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E216: Mary Shotwell Little
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The young newlywed, Mary Shotwell Little, bought groceries for a dinner party the next evening to welcome her husband back from an out-of-town work trip. She then had dinner and went shopping with a coworker in Atlanta’s Lennox Square Shopping Center. The two women parted ways in the parking lot around 8pm on October 14th, 1965. Those elements we know for a fact. After that? Everything is speculation.
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Transcript
Flower Meanings and Symbolism
00:00:00
Speaker
We all know that flowers have meaning. Carnations represent a mother's love. Daisies equal innocence. And if you want a flower that means love, you choose a rose. But not just any rose, a red one. That's because we also know that in addition to the flowers themselves, the color of a flower has meaning. While a red rose represents love, yellow represents friendship.
00:00:27
Speaker
What I didn't even realize nor even honestly think about before researching this week's case is that the number of flowers given might also have meaning. Let's look again at red roses. Three red roses mean those three precious words. I love you. Six red roses mean I want to be yours.
00:00:49
Speaker
10 red roses represent that the one receiving the flowers is perfection, a perfect 10. 24 mean that special person is on your mind 24 hours of the day. But what about five roses? Some say it represents the phrase, I love you very much.
00:01:08
Speaker
Some argue that five roses are special because it implies that the person receiving the flowers is the sixth rose that completes the bouquet. Or there might be some special significance that only the sender and the receiver know. I mentioned five because that is what the person at the center of our case this week received from an unknown person in the days leading to her disappearance. This is the case of Mary Shotwell Little.
Podcast Introduction by Hosts
00:02:10
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold.
00:02:16
Speaker
My name is Allison Williams and my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement. So justice and closure can be brought to these families.
Mary Shotwell Little's Background
00:02:30
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.
00:02:48
Speaker
Mary Shotwell was born on January 14th, 1940 to Margaret and Nathan Shotwell in Charlotte, North Carolina. After high school, Mary went on to attend and graduate from the University of North Carolina Greensboro with a degree in secretarial science.
00:03:06
Speaker
After graduation, she had originally wanted to move to New York City, but her parents felt that it might be too dangerous and likely if her parents felt the same way as I would feel too far away from home. So Mary settled on Atlanta as a place she would take up residence with Atlanta being only about four hours away and a manageable drive to visit with her parents fairly regularly.
00:03:30
Speaker
At the time, Atlanta was not the huge metropolis it is today, but it was a growing city. In hindsight, Atlanta in the 1960s was referred to as the cradle of the modern civil rights movement.
00:03:43
Speaker
Socially, the Beatles had just played a concert there and a pro football team called the Falcons had just been founded in June 1965. In terms of industry, freeways were being constructed left and right, new shopping centers were being built, as well as office towers downtown.
00:04:02
Speaker
In 1962, Mary Shotwell loaded up her belongings and moved to the growing city of Atlanta, where she was to take a job as secretary as citizens and Southern Bank. She was excited about the job and the pay was nice as well.
00:04:18
Speaker
To make living in Atlanta feel even more like home though, Mary moved in with three roommates, co-workers from the bank, at 1300 University Drive Northeast. She worked at CNS Bank and even decided to volunteer at the DeKalb County American Red Cross as a gray lady.
00:04:36
Speaker
which refers to someone who's volunteering but can't provide medical services. She continued this volunteer work from September 1964 to December 1964, but stopped volunteering abruptly, as noted by reporter Jessica Knoll, quote, after receiving annoying, obscene phone calls at the hospital, end quote.
00:04:59
Speaker
Two months later, an ex-boyfriend named William Fambro introduced Mary to a man named Roy Little Jr., with whom Fambro had attended the Citadel. Mary and Roy headed off and began dating. By December 1964, the two had decided to take their relationship a step further and got engaged.
00:05:18
Speaker
While Mary was happy about the engagement, her roommates were not. In fact, several accounts state that there was, quote unquote, tension in the house because several of Mary's friends did not approve of Roy. They felt he was cold and distant. And as a result, several of Mary's friends refused to even attend her wedding, but that didn't dissuade Mary. And on September 4th, 1965, she and Roy were married.
00:05:49
Speaker
After their marriage, Roy and 25-year-old Mary, now Mary Shotwell Little, or Mrs. Roy H. Little, Jr., as women in the 1960s sometimes referred to themselves by their husband's name, moved in together in a place at 1609 Line Circle in Decatur, Georgia.
00:06:07
Speaker
It seemed by all accounts that the marriage was going well. One other positive change during this time was that Roy had been working toward becoming a bank examiner and had received a job doing just that at the same bank where Mary was employed.
