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

[Frank Smith]

Your point assumes that her abductor(s) knew Mary’s husband was out of town and that it wouldn’t be likely for them to call one another either later that evening or early the next morning before she went to work. This is certainly possible, but it also presumes the abductor(s) possessed detailed information about MSL’s personal life. Had they known this, wouldn’t they likely also know that Mary’s absence from the bank on Friday morning would be noticed by her colleagues soon after 8 a.m. several hours before they drove the Comet back to Lenox?

 

[Valiant]

My personal opinion is it involves someone who worked with Mary or was in her circle of friends, the people who would know about her husband being gone. I just don’t think it is a coincidence she disappeared while he was gone. It gave the perpetrator(s) more time.

 

[Frank Smith]

My personal opinion is it involves someone who worked with Mary or was in her circle of friends, the people who would know about her husband being gone. I just don’t think it is a coincidence she disappeared while he was gone. It gave the perpetrator(s) more time.

Yes, it’s not unreasonable to speculate that Mary’s abductor(s) knew details about her personal life, including the fact that her husband was away from home on the evening of October 14. I also wonder if the abductor(s) had prior knowledge that she would be shopping, and subsequently meeting a colleague for dinner, at Lenox mall that evening. While I suppose they could have simply followed Mary there, waited for her return to her car, and then decided on the spot to take her, I also wonder if they knew ahead of time that she would be at Lenox Square, thus allowing an opportunity for them to scope things out and set up a trap. Given how quickly she seems to have vanished into the night, without anyone hearing screams, witnessing a struggle, etc. her abduction seemed to be well thought out and executed which suggests planning and information. Out of Mary’s circle of friends, or work colleagues, is there any specific individual you think may have been involved?

 

[Valiant]

i don't know, but I see two possible things:
1) There were rumors of misdeeds in the bank. But I have never seen any proof of that. This means that if it was related to the bank, then eliminating mary had the desired fact of keeping that secret.
2) There were rumors of a possible jilted lover or an affair - the phone calls and the flowers. But no proof of who that was tuned up either.
To me, the abduction seems well organized. People who act on unrequited relationships don't often plan their crimes that well. So I lean toward something business related and well planned. Or a very, very remote possibility she had an elaborate plan to walk away from her life and live under a different identity.

 

[dotr]

A thought concerning how a perp might be aware of MS's plans to go shopping etc...
Did MS make personal calls from her work, if so- maybe someone was listening in on an extension phone or just sitting nearby?

 

[Frank Smith]

i don't know, but I see two possible things:
1) There were rumors of misdeeds in the bank. But I have never seen any proof of that. This means that if it was related to the bank, then eliminating mary had the desired fact of keeping that secret.
2) There were rumors of a possible jilted lover or an affair - the phone calls and the flowers. But no proof of who that was tuned up either.
To me, the abduction seems well organized. People who act on unrequited relationships don't often plan their crimes that well. So I lean toward something business related and well planned. Or a very, very remote possibility she had an elaborate plan to walk away from her life and live under a different identity.

I agree.

I think the chances that MSL staged her own disappearance are remote. If Mary intended to run away and start a new life, why go to all the trouble of staging the appearance of such a gruesome fate when all it did was to draw even more public attention to her disappearance, not to mention the additional pain the thought of Mary being in the hands of a depraved psychopath would have inevitably inflicted on family, friends, etc. Perhaps there is an answer to this question, but existing evidence doesn't seem to suggest one.

Random lone wolf rapist/killer scenario is perhaps more likely, and consistent with the report about the "tire guy" at Lenox mall on the evening of October 14, but still really doesn't fit with the statement from the service station attendant in Raleigh where Mary's gasoline credit card was used mid-afternoon on the next day. He claims to have seen a bloody/injured woman accompanied by two unshaven men. Other than the woman being accompanied by only a single male, this description was consistent with the one provided by the attendant in Charlotte at the gas station where her card was used early in the morning of October 15. These statements, if valid, clearly point to the involvement of more than one person in Mary's abduction.

A jilted lover from her past? Perhaps, but given the circumstantial evidence suggesting that more than one person being involved in her abduction, at face value this doesn't seem to be all that more likely either.

A jilted lover or obsessive stalker with the ability to enlist other co-conspirators? Perhaps someone associated with the Bank? Someone with position and power? More likely, I would say.

Finally, perhaps Mary was silenced because of what she might have known about malfeasance at the Bank. Much more likely, IMHO.

C&S Bank, a major player at the center of Atlanta's go-go economic development in the 1960's, was apparently loaned out to the maximum. Senior management wanted to grow the Bank without too much regard for appropriate standards or rules. Low level officers apparently had the authority to sign off on huge loans. As we know, the availability of large sums of money with few strings attached generally creates opportunities for financial operators, outright fraudsters and organized crime. C&S's dodgy banking practices caught up with it a few years after MSL's disappearance and the president at the time was forced to resign due to the financial stress the Bank was under along with pressure from federal regulators. Add in rumors of a prostitution ring at the Bank along with ongoing lesbian sexual harassment claims being investigated by the HR department where MSL worked, none of which has ever been explained in detail as far as I know, it would seem that Mary, who was perhaps still a little naive about the world outside of North Carolina, found herself immersed and perhaps feeling overwhelmed in the center of a business culture that was hardly Mayberry. Perhaps she came across some dirty, dark secrets and made the mistake of confiding in the wrong person?

