GA GA - Mary Shotwell Little, 25, Atlanta, 14 Oct 1965

I haven't seen this theory, by an FBI agent who worked the case, mentioned here.

snip from the AJC story:

On the Sunday after Little disappeared, Ponder was helping interview her roommates at Atlanta police headquarters when a woman named Carolyn Smitherman came in to report an incident. She said she had been walking to her car at Lenox shortly before Little would have left the mall when she realized she was being followed. She jumped into her vehicle and locked the door as the pursuer, a thin man with a brown crew cut, grabbed the handle.

"If you think you're going to get in my car, you're crazy," she told him.

He tapped the window and said, "Your back tire is low."

She drove to a nearby service station. Her tires were fine.

Ponder closes the file. "I think that was probably the man who grabbed Mary," he says. "I think he drove her somewhere, raped her and then brought her back to Lenox and switched cars. Then he drove her to North Carolina. I imagine she's buried in the woods somewhere north of Raleigh."

end

reportertype said:

I haven't seen this theory, by an FBI agent who worked the case, mentioned here.

snip from the AJC story:

On the Sunday after Little disappeared, Ponder was helping interview her roommates at Atlanta police headquarters when a woman named Carolyn Smitherman came in to report an incident. She said she had been walking to her car at Lenox shortly before Little would have left the mall when she realized she was being followed. She jumped into her vehicle and locked the door as the pursuer, a thin man with a brown crew cut, grabbed the handle.

"If you think you're going to get in my car, you're crazy," she told him.

He tapped the window and said, "Your back tire is low."

She drove to a nearby service station. Her tires were fine.

Ponder closes the file. "I think that was probably the man who grabbed Mary," he says. "I think he drove her somewhere, raped her and then brought her back to Lenox and switched cars. Then he drove her to North Carolina. I imagine she's buried in the woods somewhere north of Raleigh."

end

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It was mentioned in the link I provided some time ago for the AJC story, but you're right, it was never really discussed. I've always thought that was a pretty plausible theory myself. Given the lack of concrete evidence of some of the other theories, I think it makes a lot of sense.

Here's the link to the AJC story again in case anyone wants to re-read it.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1102670/posts

I agree that explanation seems to be most plausible.

I still wonder about the NC connection since Mary was from there originally. Seems like an odd coincidence.

reportertype said:

I agree that explanation seems to be most plausible.

I still wonder about the NC connection since Mary was from there originally. Seems like an odd coincidence.

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I wondered about that too....I thought about those phone calls she reportedly received at work where someone was bothering her...I thought it could have been from someone she knew from NC who she used to date or someone who was possibly obsessed with her that no one else knew about.

Although Jim Ponder's theory makes sense..it seems the car was in NC at the gas stations so that could possibly validate the theory that someone she knew from Charlotte was responsible for her abduction too.

I grew up in Atlanta, and have had a life-long interest in Mary Shotwell Little's disappearance (true confession: I'm considering writing my dissertation on her case). As much as I read and go over every piece of information I can find on her case, it still doesn't make sense because there are so many strange details and inconsistencies.

1. I have NEVER understood why Diane's murder was considered a coincidence. That is one HELL of a coincidence. Two young women, the same age, one of whom replaced the other at her job, who had the same circle of friends. Both receive odd deliveries of flowers. One disappears, one ends up murdered a few years later, and it's a coincidence? Really?

Atlanta was metastasizing during this time period, and C&S Bank, where both women worked, was very much involved with the construction boom. Huge amounts of money was being borrowed and invested into Atlanta. (That is fact, the rest of this is just a theory). Mary Little indicated to friends that she had something to tell them. What if she discovered some banking irregularity and went to someone at the bank whom she trusted, and whom she thought was dealing with it? If he asked her to stay quiet while he "investigated", and then kidnapped her when he knew her husband would be out of town? Maybe Diane knew something without actually knowing what she knew?

Equally likely is that, because of their overlapping social and work circles, they both met some psycho.