00:06:22
Speaker
As such, Roy was asked to travel to Lagrange, Georgia in order to perform an audit for CNS Bank.
Day of Disappearance Events
00:06:29
Speaker
Roy left behind his newlywed, they had just been married six weeks. But he would be gone for only a few short days, from Monday, October 11 to Friday, October 15, 1965.
00:06:42
Speaker
By October 14, 1965, Roy had been out of town for three days and was set to return to Atlanta the following evening. In anticipation of his return, Mary had scheduled a dinner party she was to host. So after work on the 14th, Mary made plans to do some grocery shopping for the dinner party.
00:07:01
Speaker
And to meet up with a coworker, Isla Stack, at the posh Lenox Square Shopping Center, located in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, for dinner, at the S&S cafeteria in the square, also called the Piccadilly cafeteria in some sources, and some shopping at Rich's department store.
00:07:19
Speaker
It worked out perfectly because, from all accounts, Colonial Grocery, where Mary shopped that evening, was also in Lenox Square. Most articles about Mary's case indicate that she had gone grocery shopping first and had paid the grocery boy a 10-cent tip for carrying her four bags of groceries to her car and placing them in the back seat. I find this odd since October is still fairly warm in Atlanta and
00:07:42
Speaker
If any items were perishable, it wouldn't be a good idea to leave them in a warm car, but it could be the case that Mary had all the perishable grocery items she would need for the next night and only needed to pick up boxed or canned goods. After shopping, Mary went to meet Isla.
00:07:59
Speaker
Now, I mentioned a moment ago that Lenox Square was considered an upscale shopping center since it was located in an equally upscale part of Atlanta. And Mary was dressed the part, wearing a long-sleeved olive green sheath dress with white flowers and flats which fit her 5 foot 6, 120 pound frame well and suited her light brown hair styled in a page boy haircut and her hazel green eyes. She also carried a white London fog raincoat and a brown John Romaine purse.
00:08:29
Speaker
Of course, she also had on her jewelry for shopping fun that afternoon, which included a scarab bracelet, a gold women's college of the University of North Carolina class ring, her solitaire engagement ring, and her platinum wedding band. After a dinner filled with Mary telling Isla all about the joys of her newly married life and a bit of window shopping, no sources say either woman purchased any items at riches.
00:08:53
Speaker
Mary and Isla walked toward the parking lot where they parted ways. Isla going to her own car and Mary heading toward her new 1965 gray mercury comet in the yellow 32 section of the lot.
00:09:08
Speaker
The next morning, co-workers were bustling around to prepare for the opening of the bank when they realized that Mary hadn't shown up yet. This was entirely out of character because Mary was known to be extremely punctual. While reports differ on who made the calls, some articles say co-workers and others say her bank manager Jean Rackley. A call was placed to Mary's apartment with no answer, and then to Mary's landlord, who let them know that she didn't believe Mary had been home because her morning paper was still outside her door.
00:09:38
Speaker
This is apparently when coworker Ilum mentioned having gone to dinner and shopping the evening before with Mary at Lenox Square. So bank manager Jean Rackley phoned them next, giving them a description of Mary's car and of the location where it had been parked.
Investigation and Findings
00:09:53
Speaker
The security worker said that no such car was in the lot.
00:09:57
Speaker
With no other recourse of action, the manager then called Roy Little, Mary's husband, who was still out of town in Lagrange to let him know that no one knew where Mary was. Roy immediately came home to Atlanta. This next detail may sound a bit strange since Rackley had already been told by the security worker that Mary's car was not in the parking lot. But Rackley decided to drive by Lenox Square to see for himself.
00:10:23
Speaker
I'll play devil's advocate here though. It could be that he was just so nervous about Mary's disappearance that he wanted to see with his own eyes. Or maybe he got the impression that in his earlier phone call, there may have been some confusion. Regardless of the reason, when Rackley drove to the square, he saw Mary's mercury comet right in the spot Ayla said it would be.
00:10:45
Speaker
Some reports say that Rackley had also employed the help of a Linux Square security guard named Bob Fawcett to help him look and that they discovered the car together. The engine felt cold as if it had been there for some time. But it was when Rackley and potentially Fawcett looked inside that he knew he needed to call the police. That's when he saw the blood.
00:11:09
Speaker
The security officer who had been on duty overnight, J.A. Thompson, verified with law enforcement their belief that the car had not been there earlier that morning. First, the parking lot, when they were first asked to look for the car, was not crowded. The shops in the square weren't even open yet for the day. And besides that, he himself had patrolled the lot around 6 AM to ticket any cars that had been left there overnight. Since Mary's car didn't have a ticket, he surmised, it had not been there earlier in the day.
