FL FL - Georgia Crews, 12, Montverde, 8 April 1980

Georgia Jean Crews was 12
LINK

April 8, 1980, Georgia Jean Crews told her older brother she was going to walk to a nearby convenience store [later report says she was going to a friend's house]. Within an hour later, when she hadn't returned, her brother grew concerned. He began calling neighbors and friends. Georgia's father was a commercial fisherman. He and Georgia's mother were at a nearby lake checking on fishing gear. By midnight, over 100 people had joined in a search of Lake County.

A massive search was conducted over the following week.

April 10, 1980, LE received an anonymous phone call from a man:
“Hello… yeah… you know that girl that you looking fo… yeah, the twelve year old… yeah… she’s dead.”

April 16, 1980, people walking through a shortcut to a K-mart in Casselberry found Georgia's body, 25 miles from her home in Montverde. They detected a disturbing foul odor, and followed it to the source.

She was lying face up in bushes. One leg tucked under the other. She was clothed in the same jeans and blue tank top she'd been wearing when she left home, but she had no shoes.

X-rays and dental records were used to identify her badly decomposed body. There were no outward signs of injury, no gunshot wounds or stab wounds. There was no sign of sexual assault.

[A later report says she died from a stab wound to the back.]

Murdered Girl's Body Found
April 19, 1980

Unsolved Slaying Still Haunts Town
April 8, 1990|By Wesley Loy Of The Sentinel Staff

[...]
When the fifth-grader turned up missing, as many as 100 townspeople turned out to aid lawmen in the hunt, according to news accounts. Deputies used tracking dogs. They flew over the town in a helicopter. They went over the groves on horseback and even dragged the bottom of Lake Florence near the girl's home on Highland Avenue.
Mrs. Crews said she and her husband, Mike, working at that time as a commercial fisherman, had been out that afternoon setting a trotline for catfish.

Georgia was last seen by her older brother, Tony, who was 16 at the time. He told investigators that he and a friend, Eddie Page, were playing records when they saw Georgia walk out the front door.
Tony said he thought his sister was heading to her best friend's house to watch Kenny Rogers in The Gambler. The friend reported that Georgia never showed up.

The last sign of Georgia was a trail of footprints on a dirt road near her home.

Cross found on Georgia Crews' body
Her family had never seen it.
LINK

New evidence emerges in cold case disappearance and murder
12-year-old Georgia Crews from Lake County was killed in 1980
Published On: Dec 28 2012 11:46:17 PM EST Updated On: Dec 29 2012 07:48:12 AM EST

[...]
However, with every fresh set of eyes comes a different perspective and this time around new information has been discovered. It centers around a necklace Georgia was wearing when her body was found. It appears to be a homemade cross possibly constructed from parts of a motorcycle.

At the time, a friend told detectives the necklace belonged to Georgia, but during recent interviews Det. Jaymes learned that it did not. It is a lead that was never followed up on.

"We need to find ownership of the cross. It was not her cross," says Jaymes.

“It’s not something you see everyday,” Linda says. She and her husband have been studying photos of the necklace, memorizing every cut and curve.

“It’s not something you’d walk out and go to the jewelry store or Walmart and find. It belonged to somebody, and either that person was there when she was abducted or that person is the one who abducted and killed her.”

Murder of 12-year-old Lake County girl remains unsolved 35 years later
Gal Tziperman Lotan, Orlando Sentinel
September 26, 2015

[...]
Investigators who searched the scene also found a silver-colored cross.

It wasn't the cross Georgia usually wore, a little gold pendant on a delicate chain that her grandmother got her the previous Christmas.

The cross looked homemade. It was two pieces of silver-colored metal with holes drilled into them, welded together and attached to a thick silver chain.

It didn't look like anything her parents had ever seen their daughter wear.

"I have no idea how she came to be in possession of that cross or how long she had that cross," Jaynes said.

April 8, 1990 By Wesley Loy Of The Sentinel Staff

I drove down a couple miles or so and pulled over where a bunch of trees were and kind of hid my car and . . . threw her in the back of the, I guess, the trunk or whatever.

Then I drove on, found some trees, sat there and drank some beer, thought a while, and then I took her out of the trunk and put her in the back seat.

I guess I commenced to rape her or something. She started struggling.

She got away. I grabbed her, and at the time, my right hand found an object, an ice pick or a screwdriver or something, and I stabbed her on her lower back . . .''

The words were spoken by Albert Lara Jr. on Sept. 25, 1980, at a prison in Fort Madison, Iowa.

It was Lara's confession to the murder of Georgia Jane Crews, as told to former Lake County Sheriff Malcolm McCall, former sheriff's Investigator Chris White, and Seminole sheriff's Sgt. George Hagood.

Lara would go on to say that he straightened up the girl's clothes and placed her, still alive, back in the car trunk. He would say that he hauled her to another town and dumped her body behind a big shopping center.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1990-04-08/news/9004073402_1_crews-family-georgia-townspeople/2

From the September 26, 2015, Orlando Sentinel article:

But his confession in Georgia's case didn't match some of the facts investigators had, prosecutors said at the time.
A local state attorney later threw the case out.