2. It's been commented that it is awfully strange that Little's credit cards were used in North Carolina, since that's where her family lives and where she grew up. It is another strange coincidence. However, another reason as to why her cards where used in North Carolina hours after her disappearance is that, at that time, I-85 was the closest Interstate to Lennox Square. In fact, the fastest way to Little's apartment from Lennox involved I-85 back then.

3. This has always bothered me. Every report I've read stated that Little went grocery shopping at Colonial Grocery (which was located at Lennox), met her friend Isla for dinner at the S&S Cafeteria, and then went shopping with Isla. What groceries did she buy? Unless she just picking up canned goods, why would you grocery shop first? Atlanta in early October isn't usually cool enough that you could leave any sort of perishable in your car for a couple of hours.

4. Why did the girls meet at Lennox? Whose idea was it? From what I've read, most of Little's friends lived in the Decatur area (on the east side of Atlanta), and she lived in the Belvedere section of Decatur. She worked smack downtown, not in the Buckhead area. Belvedere, at that time, was a very nice open air shopping plaza, similar to Lennox, that also offered a Rich's Department store, Colonial Grocery, and a cafeteria-style restaurant. Have I gone out of my way to go to Lennox? Yes! But now Lennox is a high end mall that offers stores not found anywhere else in Atlanta. That wasn't true in the mid-1960s. The girls could have had that exact same experience at Belvedere.

5. Mary's car. How was her car not there at night (when other cars were ticketed), not there Friday morning when the guards checked for it, but there when her boss checked for it around noon? Especially how was her car there when at around that same time her gas card was being used in North Carolina? That would mean that, at a minimum, two people were involved. How did her car get covered in red dirt?

One witness says she saw Mary drive away from Lennox that night on her own. By 1965 the area of town Mary would have transversed between home, work, and Lennox would not have had dirt roads. What those areas were full of were construction sites.

I've always wondered if Mary wasn't flagged down by someone she knew. I remember, pre-cell phone, sometimes seeing a friend on the road and them motioning for me to pull over into a parking lot, or something.

6. Atlanta had some strange people floating around town at the time. Franklin Delano Floyd was in prison, but his buddies were hanging around town. I'll admit that when I first started reading about Gary Hilton I wondered if Mary wasn't perhaps one of his first victims. Something about the way she was taken, the descriptions of her using those gas cards...it just seems to fit. But I ruled him out for some reason (military? prison?). I need to find my notes.

However, I can't get over Diane and those roses. I need to find out why, exactly, the police ruled out a connection.

I forgot to mention the missing evidence. I can't remember when, exactly, the evidence box for this case went missing. Does anyone else know? However, in the late 1960s the APD managed to lose the evidence regarding the other famous case with a Mary- Mary Phagan. Historians and cold case detective rue the idiocy that lost that case file. If Little's file was lost that early, it makes me wonder if someone hasn't forgotten a storage locker somewhere. Or, you know, if APD was dirtier than even I think they were.

"5. Mary's car. How was her car not there at night (when other cars were ticketed), not there Friday morning when the guards checked for it, but there when her boss checked for it around noon? Especially how was her car there when at around that same time her gas card was being used in North Carolina? That would mean that, at a minimum, two people were involved. How did her car get covered in red dirt?"

VERY good points. I was wondering about the security guards also. I find it hard to believe that they could miss a car covered in red dirt. Especially if they check that lot on a regular basis. The boss finds the car in the lot at noon? So the car was left there sometime in the morning and noon and the guards missed it. I find that hard to believe. Were the guards investigated?

The whole thing about her car is weird. From the sources I've read, no one who was at the mall late that night noticed her car, and the shopping center cops ticketed other cars left over night, but not Mary's. Sources differ as to whether Atlanta PD or Lennox security searched for Mary's car that morning after her boss called.

I guess these are my questions that I'd like to have answered. How many cars, in 1965, were in Lennox's parking lot all night? Was it really that many? I mean, it's an issue now, but I'm having a harder time imagining it was an issue back then. I know about where her car was parked. How did that relate to where Lennox employees tended to park? I also need to find out if it was APD or Lennox security who searched the next morning, because that is really important. How much security would a neighborhood, open air shopping center (which is what Lennox was in 1965) have?

