On October 14, 1965, Mary Shotwell Little met a work friend for dinner at Lenox Square. At 8.00 pm, they parted ways, and she was last seen walking to her 1965 Mercury Comet. The next day, the vehicle was found in the same parking lot, but it had been driven an estimated 40 miles. Her personal undergarments and blood were found inside.
As one of the 36 women who got their diplomas from the secretarial administration program, Mary was described as dependable, ambitious, but conventional. She was also newly married and settling into her married life.
However, in the weeks before her disappearance, her personality shifted. She began getting strange messages from a secret admirer, who made her feel uneasy. Despite her public declarations of being a married woman, this man was apparently not deterred.
Mary got strange phone calls at work, and she would be overheard saying, “I’m a married woman now”, followed by “You can come over to my house any time you like, but I can’t come over there.”
Shortly before she went missing, Mary also received five red roses at her office. These flowers were delivered to the office from a florist based near her residence. This increased her apprehension, but she apparently opted to share these fears with her co-workers rather than her husband.
Coworkers claimed Mary had become afraid of being alone in her car or even at home. She expressed a palpable paranoia that she could easily explain. She also told her co-workers that she had something she needed to confess to them, but never got the opportunity.
Who Mary Shotwell Little was before she disappeared in 1965
Mary Shotwell was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. She grew up at 117 Placid Place, a wholesome suburban neighbourhood. She attended Myers Park High School and was described as fun-loving and outgoing.
She apparently once volunteered to wear a papier-mâché horse head to represent the school as their mascot, Millie Mustang. Mary graduated and went to the North Carolina College for Women, now known as UNC Greensboro.
She went to college at a time when many changes were taking place. In the 1958- 1959 school year, their enrollment had just exceeded 2,500 students, and the Moore Strong Residence Hall had just been opened during her time.
The 60s were a time of transformation, and college women were strongly interested in advancing their status.
Mary’s class motto was “It’s not the gale but the set of the sail that determines the way we go.” It was to emphasise that they were a class of women who would determine their futures. Following her graduation in 1962, she moved to Atlanta and became a secretary for the Citizens and Southern Bank.
She lived at 1300 University Drive and roomed with other women. This was a significant adjustment for her to work alone in a new city. At college, Mary had to deal with a strict dress code, and the women were only allowed to sunbathe at designated campus spots.
Walking on campus in the evening was restricted, except on College Avenue and in the residential areas. If she wanted to go on a date with someone off campus, Mary would have had to get a signed permission slip.
In this new setting, though, Mary quickly made friends among her roommates and co-workers.
How Mary Shotwell Little married Roy Little and what changed afterward
Mary met her future spouse, Roy Little Jr., through an ex-boyfriend, William McIntosh Fambrough. Will was also a Citadel graduate and potentially moved in the same circles as Roy.
Roy then called Mary on November 8, 1964, and invited her to a football game. They officially started dating a few weeks before Thanksgiving. By December, they were a steady couple and moving fast. Roy popped the question in February the following year with a Tiffany & Co. ring.
However, the news of their engagement apparently brought some friction between Roy and Mary’s roommates at the time.
The couple tied the knot at Myers Park Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 4, 1965, and honeymooned in Asheville. They opted to settle in the Line Circle area of Decatur, Georgia.
Mary continued her secretarial role at the C&S Bank, and Roy started a new position as a bank auditor for the state. On October 8, just weeks after their wedding, the two drove to Mary’s family home in Charlotte for the weekend.
While they were there, they got a chance to check on wedding photographs. It was a short visit, though, and the newlyweds returned to their home at 10.30 pm. Days later, Little left for LaGrange on a business trip on October 11.
He was coincidentally making an audit for C&S Bank at the time. According to his statement, he checked in at the Town and Country Motel and went up to his room.
The next night, Little phoned his wife at around 8.30 pm, and they made some small talk while she had a friend over. That was the last time they spoke.
What happened to Mary Shotwell Little after dinner at Lenox Square on October 14, 1965
On the morning of October 15, Mary did not report to work. Considering she was always punctual, her coworkers and supervisor knew something was off. The co-workers rang Mary’s apartment, and management stated her vehicle was not there.
Ila Stack, the co-worker she had dinner with the previous night, remembered that Mary was parked at the yellow-32 section of the Lennox Square shopping mall. So, her supervisor called mall security and asked them to check whether the Mercury Comet was still in the designated spot.
The security officer indicated that during his 6am rounds, he did not see a vehicle matching that description. Mary’s boss then decided to check his own parking lot. Upon arriving at the mall, Mary’s vehicle was in sight in the Yellow-32 section.
Police were immediately called to the scene. They noticed the car had a faint red dust coating the gun-grey exterior, almost as if it had been driven on a dirt road. The odometer showed it had driven 41 miles in the past day, compared to Roy’s mileage records.
