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

[MaryLiz]

I always believed Mary did know who sent her the flowers - IF she knew the identity of her stalker, or at least she had an idea who it was. Someone could have been stalking her anonomously, but from the conversations she had with this person on the phone, telling him she was married and couldn't really meet him anywhere, I felt she knew who it was. I always thought it was someone from her past in NC, and then started believing it was someone who worked at the bank because of the Diane Shields murder. But I also agree with Princess Rose that it could have been a customer as well.

 

[Lyn1001]

In regards to the five roses, what if that is all the person was able to afford? Since the person paid in cash, that may be the only cash the person had on them, or all they could afford and still have enough for whatever else they needed.

 

[Balthazar]

Yes, I agree, the 5 roses may or may not have meant something. 5 roses is not an extravagant gift - that is what is interesting to me about it. With a stalker, the gifts are often out of proportion to the relationship. To me it indicates that the stalker either had limited funds to spend or knew the meaning of 5 roses.

Clearly there was an emotional connection to the underwear, girdle and slip that was carefully rolled up and put between the seats - perhaps due to shame for the sex crime committed? Yet the black bra and cut stocking were left out for all to see - which in the early 1960's would be an unusual thing to see. Perhaps the black bra was left out for either shock value or it held some other significance. I would really like to know if the rest of Mary's underwear were black and if that really was her bra or not.

I considered that Mary was a newlywed - but remember many of her friends didn't attend her wedding because they didn't like her husband - so I'm not so sure that she was given a bridal shower, let alone a bachelorette type thing or lingerie by her friends. It seems to me, at the time I and my friends were getting married - back in the late 1970's through mid 1980's lingerie showers were only starting to become popular and they were still pretty tame compared to what goes on nowadays. I would really like to know exactly how Mary got a black bra. Did she buy it, was it a gift, if so, from whom or was it even hers in the first place?

 

[ncthom]

Clearly there was an emotional connection to the underwear, girdle and slip that was carefully rolled up and put between the seats - perhaps due to shame for the sex crime committed? Yet the black bra and cut stocking were left out for all to see - which in the early 1960's would be an unusual thing to see. Perhaps the black bra was left out for either shock value or it held some other significance. I would really like to know if the rest of Mary's underwear were black and if that really was her bra or not.

I'm fascinated by this discussion of the undergarments and the placement of them in Mary's car for two reasons - first, I had never even considered their significance and secondly, I think they do give us clues about the perpetrator and perhaps about Mary.

According to a friend of Mary's I've spoken with who graduated from Myers Park High School with her, Mary appears to have come from a comfortable middle-class to upper-middle class family background. Although by today’s standards the Shotwell family home appears modest in contrast to the much larger homes since built around it, Myers Park was (in the 1950s) and remains today one of Charlotte's most affluent neighborhoods.

I cannot know for sure the Shotwell family's financial situation but by all appearances, they were very comfortable. Mary attended and graduated from UNC Greensboro. Her younger sister graduated from Wake Forest University. I accept your premise that black bra was unusual and somewhat difficult to find in 1965. Does it mean Mary had planned a liaison with someone on that Thursday and she took special care in choosing her lingerie? Her husband Roy Little had been out of town since Monday and was not expected back until Friday afternoon. I cannot come up with any sort of answer to that one.

What I think is more revealing is the way Mary's abductor apparently forced her to remove these intimate articles of underclothing and carefully placed them in the car; some of the garments neatly folded on the console between the seats and the black bra behind the seat as I recall. It suggests to me a scenario of escalating control and violence, such as what might precede a rape or sexual attack.

I also agree with your suggestion that the perp very intentionally placed the undergarments in the car knowing they'd be found. And knowing they would compound the shock and horror of the crime scene for Mary's friends and family. This reminds me of the "souvenirs" some serial killers and rapists keep from their crimes - except instead of keeping the undergarments or disposing of them (which certainly would've been easy enough). He staged a scene in the car with Mary's undergarments and with the blood. It also harks back to the Boston Strangler murders where the killer (or killers) would carefully stage each scene to degrade the victim and further shock and horrify the person or persons who discovered body.

I sincerely wish a professional criminal profiler or forensic psychologist would review this case and come up with a detailed profile of the perp. Until then, IMO, we are looking for someone who was comfortable with intimate violence (and who may have had a history of violence with women); he was apparently in very close proximity to Mary (in the confines of the rather small Mercury Comet) when he committed these acts. In other words, he was not the sort to shoot or violate a victim from a distance in some other way and then run away.