Another factor is how well Mary's friend and boss described her car. My mother recently lost a valet ticket and was trying to describe her own car and did such a bad job that they couldn't find it until she called my dad and had him describe it! Who knows how accurate their description was of someone else's car. Plus, I've read somewhere that Mary actually had her husband's car that night, so her coworkers really might not have been able to give a good description. I don't think Isla actually saw Mary's car that night. Which actually means that Mary could have ran an errand and muddied the car before she ever got to Lennox.

About her husband and the car...he was able to figure out it had exactly forty extra miles on it. Really? Forty? If it was his "company" car, then maybe he would have known the exact mileage for reimbursement purposes, but if not, that's kind of weird. Atlanta is a super spread out city (even then). It's not hard to put an extra forty miles on your car.

Okay, back to the parking thing. If accounts are right, and that car showed back up at Lennox between 10am and 12pm on Friday, AFTER the first charge appeared in Charlotte, NC on Mary's gas card, this is an extremely complicated case that involves at least two people. If someone is wrong, it's a little simpler.

AMP1979 said:

I grew up in Atlanta, and have had a life-long interest in Mary Shotwell Little's disappearance (true confession: I'm considering writing my dissertation on her case). As much as I read and go over every piece of information I can find on her case, it still doesn't make sense because there are so many strange details and inconsistencies.

1. I have NEVER understood why Diane's murder was considered a coincidence. That is one HELL of a coincidence. Two young women, the same age, one of whom replaced the other at her job, who had the same circle of friends. Both receive odd deliveries of flowers. One disappears, one ends up murdered a few years later, and it's a coincidence? Really?

Atlanta was metastasizing during this time period, and C&S Bank, where both women worked, was very much involved with the construction boom. Huge amounts of money was being borrowed and invested into Atlanta. (That is fact, the rest of this is just a theory). Mary Little indicated to friends that she had something to tell them. What if she discovered some banking irregularity and went to someone at the bank whom she trusted, and whom she thought was dealing with it? If he asked her to stay quiet while he "investigated", and then kidnapped her when he knew her husband would be out of town? Maybe Diane knew something without actually knowing what she knew?

Equally likely is that, because of their overlapping social and work circles, they both met some psycho.

2. It's been commented that it is awfully strange that Little's credit cards were used in North Carolina, since that's where her family lives and where she grew up. It is another strange coincidence. However, another reason as to why her cards where used in North Carolina hours after her disappearance is that, at that time, I-85 was the closest Interstate to Lennox Square. In fact, the fastest way to Little's apartment from Lennox involved I-85 back then.

3. This has always bothered me. Every report I've read stated that Little went grocery shopping at Colonial Grocery (which was located at Lennox), met her friend Isla for dinner at the S&S Cafeteria, and then went shopping with Isla. What groceries did she buy? Unless she just picking up canned goods, why would you grocery shop first? Atlanta in early October isn't usually cool enough that you could leave any sort of perishable in your car for a couple of hours.

4. Why did the girls meet at Lennox? Whose idea was it? From what I've read, most of Little's friends lived in the Decatur area (on the east side of Atlanta), and she lived in the Belvedere section of Decatur. She worked smack downtown, not in the Buckhead area. Belvedere, at that time, was a very nice open air shopping plaza, similar to Lennox, that also offered a Rich's Department store, Colonial Grocery, and a cafeteria-style restaurant. Have I gone out of my way to go to Lennox? Yes! But now Lennox is a high end mall that offers stores not found anywhere else in Atlanta. That wasn't true in the mid-1960s. The girls could have had that exact same experience at Belvedere.

5. Mary's car. How was her car not there at night (when other cars were ticketed), not there Friday morning when the guards checked for it, but there when her boss checked for it around noon? Especially how was her car there when at around that same time her gas card was being used in North Carolina? That would mean that, at a minimum, two people were involved. How did her car get covered in red dirt?

One witness says she saw Mary drive away from Lennox that night on her own. By 1965 the area of town Mary would have transversed between home, work, and Lennox would not have had dirt roads. What those areas were full of were construction sites.

