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The case of Mary Shotwell Little is among one of Georgia's more prominent unsolved missing person cases. Mary mysterious vanished one evening in October, 1965 after having dinner with a friend/co-worker at a cafeteria in a shopping mall. Mary Shotwell had been married for only six weeks when she disappeared. Her car was found the next afternoon in the mall parking lot, with groceries in the back seat and women's undergarments on the front seat or dashboard--those undergarments turned out to be hers, with one stocking cut open.
No body was ever found nor any of her other personal items she had been known to be carrying that night. It was later found her has credit card had been used twice in one day, October 15--the day after she went missing. It was used in Charlotte, NC and then later the same day in Raleigh, NC; the signature on the credit card receipts on file at both stations were authenticated to be Mary's own.
The murder of a woman of around the same age as Mary occurred in May, 1967. Her body was found in the trunk of her own car, and she had worked for the same bank as Mary. Aside from that, there were some other very curious coincidences. It has long been theorized to be connected to the Littke case in some way. A very mysterious case indeed.
Here are a few links that explain the Mary Little case in detail:
The murder of a woman of around the same age as Mary occurred in May, 1967. Her body was found in the trunk of her own car, and she had worked for the same bank as Mary. Aside from that, there were some other very curious coincidences. It has long been theorized to be connected to the Littke case in some way. A very mysterious case indeed.
Going to start reading through your links now, because my curiosity is piqued by your description.. But..
First thing I wanted to get at here was the above.. Too often, I think, people try to connect cases together and overlook evidence because of it. I hate seeing things like this because it always concerns me that investigators wind up with tunnel vision, focused on connecting two cases together.
1965, remember, that credit cards were far different than today. All there was were the 'chunk-chunk' machines. Signature authenticated isn't for certain, but.. I think it's good enough to assume it was her.
so.. Then we go kidnapping or disappearing herself? It's not unreasonable to think of her being so scared by a kidnapper that she puts charges on her card and comes back to him.
Charlotte and Raleigh, though.. Again, going to start reading through your links.. That's not a tank of gas to get between those cities. Why the next day in Charlotte? That's about a 3.5 to 4 hour drive from Atlanta.
Anyway, let me read your links before speculating anymore.
Going to start reading through your links now, because my curiosity is piqued by your description.. But..
First thing I wanted to get at here was the above.. Too often, I think, people try to connect cases together and overlook evidence because of it. I hate seeing things like this because it always concerns me that investigators wind up with tunnel vision, focused on connecting two cases together.
1965, remember, that credit cards were far different than today. All there was were the 'chunk-chunk' machines. Signature authenticated isn't for certain, but.. I think it's good enough to assume it was her.
so.. Then we go kidnapping or disappearing herself? It's not unreasonable to think of her being so scared by a kidnapper that she puts charges on her card and comes back to him.
Charlotte and Raleigh, though.. Again, going to start reading through your links.. That's not a tank of gas to get between those cities. Why the next day in Charlotte? That's about a 3.5 to 4 hour drive from Atlanta.
Anyway, let me read your links before speculating anymore.
My initial description of this case is quite basic--it's actually a pretty complicated case once all of the available details are laid out. The general consensus by modern investigators of this case is that either the original 1965-66 investigation was bungled or not thorough enough.
The old case file reveals a number of missed opportunities and loose ends.
As for the second murder of 1967---that too is simply what some investigators thought back then, and even today, that they were somehow connected (the links provide more details on this--again, quite complex). Though I certainly agree that investigator tunnel vision can lead to a case getting really messed up.
Most of the original case file made by Atlanta PD back in 1965 for the Mary Little case had been long thought to be missing--until about five years ago, when the rest of the missing file, some 500-plus pages, was located at a law firm that handled a lawsuit brought by a family of a man who had been considered a suspect in the Little disappearance (more in the 4th link).
Only after the rest of the file was found was much light shed on this old case. All of the physical evidence collected from the Little case had been lost by the early 1970s it seems, though many people are still alive who were connected to the case, including some of Mary's coworkers at the bank.
Last edited by Austin023; 05-26-2017 at 12:20 PM..
The second.. better.. So, something I missed from your post is that her car was found in the original mall in Atlanta.. I guess I read it too quick, I thought her car was found in NC. Bloodstains in the car. Now, I read that, and I'm thinking large amounts of blood.. But.. We don't have details of that.
Quote:
Both places reported seeing a disheveled woman matching Mary’s description who seemed to have a minor head injury and was in the company of two domineering men.
So, that is about the CC.. Both places it was used.. Seemed to be her. Matching descriptions, so that gives credibility. No mention of what they were driving.. Ah.. that link has photos of the car.. Oh.. They're 1965 style photos.. Worthless.
I wonder if any of her family is still alive and if they've done DNA.. This smells like one of those cases where a "Jane Doe" was found dead and never connected to this case.
If you're kidnapping someone, and you return the car.. Wouldn't you clean up the bloodstains? And why leave the underwear? That part doesn't make any sense to me. I don't think the car ever left.. I think the maintenance guys never looked for it, or legit never found it.
About Mary's car: when it was found in the mall parking lot the following afternoon, it had a film of reddish dust on it, as if it had been driven on a dirt road. The soil in the northern Georgia area tends to be a reddish clay.
What was really bizarre was the fact the license plate on the car had been changed: it had a NC tag on it that didn't correspond to her make/model year (Mary's car was a 1965 Mercury, metallic grayish white).
When the car odometer was compared to a travel log Mary and her husband kept, there was an additional 41 miles unaccounted for---(though less rememver, back then those odometers were easy to disconnect, then reconnect)...in any case, 41 miles is not nearly enough to drive to Charlotte and Raleigh from Atlanta. The gas station attendants couldn't recall exactly what kind of car the woman was with--only that a woman similar in appearance to Mary was seen at those gas stations where her card had been used--and that two middle aged men were with her, outside.