The bags of groceries Mary had gotten for a dinner party were still in the back seat, along with bottles of Coca-Cola. In the front were Kent cigarettes, Mary’s preferred brand.
There were several women’s clothing items in the console between the seats, including a pair of underwear and a girdle. These items were folded neatly.
Police also discovered a bra and a single stocking on the floorboards. The stocking was cut, and the underwear appeared to have been recently worn. There was some spattered blood on the undergarments, but not a significant amount.
Mary’s other clothing, purse, coat, jewellery, and car keys were missing. Blood was also found smeared on the steering wheel, the driver’s side door near the handle, inside the window on the passenger side, and the front seats.
Investigators said the amount of blood was not significant enough to be life-threatening. The samples collected matched Mary’s blood type.
No fingerprints were retrieved from the vehicle as it appeared to have been wiped clean. The North Carolina license plate was reported stolen, which was odd given that it was properly registered in Georgia.
Discrepancies in the mileage are probably the reason why the vehicle was not seen in the Lennox Square parking lot that morning. Police immediately issued a missing persons alert. Mary was listed as 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighing 120 pounds, with light brown hair and green-hazel eyes.
Why investigators focused on Roy Little and the narrow leads
Roy was also a confusing aspect of the story. When police informed him about the disappearance of his wife, he was nonchalant. He was cold and uncooperative throughout the investigation. Detective says that when he was shown the bloody vehicle, he merely shrugged.
Their attention peaked when Roy insisted on getting the Comet back as soon as possible, and he continued to drive it. Head Atlanta Detective, W. K. Jack Perry, was the lead on the case.
Though he did not necessarily believe Roy had a hand in it, he would have been delighted to hang something on him.
Apparently, Mary’s roommates had a disagreement with her over Roy because of his attitude. Little was reportedly surly and standoffish to her friends. Because of this, only a few of them even attended the wedding. While this looked like evidence to investigate him further, he did have a solid alibi.
Weeks later, new information came to light. On the night of Mary’s disappearance, her signature was recorded on two gas station receipts. One was for a full tank of gas at an Esso station in Charlotte, shortly after midnight. The other was for more gas at an Esso station in Raleigh, in the afternoon.
Police questioned the attendants who served the vehicle in Charlotte. The attendant confirmed that he had served a woman travelling with two unshaven middle-aged men. Her body language suggested they were controlling her at the time.
The woman lay in the passenger seat with a map over her face as if to conceal her identity. She also allegedly had a head injury, but did not seek help from the attendant.
When the attendant gave them the charge card, she signed it as Mrs Roy Little Jr.
Samples from the receipt were also compared with other examples of Mary’s handwriting and found to be a match. Investigators, however, were baffled by the short travel distances and the amount of gas purchased.
Shortly after the gas receipt information became public, Roy Little was called by an anonymous caller demanding $20,000 for the safe return of his wife. The person instructed him to go to a sign on the overpass in the Pisgah National Forest. There, he would find instructions on the next steps.
Roy forwarded this interaction to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI sent one of their agents in his place, but they only found a blank note at the sign. The caller never again contacted the Little’s and was never identified.
Later in November, a boy in DeKalb found a deposit pouch with scribbling on the bottom half, reading “Mary being held captive.” This was also compared to the receipts and other samples of Mary’s handwriting.
They were found to be quite similar. While it was clear this was Mary’s writing, there was nothing else to go on. Every lead dried up in the weeks and months afterwards. By the time of their anniversary, the police were no closer to finding Mary Shotwell.
No physical evidence remained other than that collected at the scene and the recovered notes. Many theories abound about her disappearance. Despite Roy Little’s reluctance to help with the case, it is unlikely that he was involved.
It is more probable that it had something to do with her secret admirer. She never revealed his identity, and from their conversations, it’s possible they knew each other before she got married.
Many officers at the scene also felt the situation looked staged. They believed Mary could have made it look like an abduction for personal reasons. That would explain cooperation with the unshaven men at the service stations later that night.
The other theory is that Mary got caught up in illegal activities involving the place she worked. At the time, there were rumours about a prostitution ring being run out of the C&S bank and sexual harassment of employees.
This one had more potential because of what happened to the next woman who took Shotwell’s position. Diane Shields replaced Mary and befriended some of them. She was more unstable, though and reportedly tried to take her own life unsuccessfully.
Diane was eventually found murdered in the trunk of her own vehicle between a spare tyre and a cardboard box. A scarf and a piece of paper had been jammed down her throat.
She might have seen something she wasn’t supposed to see and disappeared because of it. Regardless, her case has stumped law enforcement for decades due to the significant number of potential suspects involved and the lack of evidence.