I've always wondered if Mary wasn't flagged down by someone she knew. I remember, pre-cell phone, sometimes seeing a friend on the road and them motioning for me to pull over into a parking lot, or something.

6. Atlanta had some strange people floating around town at the time. Franklin Delano Floyd was in prison, but his buddies were hanging around town. I'll admit that when I first started reading about Gary Hilton I wondered if Mary wasn't perhaps one of his first victims. Something about the way she was taken, the descriptions of her using those gas cards...it just seems to fit. But I ruled him out for some reason (military? prison?). I need to find my notes.

However, I can't get over Diane and those roses. I need to find out why, exactly, the police ruled out a connection.

I forgot to mention the missing evidence. I can't remember when, exactly, the evidence box for this case went missing. Does anyone else know? However, in the late 1960s the APD managed to lose the evidence regarding the other famous case with a Mary- Mary Phagan. Historians and cold case detective rue the idiocy that lost that case file. If Little's file was lost that early, it makes me wonder if someone hasn't forgotten a storage locker somewhere. Or, you know, if APD was dirtier than even I think they were.

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You bring up many excellent points. I have always thought the car situation was weird, among other things in this case, but I have NEVER understood why the murder of Diane Shields was considered "just a coincidence" either. Nearly everything about it was similar to Mary's disappearance, even down the fact that Diane seemed to be acting strangely prior to her murder. Remember people said Mary had been acting oddly and sort of secretively prior to her disappearance too.

This case has always fascinated me. I Google news Mary's name at least 3 times a week hoping for a new article or some kind of news about her disappearance.

It is strange Mary Little's file was lost AND Mary Phagan's. I remember very well reading about Mary Phagan and Leo Frank. It does kind of make you wonder about the APD when files seem to just disappear. Regarding Mary Little's file, I can't remember exactly when it went missing. I scanned through one of the articles quickly but couldn't find out when it was.

AMP1979 - I think you should write your dissertation about Mary Shotwell Little's case!

Regarding the credit card, it is possible that a third party found the credit card somehow. Maybe it was dropped in the process of her abduction and whoever took it had nothing to do with her abduction...? Just a thought.

belimom said:

Regarding the credit card, it is possible that a third party found the credit card somehow. Maybe it was dropped in the process of her abduction and whoever took it had nothing to do with her abduction...? Just a thought.

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Both times the card was used both of the gas station attendents reported seeing two men with a woman matching Mary's description. I believe they both said it appeared she had an injury on her head, was very subdued i.e. looking at the ground, not talking, it appeared she was taking orders from these men. LE believes the signatures on the reciepts are Mary's.
Very strange.

There is not very much information out there about Diane Shields is there? I remember reading a rather long article about her but now i can't find it anywhere - it talked about her friends/roomates recieving phone calls saying things like 'you'll be next', etc. Anyone remember that? It also said that Diane had told a co-worker she was working undercover for the APD in relation to Mary's case.

According to one of the articles about Mary it says that LE was able to locate to person who sent the 5 red roses to Diane and clear him. Mary also recieved 5 red roses. That is a pretty big coincidence.

The only solution that really makes sense about the car is there was obviously more than one person involved. Perhaps only one person abducted Mary, drove her to another location where another person was and one of them returned the car the next morning. They were extrememly brazen to do so. They could have taken a bus back or someone picked them up.

I was re-reading some of the articles and I had forgotten about the note that was found addressed to Mary's employment in Dekalb that said Help! Mary Little is Captive
and included a license plate number. Experts believed the handwriting was consistent with with Mary's. They checked out the car and it was not in the Atlanta area during the disappearence. If the number had been written from memory there is the possibility of a mistake.

3. This has always bothered me. Every report I've read stated that Little went grocery shopping at Colonial Grocery (which was located at Lennox), met her friend Isla for dinner at the S&S Cafeteria, and then went shopping with Isla. What groceries did she buy? Unless she just picking up canned goods, why would you grocery shop first? Atlanta in early October isn't usually cool enough that you could leave any sort of perishable in your car for a couple of hours.