Also if the psychic's impressions are correct, the man who did this to Mary was experiencing a rapid escalation of violent, anti-social behavior in 1965. He went from a crush on Mary, to following her, to stalking her, to sending her threatening, inappropriate gifts (the roses), and maybe even to making threatening phone calls to her.

More and more, I’m convinced this man's crimes did not end with Mary. Diane Shields was also surely his victim. By strangling Diane and stuffing her own scarf into her mouth, he repeated the pattern of up-close, intimate violence. By stashing Diane's body in the trunk of her car with the scarf stuffed in her mouth next to the Betty Crocker cookbook, he repeated the pattern of staging a shocking scene and further degrading his victim.

Someone knows this man or at the very least, suspects what he has done – I want them to come forward.

 

[Balthazar]

Just some more meandering thoughts on the case:

Her supposed underwear, slip and girdle is rolled up between the seats. Her bra and a cut piece of stocking is on the floorboard - either the passenger side or driver side because when you look at the crimescene photos, the grocery bags are on the floor of the backseat. But these things were missing:

Her car keys. Her John Romain handbag. Her flats, white London Fog raincoat and olive-green sheath dress printed with white flowers.

So she took off her underwear but somehow the shoes, dress, coat and handbag are missing. So did the perp rape her and then allow her to put these items back on but not the underwear and bra? If the perp wanted to hide what he did, why return any of the items? If the underwear and bra were trophies, why not take those? Did the perp take her clothes, shoes and handbag, but leave the underwear, girdle, slip and bra?

We know the perp had to have her car keys to drive her car back to Lennox mall.

The black bra is unusual for the period - was it even hers?

The underwear had been recently worn.

And her car reappears with different tags which indicates to me that someone initially planned to use her car and then decided to dump it back at the mall. But why the change of plans? Her disappearance was not in the news yet and they left town - so people in other towns wouldn't be looking for her car - they would look for her car in Atlanta - not Charlotte. So why the car switcharoo after going to the trouble to change the plates? Why return the car at all?

 

[MaryLiz]

Talking about the black bra in 1965 got me thinking, so I did a little research. From my own memory, my mother and other relatives all wore white underwear and bras. But I do remember a neighor girl who was about 4 years old than me (I was 12 in 1965) having a black bra sometime in the 1960s. I can't recall exactly when, though. It might have been more around '67 or '68. I thought it was so cool that she had one. I posted a link below to a website with some vintage bra ads. The first ad on the left at the top shows a model wearing a white bra. But the ad was from 1954 and says toward the bottom that the bra was offered in 2 colors, white and black. I think they were actually around for a while by 1965, but most people who lived in conservative areas such as Atlanta probably still wore predominantly white. These ads show black bras had been around at LEAST since the 50s, maybe even sooner. So it may not have been that unusual for Mary to be wearing a black bra by 1965. It didn't really go with her dress pattern, olive green with white flowers, but maybe she had just gotten it and liked it because it was black and would have been unusual to be wearing back then.

http://www.fashion-flashbacks.com/bra-ads.html

 

[Stella]

I remember back in the mid 60's, black or red brassieres and panties were considered "racy".

 

[txsvicki]

I googled Mary's name and read in a few places that the underwear was folded neatly and sitting on the console of the vehicle. Was this a mistake? If not, then it could have a different meaning. Mary could have been ordered to take them off while riding and was so upset that she folded them herself, but after what I read I sort of suspect her husband more than anything else. Mary told friends she had something to tell them and the detective definitely didn't like the husband saying "There's something off about that boy". I can't help but wonder if Mary thought she was, or was pregnant and he pulled a Scott Peterson.

 

[ncthom]

And her car reappears with different tags which indicates to me that someone initially planned to use her car and then decided to dump it back at the mall. But why the change of plans? Her disappearance was not in the news yet and they left town - so people in other towns wouldn't be looking for her car - they would look for her car in Atlanta - not Charlotte. So why the car switcharoo after going to the trouble to change the plates? Why return the car at all?

The stolen car tag has become an issue of confusion and some newspaper accounts appear to contradict each other about which car had the stolen tag. I'd like to know what you all think but here's my theory after re-reading several of the newspaper articles.