The car had not been seen in the initial search for Mary in the morning when she didn't show for work. Some investigators insist the car had been driven away and later returned to the lot. Why else would the plates be changed?
As for DNA comparison to Mary's blood relatives, I have never seen anything to indicate that, though I think it would be a very good idea. It's very possible Mary was found as a Jane Doe someplace out of her area and just never identified. There are many old John/Jane doe cases dating to the 1960s, 70s that in recent times have finally been solved due to DNA.
Last edited by Austin023; 05-27-2017 at 05:31 AM..
Reason: Correction
About Mary's car: when it was found in the mall parking lot the following afternoon, it had a film of reddish dust on it, as if it had been driven on a dirt road. The soil in the northern Georgia area tends to be a reddish clay.
What was really bizarre was the fact the license plate on the car had been changed: it had a NC tag on it that didn't correspond to her make/model year (Mary's car was a 1965 Mercury, metallic grayish white).
When the car odometer was compared to a travel log Mary and her husband kept, there was an additional 41 miles unaccounted for---(though less rememver, back then those odometers were easy to disconnect, then reconnect)...in any case, 41 miles is not nearly enough to drive to Charlotte and Raleigh from Atlanta. The gas station attendants couldn't recall exactly what kind of car the woman was with--only that a woman similar in appearance to Mary was seen at those gas stations where her card had been used--and that two middle aged men were with her, outside.
The car had not been seen in the initial search for Mary in the morning when she didn't show for work. Some investigators insist the car had been driven away and later returned to the lot. Why else would the plates be changed?
As for DNA comparison to Mary's blood relatives, I have never seen anything to indicate that, though I think it would be a very good idea. It's very possible Mary was found as a Jane Doe someplace out of her area and just never identified. There are many old John/Jane doe cases dating to the 1960s, 70s that in recent times have finally been solved due to DNA.
i'm not going to put a whole lot of faith in the 'dust' on the car. That could be answered decently easy if there were construction going on near there. And would lend credence that the car never left if the construction were at night and the cars there during the day didn't have it.
Travel logs.. You know, I'd believe more that she forgot to log a trip or similar more than the odometer was disconnected.. So, this as well.. While I don't discount it.. I don't think they are critical things to work with. There are other ways that could be explained.
My question is.. Who searched for the car? Thought I read it was mall security or maintenance the first time.. And I just don't have a whole lot of faith that they were thorough.
The plates.. That's harder to explain away. If the car didn't leave, there's no reason to change the plate. So, that's two against and one for.. But the one for is.. REALLY big and would explain away the two against.
DNA testing on the blood in the car would be interesting. Though I would suspect that there are no samples of that to go back to. I wonder if there are any "John/Jane Doe Projects" out there who are raising money specifically for exhuming and obtaining DNA samples of Does from the 60's and 70's.
Yes, mall security were the first to search for the car. They said they couldn't find it in the Parking lot. Only on the second search, the following day by Mary's boss, of all people, was the car found with a different plate on it.
So hard to say if the first searchers simply missed it or was it truly a case of the car being returned to the lot later on.
Some investigators have long believed someone at the bank where Mary worked was responsible for her disappearance. The friend who Mary supposedly met for supper the night she went missing was not questioned much by police, nor was her alibi or story actually confirmed by others present or working in the cafeteria. So, there's some missing pieces that really could shed light on that part of the story. It's basically a case of inept investigation, at least.
As for DNA and physical evidence: current investigators have concluded no physical evidence of the case survived, and was likely lost back in the 1970s, of surviving court and police documents are correct--a search of stored evidence in recent years (2010s), has not turned up any.
However, the same had been said of the 500-plus page case file, which was later found in storage at the a law firm---it had been mislaid for over 25 years. So, you ndver know.
One problem with these older cases is of course the lack of surviving evidence at times--the casual nature it was typically handled with definitely is a contributing factor.
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Interesting case. It was so long ago, that you now can't ask the main characters for further clarification. What I'd like to know is, why did her mother halt the investigation 2 years in? Could be any number of reasons - the mom was really suffering horrible grief and continued calls from detectives made it worse, the mom sort of knew what probably happened to her and it would harm her reputation and memory because it was unflattering behavior, the mom actually truly DID know what happened to her, and it was her brother, etc.
It's astounding that 2 gas station clerks were both able to remember her a month after she bought gas. At that time, there was no "self serve", so attendants had to come out to the car to pump the gas, and yet neither could recall the car she was in? That she was bloody and disoriented would stick out - I would think at that point I'd write down the description of the car, the woman, the time of day, so if needed I could make a police report.
So the investigators believe that the car she was in was moved from the yellow lot in the mall in Atlanta the night of Oct. 14, and returned there in the early afternoon Oct. 15. Mary purchased gas in NC early morning Oct. 15 and again in NC after the car was discovered to be back in the yellow parking lot in Atlanta? That doesn't make sense. One of those two things - IMHO - is wrong. I don't think you've got one perp returning the car to the lot in Atlanta while another perp is with her in NC while she buys gas. In some other car.
I don't think Mary's car ever actually left the Atlanta area--and that she left the area in another vehicle. It very well might had been a similar looking car as hers, fairly nondescript. Those sort of Fords and Mercurys were very common then, so it would not have stood out much. Mary's condition of being disheveled with what looked like blood would have of course been more memorable to the gas station workers.
There doesn't seem to be any one site online that gives a good comprehensive and very detailed account of this case, though the blog I put the link to in my original post is probably one of the best out there as of now. I'll post more soon.
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