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you're the only one to mention what stuck out to me as odd as I first read this story-which was just today-I was a housewife for years and the grocery thing seemed quite odd to me also-it would be possible, but unusual, for someone to buy only canned goods-were there perishables found in the grocery bags?? if so, that would be significant as well-most people don't grocery shop and then go to dinner leaving the groceries in their car-I don't imagine it was cold enough in Georgia in mid-October to leave groceries in the car-I have done so in mid winter in below 40 degree weather. strange all the way around.

As a native Georgian, I was haunted by Mary Shotwell's disappearance although I was only a young child in 1965. The Atlanta Journal Constitution subsequently ran regular articles on Mary's disappearance (Atlanta's most high-profile unsolved crime). I remember reading them through the years with tremendous interest. I'm happy there are other people who still care about Mary and have not forgotten her. She deserves justice more than ever after all these years.

I've also been fascinated by the coincidences that have taken me in close proximity to the places and sometimes people involved in Mary's life. My first job after college was working at Lenox Square Mall where I often parked on the Lenox Road parking lot. A couple of years later, I worked as a Bank Examiner for the State of Georgia - an older co-worker told me he'd had worked with Roy Little (Mary's husband of six weeks) and described what the ordeal had been like from her husband's perspective. I also later worked for C&S Bank at their Mitchell Street Office (I only recently discovered through photo posted on the web that Mary also worked in that same building some 20 years before I did.)

In the mid 1990s, I moved to Greensboro, NC, and by mere chance I discovered that Mary was born here in Greensboro, had extended family here, and lived here as a young child until her family moved to Charlotte. Mary came back to Greensboro to attend college at UNCG around 1959 (then NC Teachers College for Women). Some newspaper reports say that Mary wanted to move to NYC after her graduation from UNCG in 1962 but her parents refused, believing it would be too dangerous for Mary.

Instead she moved to Atlanta, where I believe she first shared an apartment with a number of girls (some who were also UNCG alums) in the Midtown area or maybe even Lenox area. I suppose Mary moved to Atlanta in the summer or fall of 1962. Mary didn't meet Roy Little until the fall of 1964 when on a blind date she went to a Georgia Tech football game with him.

I feel that during that time before meeting Roy Little, Mary may have become involved with a married man. In the 1960s, vulnerable, attractive young women (such as Mary) had little power in sexual affairs and little or no recourse if they were stalked or sexually harassed, especially if the perpetrator was a respectable white man. I'd be fascinated to know where Mary worked prior to getting her job at C&S or what married men she may have become involved with during that time - therein, may be the solution to this crime.

I suspect that Mary may have grown guilty or tired of the affair with the married man and have seen Roy Little as solution to her problem. I was told that Roy was not particularly outgoing or personable. He was not well-liked by Mary's friends - but to Mary he may have seemed an answer to her prayers.

She married Roy Little over the Labor Day weekend 1965 at Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte. They moved to a new apartment in Decatur; they bought a new car; Mary bought new furniture; she applied to be a volunteer with the Red Cross. All these things seemingly indicating Mary was starting a new chapter of her life and she was excited about it. And perhaps she was relieved to be distancing herself from the married man and the shame of the illicit affair.

But as a powerful, controlling man, her lover was not likely to let her go easily. As in so many domestic violence situations, if her married ex-lover couldn't have Mary - no one could. In the short six weeks of her marriage, Mary got mysterious, threatening phone calls at work and the mysterious bouquet of red roses delivered to her workplace. Had the roses been from her husband, she certainly would've told her co-workers and Roy would have told police afterwards. In those last few weeks, Mary became uncharacteristically anxious and fearful, even telling her friends that she was afraid to be alone. She could hardly tell them that her married ex-lover was threatening her.

I don't know how to prove it or move this investigation forward but I'm convinced that man - Mary's married ex-lover is responsible for her disappearance and probably her death. He was apparently powerful and well-connected enough to orchestrate her disappearance, have her car returned to the Lenox Square parking lot in broad daylight, and simultaneously create a diversion to lead investigators away from Atlanta by having Mary's gasoline credit card used in Charlotte and Raleigh the day after she disappeared from Lenox Square.