00:11:38
Speaker
If that's the case, where had it been since the evening before? And who had brought it back? The only clue to the answers to these questions lay in the peculiar detail noted by law enforcement that the new car was covered in a thin layer of red dust as though it had been driven down a dirt road. But which one, where, and why?
00:12:06
Speaker
Law enforcement did a thorough search of Mary's car, and here's what they found. Mary's groceries, some Coca-Cola bottles, and a pack of Kent cigarettes the brand Mary smoked were in the back seat. The car had been left unlocked. In the front seat were a slip, a girdle, and panties that had been neatly rolled and quote unquote placed.
00:12:29
Speaker
on the console between the drivers and passenger seats. In the floorboard of the front were Mary's bra and a portion of her stockings. One foot from the stockings was in the car and appeared to have been cut by a knife.
00:12:44
Speaker
Also in the car was blood, as Rackley had seen when he peered inside. Specifically, there were smears of blood found in the following areas. On top of Mary's undergarments, on the inside of the passenger side window, on the driver's door near the handle, on the front seats, and on the steering wheel.
00:13:05
Speaker
There was also a blade of grass found in one smear of blood on the backside of the passenger seat, and a partial fingerprint in the blood smear on the steering wheel that did not match Mary. The blood found in her car, type O, did match Mary.
00:13:23
Speaker
Missing were the car keys, Mary's other items of clothing, her purse, and of course, Mary herself. Nearly from the beginning, law enforcement were torn on what they believed happened to Mary Shotwell Little. There were those who believed that she had been abducted and at least harmed if not killed. But others in law enforcement were a bit unsettled by the blood in the car.
00:13:48
Speaker
and believed that the scene had been staged. Specifically, they believed that there was really only a small amount of blood in the vehicle, but that it had been quote unquote smeared in order to make it appear that there was more than there was. One investigator argued that the amount of bloodshed was only the equivalent of a nosebleed. But as of yet, neither argument had much valid support.
00:14:16
Speaker
Now we had those questions compounded with the questions of the red dust. Had the car been taken somewhere? Roy Little believed that it had, though not too far away. Since both he and Mary drove the new car, Roy was said to have kept meticulous record of the odometer.
00:14:36
Speaker
And taking into account Mary's drives to work and home, as well as this trip to Lenox Square, he said there were only 41 miles on the odometer that could not be accounted for. That means had someone taken Mary from Lenox Square parking lot and driven her to a rural location to commit some heinous crime, the car could have only been driven about 20 and a half miles each way.
00:15:01
Speaker
I do want to pause here because I find the odometer detail a bit off-putting. It does make it sound as though Roy didn't trust Mary in some way like he's keeping tabs on her. I wonder even if he had Mary report her mileage to him each night. And I say that because Roy had been out of town for a couple of days, but somehow was able to be as specific as to say that only 41 miles extra were on the odometer.
00:15:28
Speaker
On the other hand, Roy is a numbers guy, and maybe that's all it was, that he liked to account for things, just like he did in his career as an auditor. And if there are miles unaccounted for, it makes this question, was wherever it was driven after Mary left her friend Isla the place where it had gotten covered in red dust? Where might that have been? The problem was that these questions only created more.
00:15:55
Speaker
If Mary were taken from Linux square at eight when others were present, how was her abduction not seen? Why hadn't she screamed? Why had whoever had taken her brought her car back? Why were some items missing but others had been left behind? How long had they been gone?
00:16:13
Speaker
Why not bring the car back in the middle of the night with fewer people there, rather than between 6 a.m. when the security checked and noon when it was located? Had the car been here the whole time and somehow overlooked?
00:16:26
Speaker
Everyone had questions, but no one had any answers. In the days after Mary Shotwell Little's disappearance, thousands of people participated in a citywide search for her. The woods around Linux Square were searched, volunteer pilots flew planes around the area looking for a body from the air. Reward posters were hung around the city and very soon around the state for $3,000 for Mary's safe return.
FBI Involvement and Theories
00:16:51
Speaker
That's the equivalent of nearly $30,000 today.
00:16:54
Speaker
Law enforcement even enlisted the help of Atlanta's residents by taking to the radio airwaves and asking that those who lived within 20 miles of Lenox Square, remember the odometer, check their backyards for clues, for Mary, for any of her missing items.
00:17:10
Speaker
Atlanteans delivered, filling the station with items found, but none of them turned out to be Mary's. Several weeks after Mary's disappearance, law enforcement learned information that added even more curiosity to the case. Mary's gas card had been used at two separate SO gas stations in North Carolina on October 15th, the day following her disappearance.
