Thank you very much everyone.
Well now I know. I found Bitsy dead in a corner of the barn. She had been killed by a predator. I believe it was a skunk, as we have had a lot of problems with them digging under the walls of the barn, and I found a big hole in the back of the barn where it had dug under the wall. Our experience with Skunks has been, if they kill chickens at all, only kill chickens that are easy prey, like weak and small ones, or chicks. I think Bitsy came in early in the evening or late afternoon to roost, before the others had come in, and probably was in the barn by herself on her low roost, or maybe somewhere in the barn, and the skunk or whatever it was just saw an opportunity. I am heartsick about it, but, actually...probably better that she was killed this way than to die from her illness where she might have suffered more. Nonetheless, I am going to talk to an electrician friend about maybe running a hotwire along that wall where they've been consistently digging.
and thank you, I think Captain is beautiful too. He is actually a mix breed but has a lot of Golden Pencilled Hamburg in him on his father's side, and his mother was a Delaware. So he has a nice sweet friendly disposition, and is very intelligent too. He is five years old and has never shown any aggression at all towards us, his people family, and he is gentle with the hens. He commands a lot of respect from the other roosters but he is not a bully with them. Weirdly enough, his offspring have been consistent in maintaining that color pattern...if I had the time and expertise to mess with it, I think I could come close to establishing a new breed.....
would be cool just to get some of the same color 