Mostly, I feel sad for Mary. A beautiful young girl who should have had a chance to live longer, to make choices, to go forward with her life - rather than being frozen in 1965 black and white photos with the inscrutable smile. Instead she's been reduced in many ways to a victim remembered for the eerie circumstances of her disappearance - and not portrayed as a daughter, a sister, a friend, a person who lived a unique life and who was loved by many.

I would do anything to move this investigation forward. I've written emails, talked to friends, tried writing freelance articles, all without much luck. Any suggestions for helping Mary Shotwell find some justice after all these years - or maybe just remind people that we have to raise our daughters not to be victims, not to be so afraid, that they loose their voices and become easy targets for vicious predators - I would welcome.

It's so telling to read the Missing Persons Poster from 1965 with the detailed description of what Mary was wearing that night at Lenox Square where she was last seen: a sheath dress, flat shoes, a London Fog raincoat, a girdle (for a slim 25 year old woman?), a John Romaine purse, a scarab bracelet, a UNCG class ring - a model of 1960s propriety and decorum. If only she could've been equipped with Pepper Spray or martial arts skills or just the knowledge that she had the right to tell someone who was stalking her, to scream, to resist, to defend herself, to fight back - if only she had known that even "good girls" should fight for their lives.

May God bless you Mary and your family.

Regarding the credit card, it is possible that a third party found the credit card somehow. Maybe it was dropped in the process of her abduction and whoever took it had nothing to do with her abduction...? Just a thought.

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One AJC article said Mary's parent's identified the signatures on the gasoline credit card slips as Mary's - she'd signed them, "Mrs. Roy H. Little, Jr." I suppose it's possible someone forged her handwriting but it would seem to indicate Mary was in the car that traveled to Charlotte and Raleigh.

And as one of the detectives pointed out, the charge slips and sightings in Charlotte and Raleigh were likely red herrings designed to lead detectives away from Atlanta. It's unlikely in an abduction as complex as this one, the perpetrator would be so careless as to leave a trail by using Mary's charge cards (for insignificant amounts of money too if you think of the cost of a tank of gas in 1965) or take her back to her home town where Mary might have been recognized unless he purposely wanted to bait investigators to focus on NC rather than Atlanta. I'm betting Mary's kidnapper (and perhaps killer) was from Atlanta and met Mary in Atlanta.

ncthom said:

One AJC article said Mary's parent's identified the signatures on the gasoline credit card slips as Mary's - she'd signed them, "Mrs. Roy H. Little, Jr." I suppose it's possible someone forged her handwriting but it would seem to indicate Mary was in the car that traveled to Charlotte and Raleigh.

And as one of the detectives pointed out, the charge slips and sightings in Charlotte and Raleigh were likely red herrings designed to lead detectives away from Atlanta. It's unlikely in an abduction as complex as this one, the perpetrator would be so careless as to leave a trail by using Mary's charge cards (for insignificant amounts of money too if you think of the cost of a tank of gas in 1965) or take her back to her home town where Mary might have been recognized unless he purposely wanted to bait investigators to focus on NC rather than Atlanta. I'm betting Mary's kidnapper (and perhaps killer) was from Atlanta and met Mary in Atlanta.

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You know I thought about that...that she never left Atlanta and whatever happened to her just happened there and the NC story was to throw investigators off the trail. But one of the things that I keep thinking about is the fact that she got those phone calls before her abduction, and that she told the person on the other end of the line that she was married now and couldn't see them. That made me think that maybe it was someone from NC who knew or even dated her before she was married and possibly still wanted a relationship with her. And didn't a gas station attendant in NC say that he saw a woman in the car who appeared to have a head injury? I'll admit the NC part of the story is strange, but there are parts of it that could have some validity, especially if the perp was someone Mary knew from her hometown.