00:17:35
Speaker
One at a gas station in Mary's hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, and the other 12 hours later at a gas station in Raleigh, North Carolina. Police spoke with attendants at both stations who, because a card had been used for the purchase, had the impression of the card with a signature for payment and had written down the license plate number of the vehicle making the purchase.
00:17:58
Speaker
Both gas card receipts had been signed, Mrs. Roy H. Little, Jr., by a woman in the vehicle. Handwriting could not, unfortunately, conclusively be proven to belong to Mary, but looked similar enough that there was a distinct possibility that it was hers, and the license plate from both attendants matched.
00:18:17
Speaker
Both described the woman they saw as looking like Mary, but it was hard to confirm. The first gas station attendant recalled a woman who seemed to have a head injury, had her head covered by a road map, and avoided making eye contact. She was accompanied by one unshaven man who seemed to be quote unquote controlling her.
00:18:38
Speaker
The second gas station attendant described something very similar, a woman whose head was covered by a newspaper who didn't want to make eye contact, who also had blood on her leg, and who seemed controlled by those she was with, this time two unshaven middle-aged men.
00:18:56
Speaker
If this were Mary, why hadn't she asked for help? Why hadn't she shown her face? Was she too disoriented because of the head injury? Or according to those who feel the blood was staged, had she not wanted anyone to see her face?
00:19:12
Speaker
And was it just happenstance that the first city they drove to happened to be Mary's hometown? The license plate both attendance recorded was run. However, it belonged to a vehicle that had been reported stolen from Charlotte on October 15, 1965.
00:19:30
Speaker
This lead, as soon as they found it, was already at a dead end. Even more oddly though, when officers analyzed the details of the clues, was the fact that the gas purchases were made 12 hours apart. But the two cities where they were made were only two hours distance from one another. If this were Mary, where had she been in the interim?
00:19:53
Speaker
Even though now there were more questions than ever, the siding of a potential Mary across state lines meant that the FBI was to get involved in the investigation. After all, if this had been Mary in North Carolina at the gas station, then who had been back in Atlanta and able to move Mary's car back to Linux Square parking lot?
00:20:15
Speaker
Not long after Mary's disappearance appeared in the local media, Roy received a call from an anonymous person telling him to drive to Western North Carolina to the Overpass in Pisgah National Forest, and that there he would find the next set of instructions.
00:20:31
Speaker
Since the FBI were now involved, an agent rather than Roy drove to the location only to find a blank piece of paper taped to the sign. Roy wasn't contacted by the person again. So today, many believe the ransom phone call to have been a hoax.
00:20:47
Speaker
Another piece of paper was also located that the FBI analyzed and was not able to conclusively determine if it were Mary's handwriting. This note read, according to 11 Alive's seven-part series on Mary's case by investigative journalist Jessica Knoll, quote, Help, call the police. I'm being held by, end quote.
00:21:09
Speaker
Or in another account, quote, help Mary Little being held captive, end quote, before trailing off. Again, because the handwriting could not conclusively be linked to Mary, law enforcement were still unsure where to pursue the next lead. So they turned to information that they might be able to garner from her friends, family, and coworkers.
00:21:34
Speaker
When law enforcement began interviewing with friends and coworkers concerning Mary, some concerning details came to light, especially given the fact that she was now missing. In the weeks leading up to Mary's disappearance, she had expressed several things to her coworkers. First was that she was afraid, afraid of being alone in her home and afraid of being alone in her car. Second, she had implied to some coworkers that she had something important that she would like to share with them, but she never did.
00:22:04
Speaker
Third, Mary had received flowers, five roses from an unknown person. And fourth, what's more, an unknown person had been calling the bank to speak with Mary. Every time she would end a phone call with a person, she seemed frazzled. And what coworkers and customers had overheard Mary saying to the caller didn't make much sense to them either.
00:22:28
Speaker
She made comments like, I'm a married woman now, and you can come over to my house anytime you like, but I can't come over there. What no one seemed to know was who was on the other end of the line because Mary had never shared that information.
00:22:45
Speaker
Officers were able to determine that the roses had come from a florist located near Roy and Mary's residence. However, the flower shop wasn't able to locate the name of the purchaser. And since they didn't have notes that the flowers were delivered by a particular person, they feel as though the purchaser likely paid for the flowers and delivered them themselves. That lead, too, seemed to end as quickly as it began.
00:23:11
Speaker
Investigators then had to turn to potential strangers who may have seen Mary that evening. After news of Mary's disappearance hit the radio stations and newspapers, other individuals came forward with stories of incidents that had occurred in or around Lenox Square, either on October 14 or 15.