Mary's gasoline credit card was used on Friday, October 15th in Charlotte and then about ten hours later in Raleigh, NC. The standard practice in 1965 (when the credit charge process was not automated and had no immediate verifications) was for the merchant to take a manual imprint of the card, write the tag number of the car on the receipt and get the signature of the cardholder. When these charges came to the attention of law enforcement several weeks after the abduction, they reviewed the charge slips and found the same tag number: the car tag (on the unknown car carrying Mary and her captors). That tag number from the gas charge slips turned out to be a stolen tag that had been reported stolen from the Charlotte area earlier in the month of October - so the tag number on the charge slips was a dead end to police in tracing the car to any particular individual.

Some newspaper reports state or imply that when Mary's car, the 1965 Mercury Comet, was found returned to the parking lot at Lenox Square around mid-day on Friday, it had a stolen tag. I think that's incorrect and just sloppy reporting on the part of some newspaper writers who were getting their information from wire service reports. As I understand it, when Mary's car was returned to Lenox, it had the correct tag on it.

The significance I think is that the stolen tag on the "get away" car, the car used to transport Mary to North Carolina, indicates complex planning and pre-meditation on the part of her abductor. He had planned the trip to NC in advance to lead police on a wild goose chase away from Atlanta - to implicate someone from Mary's NC past. And he had gotten a stolen car tag to prevent police from tracing the car he was transporting Mary in.

If this is so, it confirms this was not a random kidnapping, Mary was targeted. And as the psychic intuitive suggested, this obsessed man started planning weeks, maybe months, in advance to take Mary and he began collecting things - the stolen car tag and maybe even the black bra (who knows).

If these assumptions are correct, I'm thinking this guy was really confident to the point of arrogance. And as I think about my time working at C&S - the folks who worked in the Bank Security department were always extremely arrogant (sort of like campus police or mall cops) - they had a tremendous amount of power within the bank (to investigate any employee at any time) and in the banking community. They worked closely with local law enforcement. And maybe most importantly, they had access to any information about any bank employee (such as what credit cards Mary had, her home address, SSN, etc) they desired.

Just sort of a random thought about the perp being someone from C&S Bank Security but I'm interested to know how you all interpret the stolen car tag issue.

 

[Balthazar]

It is intriguing to me that the stolen tag was from Charlotte - Mary's hometown. It makes me wonder if the kidnapper/killer was someone she had known for a quite a while.

 

[MaryLiz]

It is intriguing to me that the stolen tag was from Charlotte - Mary's hometown. It makes me wonder if the kidnapper/killer was someone she had known for a quite a while.

That's why I believed for so long that this was someone from NC who committed this crime...because of the plate that was stolen there and allegedly put on the Comet. I'm still not sure about it, but I've leaned more toward it being someone from Atlanta or the bank because of the Diane Shields murder.

Did they really put Little's original tag back on the car before leaving it at the Lenox shopping center? It doesn't really say in the article that was in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution from 2004. I posted that article sometime ago, but I decided to reread it today. A couple things jumped out at me. One was LE's opinion that the amount of blood discovered in the car was smeared around to suggest a more serious injury.

"There was something about the scene that didn't add up, the crime technicians thought. Bill Moore of the identification unit wondered if the smearing hadn't been a ploy to exaggerate the amount of blood. Larry Howard of the state crime lab seemed to agree, telling Moore that despite the gory display, there was no more blood than you'd get from a nosebleed." From the AJC 3/20/04 (link provided below)

That makes me think that if she was murdered, it didn't happen in the car. I've even thought, what if in some bizarre twist, she IS still alive or was kept alive for some time afterwards by her kidnapper? You read about people who are abducted and held for years and either they are eventually murdered or at some point they manage to get away. After all this time, I'm sure that's not the case. But what if she was kept alive for a long time afterwards?

About the roses, in this article it said she received a dozen roses at her apartment that same week.

"Then there were the dozen roses Little received at her apartment that week. She hadn't mentioned them to her husband. No card was ever found, and the florist had no record or memory of the sender. Police wondered if a stalker was afoot. Or whether she had heard from an earlier boyfriend or secret admirer. After all, she had just been married." From AJC 3/20/04 (link provided below)

I don't know if they have their facts mixed up on the roses or what. Now I'm wondering how many she actually did receive.

Here's the link to the original story from the AJC in 2004. It was interesting to reread it. I had forgotten many things that were in the article.

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

 

[ncthom]

That's why I believed for so long that this was someone from NC who committed this crime...because of the plate that was stolen there and allegedly put on the Comet. I'm still not sure about it, but I've leaned more toward it being someone from Atlanta or the bank because of the Diane Shields murder.