"The questions they asked him were almost like answers," Manna said. "They more or less told him the way she was murdered. And for some reason he admitted to it."

Lara, who is still in an Iowa prison, did not respond to a letter seeking comment.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/crime/cold-cases/os-cold-case-georgia-crews-20150926-story.html

Alfred Z. Lara, Jr. is serving a life sentence for the 1980 strangulation death of 15-year-old Jill Peters in Bellevue, Iowa.

http://www.thonline.com/news/tri-state/article_43b03b83-f6ab-5c8e-9ef8-c52cb332413c.html

I lived not to far from all this!
McCall and hagood omg not good!
They were very very bad, crupt, racist... Search "Groveland four".
jmo... I wouldn't want to point fingers at the LE but this time, I just wonder!

Published on Aug 8, 2017

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MONTEVERDE - FLORIDA - AMERICA
Sunlight was starting to fade on April 8, 1980 when 12-year-old Georgia Jane Crews walked out of her Montverde home on Highland Avenue and disappeared. Her older brother, Tony, who was 16 at the time, thought she was simply heading down the street to the market on County Road 455, or possibly to her best friend's house a few blocks away, but what happened in those few short blocks remains a mystery. The AMBER Alert system was still 20 years away from being established in Florida, but in such a small town word of Georgia's disappearance traveled fast. It appeared the only things Georgia left behind were a trail of small prints of her bare feet in the dirt road and her beloved dog, Tiger. Six days later, on April 16, Georgia's body was discovered in Casselberry, Seminole County, 30 miles away from her home. She had been stabbed in the back and her body dumped in a wooded walk-through area behind what was then a K-Mart. She was still dressed in the tattered remains of the jeans and tank top she had sewn herself in her 4H Club. Her body was so badly decomposed that she could only be identified through medical and dental records, and there was no evidence of a sexual assault leaving very little, if any, DNA evidence for future technology to analyze. However, with every fresh set of eyes comes a different perspective and this time around new information has been discovered. It centers around a necklace Georgia was wearing when her body was found. It appears to be a homemade cross possibly constructed from parts of a motorcycle. "We need to find ownership of the cross. It was not her cross,"
if you have information on this case, you can remain anonymous through the Crimeline: 1-800-423-TIPS.

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[video=youtube;xdUKAdNbJPk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdUKAdNbJPk[/video]

Wondering if a new colour photo of the cross can be released?
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/crime/cold-cases/os-cold-case-georgia-crews-20150926-story.html

Tiger is the dog. How deeply did they investigate this "family friend" who said the necklace was hers? Why would a 12 year old have a necklace made from motorcycle parts??

The Unsolved Murder of Georgia Crews

On the afternoon of the 8th of April, 1980, Georgia’s parents left the family home to go fishing for catfish on Lake Florence with Charles. This was a common occurrence in the Crews household; Mike worked as a commercial fisherman and Lake Florence was literally a stone’s throw from their front door. This day, however, Georgia and Tony both decided to stay at home. At some time between 5:30PM and 6PM that evening, Georgia and Tiger left home to go to the Stop & Go on Country Road 455 where her mother worked.2 Stop & Go, which was approximately a mile from Georgia’s home, was the only convenience store in the town. Dusk was fast approaching and Georgia was “mortally afraid of the dark” so she wouldn’t be long, she assured her brother.3

At the time of the initial investigation, a family friend of the Crews family told investigators that the necklace belonged to Georgia. Upon re-investigation, however, Georgia’s family contended that the necklace didn’t belong to Georgia; she often wore a small gold pendant that her grandmother had purchased her for Christmas. This necklace appeared to be a handmade from motorcycle parts. Linda believes that this necklace is key in identifying Georgia’s killer.

PayrollNerd said:

Tiger is the dog. How deeply did they investigate this "family friend" who said the necklace was hers? Why would a 12 year old have a necklace made from motorcycle parts??

The Unsolved Murder of Georgia Crews

On the afternoon of the 8th of April, 1980, Georgia’s parents left the family home to go fishing for catfish on Lake Florence with Charles. This was a common occurrence in the Crews household; Mike worked as a commercial fisherman and Lake Florence was literally a stone’s throw from their front door. This day, however, Georgia and Tony both decided to stay at home. At some time between 5:30PM and 6PM that evening, Georgia and Tiger left home to go to the Stop & Go on Country Road 455 where her mother worked.2 Stop & Go, which was approximately a mile from Georgia’s home, was the only convenience store in the town. Dusk was fast approaching and Georgia was “mortally afraid of the dark” so she wouldn’t be long, she assured her brother.3

At the time of the initial investigation, a family friend of the Crews family told investigators that the necklace belonged to Georgia. Upon re-investigation, however, Georgia’s family contended that the necklace didn’t belong to Georgia; she often wore a small gold pendant that her grandmother had purchased her for Christmas. This necklace appeared to be a handmade from motorcycle parts. Linda believes that this necklace is key in identifying Georgia’s killer.

Click to expand...

I do agree with you! Plus if it was a family friend, Georgia likely would’ve trusted him enough to go off with him.

As a girl I knew Linda’s family. I lived down the street from her parents .This is just heartbreaking. I hope one day the killer is found and can give the family some sort of closure.

Bumping