00:23:28
Speaker
But there's one story that stands out for most, primarily because it occurred shortly before we know Mary left the shopping center at 8 PM. Shortly before that, a woman by the name of Carol Taylor Smitherman noticed a man walking the same direction as her in the parking lot as she left Rich's department store. He's described as having brown crew cut hair, wearing a short sleeved shirt and slacks, and being a lean five foot ten.
00:23:55
Speaker
By the time she made it to her car, he was only a few spots away from her. Nervously, she jumped inside the car and locked the door, just as he was reaching for the passenger door handle. She reported that she said something to the man like, if you think you're getting into my car, you're crazy. And that he pointed to the rear of her car saying, your back tire is low.
00:24:18
Speaker
Rather than getting out of the car to check, Smitherman drove to a service station close by. There she was told by the attendant that all of her tires were fine. Did this same man cost Mary next? Might he have used the same ruse except Mary got out of the car or maybe didn't even make it into her car in the first place? What's hard to imagine about the scenario of a random attacker though is how no one else in the parking lot saw nor heard a commotion.
00:24:47
Speaker
And why, if Mary's disappearance were the result of a random attack, would the perpetrator return to the scene to leave her car? It seems much too elaborate of a plan. My daughter and I love smoothies, but what we don't love are smoothie bar prices. With our Blendjet 2 Portable Blender, we can make smoothie bar quality drinks for a fraction of the price.
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00:27:04
Speaker
There was another report made by a worker at Milton Clothing Cupboard who reported that a man in his 20s came into the store the day after Mary's disappearance on October 15, around 3 p.m. He had shaggy, sandy blond hair, was wearing a yellow shirt and blue pants.
00:27:21
Speaker
The worker noticed spots of blood on the front of the man's shirt, and the man pulled out the equivalent of roughly $700 today. He spent the equivalent of $500 today on several pieces of new clothing. Who was this man? Why did he come into the shop so disheveled, but with so much money to spend?
00:27:42
Speaker
Retired FBI agent Jim Ponder, who worked Mary's case, told reporter Andy Johnston of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that this is the theory he subscribes to the most, believing that this unidentified man, quote, probably grabbed her, drove her somewhere, raped her, and then brought her back to Linux to switch cars. Then he drove her to North Carolina. I imagine she's buried in the woods somewhere north of Raleigh, end quote.
00:28:10
Speaker
In direct opposition to the theory of a stranger, some felt the perpetrator were much closer to home. Even though Mary's husband Roy had been out of town when Mary disappeared, suspicion soon fell on him. This was due, in part, I'm sure, to the fact that many of Mary's friends were not a fan of Roy. But also due to the fact that Roy, on multiple occasions, refused to take a polygraph test concerning Mary's disappearance.
00:28:35
Speaker
Some saw these refusals as a sign of guilt, others that Roy likely consulted with an attorney who advised him not to take the polygraph. Even if you put stock into the theory that Roy was involved, you have to admit to yourself, if you're honest.
00:28:50
Speaker
that anything linking Roy to Mary's disappearance carries no legal weight. Roy wasn't gonna gain some huge life insurance payment or something like that for something happening to his wife, and their marriage seemed to be going well. After all, there hadn't been a whole lot of time for arguments, having only been married for six weeks.
00:29:10
Speaker
What most who believe this theory lean on are hunches, the feeling that Roy didn't seem to care very much or at least as much as they felt he should about his wife being missing. To be fair, even some law enforcement felt this way, noting that Roy seemed too cold, too distant, and that he seemed to care more about when he would get the Mercury comet back from processing than whether any word had been received concerning Mary's whereabouts.
00:29:37
Speaker
Journalist Jessica Knoll explored these gut reactions in one part of her investigation, noting that not only did Little buy two season tickets to the newly founded Atlanta Falcons, which makes you question who the other ticket was for, but also allegedly told Rich's department store that whatever charges Mary had made there, he wasn't paying them because he wasn't responsible for it.
00:30:00
Speaker
On the other hand, it could be the case that Roy seemed distant due to his Citadel training. He wasn't just distant after Mary disappeared after all, but had seemed so the entire time Mary's friends had known him.
00:30:14
Speaker
He also made a public plea for Mary's return printed in the High Point Enterprise on November 21st, 1965, saying, quote, this is an appeal for me and Mary's parents to the person holding Mary. Her welfare, safety, and safe return are our greatest concern. We will do anything, go anywhere, and we will help you in any way we possibly can. I repeat, her safe return is the only thing we care about, end quote.
00:30:42
Speaker
Despite the plea, there are still some who feel Roy were somehow involved, even remotely. Due partly to Roy's seemingly cold response to Mary's disappearance and to what law enforcement said about the blood being spread in order to appear as though the scene were more gory than it really were, some wonder if Mary staged her own disappearance. They say, if you were going to harm yourself to create a scene, the wound would likely be small.