Did they really put Little's original tag back on the car before leaving it at the Lenox shopping center? It doesn't really say in the article that was in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution from 2004. I posted that article sometime ago, but I decided to reread it today. A couple things jumped out at me. One was LE's opinion that the amount of blood discovered in the car was smeared around to suggest a more serious injury.

"There was something about the scene that didn't add up, the crime technicians thought. Bill Moore of the identification unit wondered if the smearing hadn't been a ploy to exaggerate the amount of blood. Larry Howard of the state crime lab seemed to agree, telling Moore that despite the gory display, there was no more blood than you'd get from a nosebleed." From the AJC 3/20/04 (link provided below)

What I'm saying about the tag is that the tag on Mary's Mercury Comet was never tampered with - all the confusion about the stolen tag, I think, comes from the report of the stolen tag on the unidentified car at the NC gas stations that Mary and her captor(s) were riding in. I believe some news reports may have referred to a stolen tag on the Comet in error. As someone pointed out in an earlier post, there was never any reason to change the tag on the Comet - by Friday when the search began in earnest for Mary - her car was sitting in the Lenox Square parking lot - in approximately the same spot where it had been parked the previous night.

The only changes to Mary's Mercury Comet were an unexplained additional 41 miles on the odometer (calculated from the daily mileage log that Mary and Roy kept), a fine coating of red dust on the exterior of the Comet (such as might accumulate from driving on a dirt road), and the interior evidence: the smeared blood, some dried grass, and Mary's undergarments (which are alternately described as rolled or folded, depending on which sources you read).

But having read so much over time, I sometimes get facts confused - if you all find any reliable source saying the tag found on the Mercury Comet was a stolen tag, please let me know.

It is very helpful sometimes to go back and reread original source material. I had forgotten that the roses were delivered to Mary's apartment in Decatur. And as with many of the other details of this case, that fact raises other questions in my mind. Was that the only delivery of roses Mary got? Did he send them to her home to avoid a possible link with the bank?

My theories have evolved over time and that's probably a good thing - once you become fixated on a particular theory of the crime, it's difficult to keep an open mind and continue to explore new facts.

My take on the NC stolen tag, however, is that the man who did this crime was so calculating, clever, and bold that he intentionally got a stolen tag from the Charlotte area for the same reason he drove Mary to North Carolina and used her personal credit card to charge only a modest amount of gasoline - to create the important illusion that someone from NC (not Atlanta, GA) was responsible for this crime. For a crime that was this carefully planned, it would have a simple matter for this man to drive to Charlotte a week or so before the kidnapping, take a car tag from a car in a crowded parking lot, bring it back to Atlanta, and hold onto it until he needed it.

 

[txsvicki]

This case has so many odd twists and turns. An abductor takes Mary in a vehicle all the way to Charlotte then ends up driving back to the mall with a blood stain on the passenger window and smears on the seats. For some reason he wanted to get the car back to the mall and never cleaned it up before returning. Even driving with a blood smear on the steering wheel. Only putting gas on the credit card and not charging it up with anything else is odd too. The whole thing does seem like a set up, but why. Why on earth would some weird stalker or even a hired killer do those things. Once Mary signed the charge slip (if she really did) they'd know she was in N.C. Why bother to bring the car back.

 

[MaryLiz]

What I'm saying about the tag is that the tag on Mary's Mercury Comet was never tampered with - all the confusion about the stolen tag, I think, comes from the report of the stolen tag on the unidentified car at the NC gas stations that Mary and her captor(s) were riding in. I believe some news reports may have referred to a stolen tag on the Comet in error. As someone pointed out in an earlier post, there was never any reason to change the tag on the Comet - by Friday when the search began in earnest for Mary - her car was sitting in the Lenox Square parking lot - in approximately the same spot where it had been parked the previous night.

The only changes to Mary's Mercury Comet were an unexplained additional 41 miles on the odometer (calculated from the daily mileage log that Mary and Roy kept), a fine coating of red dust on the exterior of the Comet (such as might accumulate from driving on a dirt road), and the interior evidence: the smeared blood, some dried grass, and Mary's undergarments (which are alternately described as rolled or folded, depending on which sources you read).

But having read so much over time, I sometimes get facts confused - if you all find any reliable source saying the tag found on the Mercury Comet was a stolen tag, please let me know.

