GA GA - Deborah Crawford, 41, Canton, 19 Aug 2013

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Marietta woman reported missing

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http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/canton-woman-reported-missing/nZb9t/
 
[h=1]Sister ‘praying’ 2018 will bring answers in Paulding County cold case[/h]
Cynthia Crawford-Collins never had the chance to wish her sister a happy 41st birthday.

The two women talked the day before Deborah Lee Crawford’s big day, and Cynthia told her baby sister to expect a gift and birthday serenade.

But on Aug. 20, 2013, her actual birthday, Deborah was nowhere to be found. Cynthia rang her phone all day, and each time, there was only voicemail.
“I knew something was wrong,” Cynthia said. “I told family something was wrong.”
Before the end of the day, the police in her hometown of Toledo, Ohio were at Cynthia’s door. Deborah had been reported missing by her adult son, Floyd, who was staying with her in metro Atlanta.
Four years later, what exactly happened to Deborah remains a mystery to the family and an unsolved murder for police.

On Oct. 18, 2013, almost two months after Deborah was reported missing, a hunter in northern Paulding County found a decomposing body in a shallow grave at the back of an unfinished subdivision. The near skeletal remains were identified months later as those of Deborah Lee Crawford, or “Peanut,” as the 2-pound preemie was nicknamed at birth by her mother.

Sgt. Ashley Henson, spokesman for the Paulding County Sheriff’s Office, said investigators know Deborah was the victim of foul play.
“We have the medical examiner’s report, which indicates that she had blunt force trauma to the head,” Henson said. “But that does not rule out whether or not she was shot because the organs and tissue were either nonexistent or badly decomposed.”
Crawford-Collins said authorities believe that her sister and a woman she befriended after moving to Atlanta had been going from one doctor’s office to another, obtaining prescription painkillers and selling them.

That same woman, the sister said, told police she’d dropped Crawford off at a store on the day of her disappearance. Later, the woman said she’d lied and had actually driven Deborah to a motel for prostitution, Crawford-Collins said.

Investigators say, to the best of their knowledge, Deborah Crawford was last seen at a motel off I-75 in Cartersville, Henson said.

Crawford-Collins said her sister might have been led astray by unsavory characters, but gave no indication of that in their regular phone calls.
http://www.myajc.com/news/crime--la...ding-county-cold-case/rpi9QfKwSdQl4QPcyYp8GI/
 
I made an account specifically to comment about this- her body was found very close to my childhood home, so I think about it from time to time. It’s horrible that it’s received so little press compared to other unsolved murders. My speculation (based just on where she found, if I’m remembering correctly) is that the guy who did it was probably either a local to Paulding or familiar with the area, since the spot is pretty out of the way, where if you’d just dropped off the interstate you’d never think to go there. It’s surrounded by cattle pastures and there’s actually a school very close by. (Because of the school it actually gets a decent amount of commuter traffic, but no foot traffic. The brush is also very thick in summer, so it doesn’t surprise me that unfortunately nobody noticed her until October.)

A while back, I watched a BBC documentary where they had a criminal psychologist saying that most people who kill do it a certain distance from their homes (I think the number was 40 miles?) because it’s far enough away that they don’t think they’ll be linked to the crime, but close enough that it’s familiar. I wonder if a similar factor could be at play here.
 

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