00:31:11
Speaker
Seeming to add support to this theory was the report made by Margaret Ferguson, who had been at Lenox Square that evening as well. Hearing a description of Mary's car in the coverage of the case and owning a comet herself, she reported that she saw the car in question driven out of the mall parking lot around 8 PM.
00:31:30
Speaker
She only saw a woman at the wheel and no one else in the car. This would imply that Mary drove somewhere for the unaccounted four miles that created the red dust. That a self-inflicted wound caused the blood spatter around the car and that she had removed her own personal items. Hence why blood was on top of the items and not on various places among them.
00:31:52
Speaker
Of course, if this were the case, it would explain where her car went for several hours. But someone else would have also had to have been involved with Mary. Her car was left in the parking lot after all, and she wasn't there. Those who believe the theory also used the siding of Mary around her hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina at the gas station.
Connections to Diane Shields Case
00:32:12
Speaker
Why the woman who signed Mary's gas card was shielding her face, and why that woman didn't alert anyone for help.
00:32:21
Speaker
Of course, to play devil's advocate, the woman could have been shielding her face because she wasn't Mary at all, but another woman somehow connected to the men.
00:32:31
Speaker
To throw another potential theory into the mix, there was also some speculation that Mary's disappearance was somehow linked to a scandal as citizens in Southern Bank. A scandal so involved that a former FBI agent had been hired by the bank to investigate it. Claims of lesbian sexual harassment and of a prostitution ring.
00:32:51
Speaker
Mary's boss, Manager Rackley, downplayed the significance of the investigation to reporters, saying it involved only low-level employees, and he indicated that he didn't believe Mary even knew about the investigation in the first place. Family and friends, however, told a different story, stating that Mary had told them about the investigation. If she knew about it, was there then a link to her disappearance? Could she have information that made someone view her as a loose end?
00:33:21
Speaker
And which is it, minor and therefore not a likely link to Mary, or significant enough that a former FBI agent were brought in to investigate the claims? Yet another potential theory arose in September 1966, when an inmate at Reedsville State Prison, 23-year-old Larry Stargel, wrote police to say he had intimate knowledge of the Mary Shotwell Little case. Less than two weeks later, a detective went to the prison to speak with Stargel.
00:33:50
Speaker
At this point, here's what Stargold details. He said he was working at a theater in Gainesville, Georgia in July of the previous year. Remember, Mary's disappearance happened in October 1965 when he met a man named Jerry Mason who came up to him. He didn't say how they became friends, but says that over the next few months, the two grew close and started taking trips to Atlanta very often. In Atlanta, they would meet up with another man to hang out.
00:34:18
Speaker
And while in Atlanta, in addition to visiting lounges, they would also commit robberies together, Starkle said. Then one night, he claims, Mason said he wanted to show Starkle something. Starkle said Mason drove them out to the Atlanta Municipal Airport and that armed with a telescope Mason had brought. He had Starkle look through it at a construction site on the airport property and told Starkle that there was a body out there.
00:34:44
Speaker
Starkle says that then, as proof, Mason pulled out a charge card with Mary Little's name on it. Starkle said that they began coming to the airport fairly regularly, where Mason and the other man they met up with would go to a particular baggage locker where brown envelopes of money were left for them. Mason told Starkle that they had been paid to kidnap Mary.
00:35:07
Speaker
When the FBI came to Reedsville State Prison to re-interview Stargl on October 12, 1966, just days away from the one year anniversary of Mary's disappearance, his story changed slightly. Was he lying about all of it, and that's why his story changed? Or was he finally willing to admit more of his own guilt in the crime? I'll let you decide. Here's what he told the FBI specifically about Mary's disappearance.
00:35:36
Speaker
On October 15, 1965, Starkle is in Atlanta and meets up with Mason and the other man around four so they can watch the James Bond movie Thunderball, he thinks, at Lenox Square, which started sometime around 4.30. After the movie, Starkle says the two tell him to wait in the theater for them.
00:35:54
Speaker
And they're gone until 8 PM. He says Mason alone came back at eight to say he wanted to go to the hotel to clean up. Stargl notices bright red spots of blood on Mason's clothing, which show up brightly on his yellow shirt.
00:36:10
Speaker
The other man who hadn't yet returned after leaving the theater had gone to Mount Hawley, North Carolina, Stargal says Mason told him. And Mason needs to fly there to meet him. Stargal said that when Mason left, so did he, him taking the Greyhound bus back to Gainesville.