It is very helpful sometimes to go back and reread original source material. I had forgotten that the roses were delivered to Mary's apartment in Decatur. And as with many of the other details of this case, that fact raises other questions in my mind. Was that the only delivery of roses Mary got? Did he send them to her home to avoid a possible link with the bank?

My theories have evolved over time and that's probably a good thing - once you become fixated on a particular theory of the crime, it's difficult to keep an open mind and continue to explore new facts.

My take on the NC stolen tag, however, is that the man who did this crime was so calculating, clever, and bold that he intentionally got a stolen tag from the Charlotte area for the same reason he drove Mary to North Carolina and used her personal credit card to charge only a modest amount of gasoline - to create the important illusion that someone from NC (not Atlanta, GA) was responsible for this crime. For a crime that was this carefully planned, it would have a simple matter for this man to drive to Charlotte a week or so before the kidnapping, take a car tag from a car in a crowded parking lot, bring it back to Atlanta, and hold onto it until he needed it.

Sorry ncthom, I meant to mention that in my previous post about the crime being planned but I was in a hurry when I posted it. I totally agree with you that the crime seems to have been planned well in advance. It does say something about the stolen NC tag in the AJC article I posted above, but not much. And you're right, it never says anything about the tag still being on the car when it was found at Lenox.

I agree with what txsvicki said above, there are so many odd turns in this case. Whoever planned this certainly seemed to be in a match of wits with LE, and the perp (s) obviously won. Even though I believe Mary's disappearance and Diane's murder are somehow connected, I still haven't ruled out the possibility of this being done by someone Mary knew from NC. I haven't read anywhere about a previous boyfriend of Mary's from North Carolina. I wish we knew more about her previous life there.

Does anyone know if Mary's sister is still in NC? I would like to hear what she has to say about this. To my knowledge, she has never spoken publicly about her sister's disappearance. She probably is the only family member of Mary's who is still alive. I can't find an obit for her mother so she may still be alive, but would probably be in her mid-90s by now.

 

[ncthom]

Mary's sister is still alive and living in the Greenville, SC area as far as I know. Mary's mother Margaret would be 93 years old and I'm really uncertain if she's living or not

Mrs. Shotwell left the Charlotte area sometime after her husband’s death in 1979 and moved to South Carolina also. She apparently lived in a small town near Greenville until about 2002. I haven’t been able to find a record of her since then, nor have I found a record of her death. She may be living in some sort assisted living facility or the family may have chosen not to publish an obituary.

The research I’ve done, with the intention of writing a free-lance article, has involved contacting Mary’s friends from high school and college – I’m reluctant to approach her family. Most of Mary’s friends I’ve contacted have been willing to talk and share information about Mary. The picture I’ve gotten of Mary from her high school and college years is fairly consistent. She was considered very friendly, tall, slim, and attractive, though not the Homecoming Queen or the class beauty. She was a good student, well-behaved and well-liked, but in some aspects considered average in the very large and competitive high school she went to – Myers Park High School is consistently rated one of the top high schools in the nation.

None of Mary’s friends remember Mary having a boyfriend while she was in high school – she dated on occasion but never developed a relationship with any of the boys she dated. She was outgoing and personable and involved in a variety of activities. As I mentioned in an earlier post, her best friend from high school was Janet Hawkins who died several years ago and I was never able to speak to her.

As the Atlanta JC article mentions, Mary wanted to move to NYC after college but her parents were concerned it would to be too dangerous (tragic irony, huh?) Instead after college graduation, she moved to a triplex in the Emory area of Atlanta she shared with a number of roommates for approximately 2. 5 years until she married Roy Little in September of 1965. Mary appears to have gone to work at C&S bank fairly soon after she arrived in Atlanta in mid to late 1962.

I think some of the dislike of Roy Little by Mary’s friends has been exaggerated. Some of Mary’s friends and roommates did not like Roy Little. He was considered aloof. He came from a military background and could be rigid and unapproachable. On the other hand, those I knew who worked with him at the Department of Banking, spoke of him as likeable and hard working. And many of Mary’s friends did go to their wedding and some were even part of the wedding party.

Anyway, that’s probably far more than you wanted to know but thanks for letting me share my information.

 

[Balthazar]

I also agree that this was a well planned crime and that Mary was being stalked. There is too much evidence that points to that conclusion.