Cambria said:

You know I thought about that...that she never left Atlanta and whatever happened to her just happened there and the NC story was to throw investigators off the trail. But one of the things that I keep thinking about is the fact that she got those phone calls before her abduction, and that she told the person on the other end of the line that she was married now and couldn't see them. That made me think that maybe it was someone from NC who knew or even dated her before she was married and possibly still wanted a relationship with her. And didn't a gas station attendant in NC say that he saw a woman in the car who appeared to have a head injury? I'll admit the NC part of the story is strange, but there are parts of it that could have some validity, especially if the perp was someone Mary knew from her hometown.

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Because Mary's parents identified her signature on the gasoline charge slips in Charlotte and Raleigh, I think her abductor did take her to North Carolina. But I agree with you on the ex-boyfriend theory - based on the threatening phone call ("I'm a married woman now; I can't visit you"), the flowers sent to her office, her unusual anxiety just prior to the abduction, all lead me to conclude Mary was being threatened by a man she had been romantically involved with before her marriage the previous month.

Mary's secrecy - she apparently didn't tell anyone any specific details - the identity of the caller, the sender of the flowers, the reason she was suddenly anxious and afraid to be alone - lead me to conclude Mary had some shame or guilt about her past relationship with this man. If he had simply been an ex-boyfriend, wouldn't she have complained to her confidantes about his behavior and talked about him by name?

News articles say Mary talked to her mother and her sister regularly by telephone, discussing even confidential issues related to her job at C&S Bank. Mary was well liked and apparently had many close friends she could have confided in - friends who had been her roommates in Atlanta and North Carolina, long-time friends who had gone to college with her in NC and then lived with her in Atlanta after college, friends at work.

Her secrecy and her silence about her stalker indicate to me, Mary had some shame or guilt about the relationship with this man that kept her from discussing him and his increasingly threatening behavior with anyone. Was he a married man from North Carolina or a man Mary became involved with after her move to Atlanta?

I can't know - but his elaborate plan to lead police to NC by placing Mary in a car (with the stolen tag) on the night and day after her kidnapping, all while somehow having Mary's car returned to the parking lot at Lenox Square, point to a very organized, dangerous man who planned his crime carefully. This was not a crime of opportunity. This man enlisted the help of two other men (the second man identified in the car by two NC gas station attendants and a third man who was able to drive Mary's car back to Lenox between early Friday morning (when Lenox Security searched and reported Mary's car was not in the Lenox parking lot) and midday on Friday when it was discovered in the parking spot where she had said goodbye to her friend Isla Thursday night. Remember, by midday on Friday, October 15, 1965, Mary had already signed one credit card slip in Charlotte late Thursday night or early Friday morning - she also signed a second credit card receipt in Raleigh hours later on Friday.

In summary, Mary's abductor was a powerful man, probably an ex-lover, probably married (or in some other way unsuitable for a public relationship), who frightened and intimidated her for weeks before he kidnapped her. He was clever and bold. He was able to enlist at least two accomplices - who have not spoken out or incriminated him so far as we know.

The abductor's likely motive - vengance, a need to control (kidnap, hurt, and perhaps kill) a woman who had scorned him by marrying another man six weeks earlier. A woman who by her actions and words was rejecting him further by refusing to continue to see him once she had married Roy Little.
By all this evidence, there are several persons who, if still living, have knowledge that could resolve this case. They could speak up for Mary Wallace Shotwell Little now and finally (after 44 years) give Mary and her family some measure of peace and justice. I pray they will come forward.

Well heck, it sounds like you have it all wrapped up. It really really seems to make sense to me that this is what happened. Now if only someone would just talk!

ncthom said:

Because Mary's parents identified her signature on the gasoline charge slips in Charlotte and Raleigh, I think her abductor did take her to North Carolina. But I agree with you on the ex-boyfriend theory - based on the threatening phone call ("I'm a married woman now; I can't visit you"), the flowers sent to her office, her unusual anxiety just prior to the abduction, all lead me to conclude Mary was being threatened by a man she had been romantically involved with before her marriage the previous month.

Mary's secrecy - she apparently didn't tell anyone any specific details - the identity of the caller, the sender of the flowers, the reason she was suddenly anxious and afraid to be alone - lead me to conclude Mary had some shame or guilt about her past relationship with this man. If he had simply been an ex-boyfriend, wouldn't she have complained to her confidantes about his behavior and talked about him by name?

