsylvania… but never boarded the bus. Instead, she left her belongings at a boarding house, wished the owner a soft “Merry Christmas,” and walked back out into the winter night.

Hours later, she stood at the railroad crossing on the edge of town, placed her suitcase neatly beside the tracks, and waited. Witnesses said she didn’t flinch when the train appeared. She stepped forward without hesitation. The impact was catastrophic, and when townspeople reached her, they found a tragedy—and a puzzle. Her blue coat was strangely unmarked. Her purse held only a few coins and a pencil. No letters. No identification. No clues to her name or her past.

Who was she? Why had she come to a town where no one knew her?

Why buy a ticket she wouldn’t use?

Why pay for a room she never intended to sleep in?

And why choose Christmas Eve—a night meant for family—to end her life alone?

Authorities searched, but the trail vanished instantly. No missing person matched her. No clothing tags revealed a name. Corry, Pennsylvania had no idea who she was. The woman became a ghost with no story, a stranger whose final steps were witnessed by many but understood by none.

But Willoughby refused to let her disappear.

They gave her a gentle burial.

Tended her grave.

Brought flowers every Christmas.

And named her The Girl in the Blue Coat—a young woman they never met but refused to forget.

For nearly sixty years she remained a mystery, until the nineteen-nineties when local historian Ed Sekerak uncovered forgotten documents from the nineteen-thirties. Among them: a missing-woman report that had been overlooked for decades. Her name was Josephine Klimczak, a young woman struggling with inner battles her family didn’t fully understand. She had disappeared just days before Christmas of nineteen thirty-three—right before a red-haired stranger stepped off a bus in Willoughby.

Her age matched. Her description matched. The timeline matched.

The Girl in the Blue Coat finally had her name back.

It was a bittersweet revelation. Her family had spent their lives wondering what became of her, never knowing she’d died on a cold railroad crossing on Christmas Eve. Meanwhile, the people of Willoughby had cared for her as one of their own—tending her grave, speaking her name, honoring her life even without knowing who she was.

Why Josephine chose Willoughby remains unknown. Why she bought a ticket she never used, or paid for a room she never planned to sleep in, we may never learn. Some mysteries stay where they happened. But her story reminds us of something profound: even in anonymity, she was not forgotten. Compassion found her before her name did.

Tonight, we remember Josephine Klimczak—

the Girl in the Blue Coat,

unknown for sixty years,

but never unloved.

This is her story.

And this… is After Dark.