00:36:28
Speaker
A few days later, he said Mason show back up at the theater where Starkle worked in Gainesville and convinced him to go to Atlanta, where they go to gamble and Mason has a lot of cash on him. Asked about it, Mason referred to their trip to Lenox Square a few days earlier and to the blood.
00:36:44
Speaker
Then, according to Stargl, when asked if Mason had killed someone, Mason replied, quote, she's not dead yet, end quote. Now, Stargl says this is the moment, not at the airport, when Mason says they were paid $5,000 each to kidnap Mary. And Stargl says this too is also the place that Mason shows him the charge card with Mary Little's name on it.
00:37:09
Speaker
Then, he says, another two or three weeks pass before he sees Mason again. This time, alongside another man, and they climb in the car together, only for Starkle to be driven to a rural house in Mount Holly, North Carolina. They stay the night at the home, but Starkle says that in the middle of the night, he awoke to the noises of a man arguing with a woman.
00:37:30
Speaker
And says he heard the woman ask if they were going to take her back to Atlanta. Starkle says that when he asked Mason about it, Mason opened a door and showed him a woman lying on the bed. Her face was turned, but she had a bandage on her right eye, bruising on her body, and her hands and feet were bound. He said Mason told him he was going to take Mary back to Atlanta in a couple of days.
00:37:55
Speaker
When that day came, however, Starkle says they all climbed into a car. Mason driving and Starkle next to him in the front. Another man and Mary were in the back seat. But Starkle says, 15 minutes into the trip, the man in the back pulled out a knife and stabbed Mary's neck with it.
00:38:13
Speaker
By the end of the interview, Stargill had provided a 19-page narrative statement for which he initialed each individual page, but refused to sign the document in its entirety at the end. In terms of Stargill's story, we have the obvious hole that the James Bond movie he says they saw wasn't released until December 1965.
00:38:34
Speaker
But there are other issues as well. The man whom Stargel says killed Mary worked at the Mount Holly Water Department and records show he was at work nine hours on October 14th and five hours on October 15th. Now, I suppose that the man who Stargel says killed Mary might not be the same man as he said was with them at Lenox Square on the 14th. Or someone could have fixed the work documentation.
00:39:00
Speaker
But then we'd have to believe that this man had killed Mary in front of Stargl, a man who wasn't getting paid to do anything to Mary and had zero incentive to keep quiet about it. Also, on both counts Stargl gives, he says Mason produced a charge card with Mary's name on it. However, we know the gas card at least said Mrs. Roy H. Little Jr., rather than Mary's name. I suppose if Mason did kidnap Mary and had her purse, then she could have had an additional charge card with her name on it.
00:39:28
Speaker
But it's hard to say. And it's also true with all of this that Stargl is telling only partial truths. Remember before that his story changed because he said he wasn't willing to admit his own guilt earlier in what had happened. What if he still wasn't? At least not completely. After all, Stargl says Mason was wearing a yellow shirt and remember there was the man working at the clothing store who saw a man in a yellow shirt who had a large sum of money and bought new clothing.
00:39:57
Speaker
Could that man, despite the timeline difference, have been Mason? Could Mason and the other man have been the one and then subsequently two men seen by the gas station attendants in North Carolina? Could Mason have also been the man who tried to get into Smitherman's car, perhaps thinking it was Mary? I've not seen a picture of Smitherman to know whether she and Mary looked alike or whether the tireman incident were mere coincidence that it happened just before Mary was last seen.
00:40:25
Speaker
Ultimately, police decide that they cannot trust Stargl's account of what happened. Going back to a previous theory and adding fuel to the fire for a potential bank scandal link was what happened only 18 months after Mary's disappearance to another young woman named Diane Shields. Diane, after Mary had disappeared, had taken over Mary's position at Citizen and Southern Bank. She was even positioned at Mary's old desk.
00:40:52
Speaker
Crazier still, having moved from Gunterville, Alabama to Atlanta, Diane was looking for roommates, hers had just moved out, and actually moved in with one, some reports say two, of Mary's same previous roommates.
00:41:08
Speaker
Diane's best friend who was still living in Diane's hometown of Gunterville, even told police that Diane had mentioned to her that she was, per the Atlanta Journal Constitution, quote, working undercover with police trying to solve the disappearance of a woman named Mary, end quote.
00:41:24
Speaker
Diane abruptly quit her job at CNS Bank and began working as a receptionist in a business in downtown Atlanta, Associated Industries of Georgia. And due to what one article called, quote unquote, tension in the house after Diane got engaged to Tommy Antle, she moved out to live with her sister in College Park. But in May 1967, Diane left work, driving her blue and white Chevy Impala.