News articles say Mary talked to her mother and her sister regularly by telephone, discussing even confidential issues related to her job at C&S Bank. Mary was well liked and apparently had many close friends she could have confided in - friends who had been her roommates in Atlanta and North Carolina, long-time friends who had gone to college with her in NC and then lived with her in Atlanta after college, friends at work.

Her secrecy and her silence about her stalker indicate to me, Mary had some shame or guilt about the relationship with this man that kept her from discussing him and his increasingly threatening behavior with anyone. Was he a married man from North Carolina or a man Mary became involved with after her move to Atlanta?

I can't know - but his elaborate plan to lead police to NC by placing Mary in a car (with the stolen tag) on the night and day after her kidnapping, all while somehow having Mary's car returned to the parking lot at Lenox Square, point to a very organized, dangerous man who planned his crime carefully. This was not a crime of opportunity. This man enlisted the help of two other men (the second man identified in the car by two NC gas station attendants and a third man who was able to drive Mary's car back to Lenox between early Friday morning (when Lenox Security searched and reported Mary's car was not in the Lenox parking lot) and midday on Friday when it was discovered in the parking spot where she had said goodbye to her friend Isla Thursday night. Remember, by midday on Friday, October 15, 1965, Mary had already signed one credit card slip in Charlotte late Thursday night or early Friday morning - she also signed a second credit card receipt in Raleigh hours later on Friday.

In summary, Mary's abductor was a powerful man, probably an ex-lover, probably married (or in some other way unsuitable for a public relationship), who frightened and intimidated her for weeks before he kidnapped her. He was clever and bold. He was able to enlist at least two accomplices - who have not spoken out or incriminated him so far as we know.

The abductor's likely motive - vengance, a need to control (kidnap, hurt, and perhaps kill) a woman who had scorned him by marrying another man six weeks earlier. A woman who by her actions and words was rejecting him further by refusing to continue to see him once she had married Roy Little.
By all this evidence, there are several persons who, if still living, have knowledge that could resolve this case. They could speak up for Mary Wallace Shotwell Little now and finally (after 44 years) give Mary and her family some measure of peace and justice. I pray they will come forward.

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ncthom, that makes a lot of sense to me. I still think those phone calls were worth investigating further and I don't think they were taken seriously enough at the time. When I read about those phone calls, it stood out like a sore thumb to me. And you're right, there may have been something kind of illicit in the relationship between Mary and whoever made those calls, which was the reason she never shared details about them with anyone. I think they were so focused on Mary's husband, because he acted kind of odd, that they didn't think outside the box and look much further into those phone calls

Everything about this is just so odd, including the similar murder of Diane Shields later, and the fact that she worked at the same bank Mary did. Some investigators were positive the cases were connected. I feel it's too much of a coincidence myself but I just don't know what to believe regarding Diane's murder and Mary's disappearance. Another thing I find strange is only 2 years after Mary went missing, Mary's mother called one of the detectives working on the case, C.J. Strickland, and told him they didn't want the case investigated anymore. Strickland was baffled by this and thought maybe the Shotwells had heard from Mary and wanted the FBI to tap their phone lines, but the FBI declined. But I've also read that Mary's mother kept in contact with one of the investigators for years afterwards so who knows what to believe.

I found a blog called Georgia Mysteries and someone just wrote about Mary on 2/14/09, including the story about Mary's mother calling off the search. I think it's all been discussed before but it's still kind of interesting to read. Here's the link. Mary's story is the third one down.

http://georgiamysteries.blogspot.com/

Has anyone seen an age progression photo of Mary? If it is possible she is still alive no one would recognize her.

meachchar said:

Has anyone seen an age progression photo of Mary? If it is possible she is still alive no one would recognize her.

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I am so happy to see this case here on WS! I once read about it when we considered a move to Buckhead and I was googling and up pops this case.

I think an age progression photo is an excellent idea!!!

This case gives me chills and is one of the ones that makes me scared to be home alone. I have read halfway through the thread but I would like to finish reading before I completely comment.