Charlie Noonan: Mysterious Disappearance

While looking around on the internet I stumbled upon the mysterious disappearance of Charlie Noonan.  This tale and the following image instantly grabbed my attention.  The tale goes as follows:-

Alleged photograph taken by Charlie Noonan.

"Charlie Noonan was an amateur folklorist who travelled throughout the South and Southwestern United States during the early years of the 20^th century, collecting tall tales and stories of the supernatural. According to his wife, Ellie, Charlie was told a story one day by an Oklahoma farmer about a strange woman who lived alone on an isolated property in the panhandle. The farmer claimed the woman was not a woman at all, but something else, something that hid its true nature beneath a headscarf and was never seen without a large dog by its side. Noonan was apparently intrigued enough to try searching for the woman during one of his research road trips. He was never seen again."

"Ellie Noonan was later contacted by a Tulsa pawnbroker who remembered reading about her husband’s disappearance in the papers, after finding his name engraved on a camera sold to him by an itinerant. The pawnbroker returned the camera, and Mrs Noonan had the film inside developed in the hopes of finding a clue as to his whereabouts. This was the only photo on the roll. Unfortunately, neither the location of the property, nor the name of the farmer who told him the story was recorded in Noonan’s notes."

Upon reading this I was incredibly intrigued and wanted to read more about this event.  However, upon doing further research all I could find was the above narrative repeated over and over.  There is no information about an amateur folklorist named Charlie Noonan or any other information regarding this strange event.  This leads to one of two possibilities, either this tale is true and Charlie Noonan really did disappear under strange circumstances and left very little evidence of his whereabouts
or somebody thought that the picture was quite sinister and fabricated a tall tale to go with it.