We don't know for sure if that black bra belonged to Mary or if it was bought by the perp to play out some sort of fantasy. It is also interesting, there was part of a carefully cut stocking, but what of the other stocking and the rest of the cut one? Why were Mary's clothes, coat, shoes and purse missing, but not her underwear? Was she raped and allowed to get dressed again? Why didn't the gas station attendants call police when they saw the bloody woman with two men? It's a very strange story.

 

[MaryLiz]

ncthom, Thanks for the info. It actually wasn't more than I wanted to know because I still want to know more..lol. I understand your hesitancy to contact her family. They went through something very painful that most of us don't understand and maybe they received closure in their own way years ago, and don't really want to talk about it. You can't blame them. I'm glad you were able to talk with some of Mary's friends. I never really suspected Roy Little, and didn't think he was as bad as some reports made him out to be. I think LE was just frustrated with him and his perceived indifference to the whole situation. That's one thing about LE that sometimes bothers me. There is no "textbook" way that people react when they have a loved one go missing. I think LE thinks many times if you don't act a certain way when you get the bad news, then you must be guilty of something. While that's true in some cases, I never thought it was true in this situation. People act according to their emotions and not the way LE thinks they should.

Thanks again for sharing your info.

 

[ncthom]

Thanks to you, Cambria, WholeLottaRosie, and the others of you who've shared here. When I started on this project a couple years ago, I had no plans other than to satisfy my own curiousity about this case that had haunted me since I was a child. I've been alternately terrified and eager to write an article about Mary with the hope that somehow it would move this case forward again.

Through the process of posting on this and other boards, I've come to realize how invested I've become in having a different version of Mary's story told - one that makes her seem more human, that focuses more on her life and the person she was (the woman who was eager to volunteer for the Red Cross and work with children), not just the sensational, speculative details that surround her disappearance.

And I have to say, talking with Mary's friends and classmates helped my attitude as much as anything. This project feels less about providing a definitive solution to this crime now, and more about providing some new insights that allow people to see Mary in a different way, as more than just another victim. Her high school class recently celebrated their 50th anniversary and those I've emailed and talked with have been very generous in sharing information with me.

Each of her classmates I've been in touch with who remembers Mary, it was class of over 300 students, speak of her fondly and in the context of the happiness of their high school experience. While they acknowledge her loss, I feel they're remembering Mary as she was in 1958. They are as interested in telling me about their good high school memories, such as thier unmarried English teacher who was so strict with them but so determined to see each one of them succeed, as they are in telling the details about Mary. They talk about MPHS as a place where the standards were very high but where they felt supported and had a sense of cooperation with each other rather than competition. I think it's important to see Mary that way, as a young woman who was cared for and had a very meaningful life before this tragedy happened. I suppose what they've given me is some perspective.

Of course, I'd still like to see the guilty person(s) brought to justice and held accountable for what he or they did to Mary in October 1965. And I feel talking and writing about the case may be the best way to help make that happeen.

But somehow it's easier for me to accept what happened, even if Mary's final hours were as painful and brutal as we might imagine, when I remind myself the person who did this to Mary did not have the power to take away all those good things in her life. It's a glimpse of poweful goodness hidden within this tragedy I never expected to find. But I'm reassured that in spite of the evil and the tragedy, the good things are still very real and very lasting.

 

[ncthom]

Here's a website with some interesting photos related to Mary Shotwell's life in Atlanta - the apartment Mary shared with Roy Little just prior to her disappearance, the C&S Bank Office on Mitchell Street where she worked, and other photos.

http://www.angelfire.c/weird2/georgia/page4.html

You'll have to scroll about three quarters of the way down the page to find the photos or just do a Ctl F search for Mary's name. There's also a short summary of the major facts of the story.

 

[Balthazar]

Wait a minute. I just thought of something that could be really important. Mary didn't come into work, so her boss' first move was to call the security department at Lennox mall where she was last seen the night before to check for her car? He didn't have police check her apartment? Why would he do that?

My husband once had an employee who didn't come into work and didn't call. They rang his apartment and he didn't answer the phone. The next day, same deal, so my husband called the police and asked them to check on him. They found the man dead - he had untreated diabetes. But notice, my husband didn't call where the man was last seen - he called his home. That's what I would expect a normal employer to do. So what's with Mary's boss calling the mall security?

And then, to top it off, the boss drives over to mall around noon and finds Mary's car himself and tells police about what is obviously a very staged situation with her car. Does this sound strange to any of you? I'd like to know if he went to Mary's house first.