00:41:50
Speaker
where she went after work and who she met up with is unknown. However, early the next morning around 2.30 a.m., Diane's Impala was spotted on Sylvan Road near the laundromat. According to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, blood was noticed outside of the trunk area, and when law enforcement opened the trunk, using the keys that had been left in the ignition,
00:42:12
Speaker
They found Shields's body shoved between a cardboard box and a spare tire. Despite the striking similarities to Mary, Diane was left in the car, was still fully clothed, and had not been sexually assaulted. Robbery had not been the motive either since Diane was still wearing her engagement ring. What was the motive?
00:42:34
Speaker
Well, many argue that it was somehow linked to either Mary's case or to a bank scandal since Diane had been strangled and a scarf as well as a sheep from a phone book had been shoved down her throat. Those details lead many to believe the act to be symbolic, to quite literally silence her.
00:42:54
Speaker
Officers soon began to draw parallels as well. Both worked at Citizens and Southern Bank in the same position. They shared roommates. A crime scene for both Mary and Diane were linked to their car. Mary had recently been married. Diane had just recently gotten engaged. They even found that Diane had also received roses from a secret admirer at work.
00:43:17
Speaker
In Diane's case though, they were able to identify the source as someone for whom Diane babysat. But being told whom the roses were from in this case didn't stop the speculation in the public that there was what they called a rose killer on the prowl.
00:43:36
Speaker
Even Mary's and Diane's roommates were nervous. Here was something horrific that had happened to not just one, but two of their previous roommates. It's reported that the husband of one of the roommates had received a call as well from an anonymous person saying, your wife will be next.
00:43:53
Speaker
An article published on March 21st, 2004 in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted an interview with Jim Ponder, the liaison between local law enforcement and the FBI in Mary's case, in which he said that two of the roommates actually sat in his living room with Ponder and his wife, terrified. They seemed scared, he recalled, of one particular coworker at the bank, but couldn't give a concrete reason why. However, Ponder told the AJC that the named coworker,
00:44:21
Speaker
had also been just as scared. If the two cases are connected, then it makes sense, however, that the connection is CNS Bank. Was Diane's murder connected to Mary's disappearance? Was the same person harassing Diane?
Ongoing Investigation and Public Appeal
00:44:38
Speaker
For many people, the similarities are too numerous to be coincidence.
00:44:41
Speaker
However, there are also many differences we have to account for. And we have to acknowledge that Diane no longer worked at Citizens in Southern Bank when she was killed. If there were a link between her death and Mary's disappearance, why did her death occur after she left the organization?
00:45:00
Speaker
According to investigative journalist Jessica Knoll, the common roommate shared by Mary and Diane was questioned and reported that on the night Mary disappeared, she had been at her boyfriend's home in Cartersville, Georgia, and hadn't come home until 9 a.m. the next morning.
00:45:15
Speaker
One more odd detail to add to this theory that I don't yet know how to take is that when police were exploring a potential connection between Mary's case and Diane's case, Mary's mother called law enforcement and asked them to stop their investigation into Mary's case.
00:45:32
Speaker
Some believe that she did so because she knew Mary disappeared of her own volition and therefore wanted the search to stop. Others wondered if that request proved a connection between the two cases and that perhaps she too were receiving threats or felt endangered. Still others believe that Mary's disappearance may have been taking so much of a toll on her mother that she preferred to mourn her loss and attempt in whatever way she could to move on. Any of those reasons, I would understand.
00:46:03
Speaker
Regardless of which proposed theory makes the most sense to you, since Mary expressed not only a fear of being alone in both her home and her car, and the impression that she had something to tell those close to her, that means, at least for me, that I find it difficult to agree with the theory that what happened to Mary were a random attack.
00:46:22
Speaker
Sadly, unless someone comes forward with information or details in Mary's or Diane's case, I'm unsure whether these cases will actually make any headway. Unfortunately, the evidence in both Mary's case and in Diane's case have vanished. Luckily, there are still teams of brilliant investigators who meet to reexamine the two cases and to work new angles to explore new theories.
00:46:51
Speaker
perhaps through them, will finally get some much-needed answers. Anyone with information concerning Mary Shotwell Little or Diane Shields is asked to call the Atlanta Police Department at 404-614-6544, the FBI Atlanta Office at 770-216-3000, or Crime Stoppers at 404-577-TIPS.
00:47:19
Speaker
Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Twitter, at casescoffee, on Instagram, at coffee cases podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to coffeeandcasespodcastatgmail.com. Please tell your friends about our podcast so more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to rate our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon.
00:47:49
Speaker
Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see
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00:47:52
Speaker
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Speaker
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