Herbert John Lafferty was 12 when he was last seen on October 8, 1960, just outside Fort Resolution in the Northwest Territories. He had gone out with his grandfather to check rabbit snares and did not return. Some contemporaneous accounts say footprints and a .22 caliber rifle were noted during the search, but poor weather hampered efforts.

Friends of Herbert offered a different possibility, reporting he had been planning to go to British Columbia to join his mother, which raised the question of whether he might have attempted to run away rather than become lost while checking snares. He was described as thin, with brown eyes, a dark complexion, and good teeth, and was also known by the names Herbert John Jones, Ginger Jones, and Ginger Lafferty.

No confirmed explanation for his disappearance has emerged.