And if even if there was no other reason to scrutinize the Bank, there is the unsolved brutal murder of Diane Shields - Mary's successor at C&S Bank - a little over a year and a half after MSL disappeared. Another young woman from a small town in the South, she apparently claimed to others to have been working undercover for law enforcement to solve the case of Mary's disappearance. What did she find out? She was found murdered with a scarf and phone book pages shoved down her throat. Perhaps a message to others not to talk?

Any of the scenarios above are possible, of course, and cannot be ruled out, but based on what is currently known, if I had to put my money on which one is worthy of the most scrutiny from an investigation point of view, it would be the C&S Bank.

 

[Frank Smith]

A thought concerning how a perp might be aware of MS's plans to go shopping etc...
Did MS make personal calls from her work, if so- maybe someone was listening in on an extension phone or just sitting nearby?

We know that someone was close enough to hear the "I am a married woman now ..." remark, so what you are suggesting seems to be quite plausible. People seemed to know whenever she had received a disturbing call at her desk in the weeks leading up to her disappearance, though I have never seen any detail as to what might have actually been said. Given that there were supposedly internal investigations into a prostitution ring, lesbian harassment, and God knows what else, perhaps an employee had been assigned the task to listen in on Mary's conversations and report them? Or perhaps her phone line had been tapped? All speculation, of course, but officials at C&S Bank would most likely have had the resources to keep tabs on Mary's conversations and activities in the Mitchell Street offices, perhaps even to the point of establishing surveillance on her outside of work.

 

[Frank Smith]

We know that someone was close enough to hear the "I am a married woman now ..." remark, so what you are suggesting seems to be quite plausible. People seemed to know whenever she had received a disturbing call at her desk in the weeks leading up to her disappearance, though I have never seen any detail as to what might have actually been said. Given that there were supposedly internal investigations into a prostitution ring, lesbian harassment, and God knows what else, perhaps an employee had been assigned the task to listen in on Mary's conversations and report them? Or perhaps her phone line had been tapped? All speculation, of course, but officials at C&S Bank would most likely have had the resources to keep tabs on Mary's conversations and activities in the Mitchell Street offices, perhaps even to the point of establishing surveillance on her outside of work.

Addendum: Mary admitted to others not long before her disappearance that she was afraid to drive by herself or be home alone. Fear of an obsessed stalker? Or evidence that Mary had a sense she was under surveillance? The mysterious 5 roses she received were ordered at a florist shop close to her apartment, raising the possibility that someone was watching her premises.

 

[Frank Smith]

Addendum: Dotr, I think your point about Mary's conversations at C&S Bank possibly being monitored in the days leading to her disappearance- even if the eavesdropping was only informal - bears consideration. She vanished into the hands of her abductor(s) quickly, and without anyone hearing so much as a scream, suggesting that her kidnapping was aided by a person(s) who, wittingly or unwittingly, supplied information about Mary's personal circumstances.

Yet this angle was never really pursued by the media in its reporting. I was reviewing articles in the AJC going back to the days and weeks following MSL's disappearance and was once again struck by how much of the public story regarding Mary's disappearance - a story that is largely intact 57 years later - focused on the actions and comments of her immediate colleagues at the Bank: Isla's dinner conversation with Mary and her alarm at not seeing her at work the next morning, the calls to Mary's landlord, bank staff phoning hospitals around Atlanta, Rackley driving all over the place to find his secretary's car, the Bank posting a significant reward for information, etc. It paints an admirable picture of Mary's colleagues, all of them so very concerned about Mary early on the morning of October 15 and trying so hard to find her.

And one can't say that any of it isn't true. But from a cynical point of view, its total PR gold. The media reporting was as much about the Bank as it was about Mary. It certainly conveyed the impression that C&S Bank really cared about its people.

C&S Bank was a billion-dollar business circa 1965 and must have had a lot of juice in Atlanta. The media, like other institutions such as the police and state/local government officials, had to feel it. This was the height of the Mad Men era. Advertising and PR was everything. Vietnam was only beginning to bubble up and we were years away from Watergate and the Malaise era. People generally believed in their institutions, and what they read in the newspapers and saw on TV. They didn't look beyond the spin as much as we try to do today.

But today I think we all know that large corporate institutions like C&S Bank have the PR resources and expertise to ensure their reputation is protected, and even enhanced, in situations like these. They try to ensure only the positive side of their story is told so that the company skeletons remain buried. And media, sometimes to a significant degree, is influenced and manipulated by these powerful entities to spin a story in a way that is favorable. Again, I am not saying any of reporting about what Mary's colleagues did that day isn't true, but I do wonder how much C&S PR efforts to portray its employees as Mary's thwarted rescuers subtlety directed media to focus on the crazed sex killer angle in this case, thus deflecting inquiries into any suspicious happenings inside the Bank that may have been related to Mary's disappearance.

When it comes to the possibility of people at C&S Bank being involved in Mary's disappearance, I wonder what buried company skeletons may have been right under the Atlanta media's feet back in October 1965 but never dug up.

 

[dotr]

Distractions and deflections?
Wondering if Diane Shields was later murdered for the sole purpose of complicating Mary's murder case and adding to the pool of theories, motive and potential suspects? Or the other way around.
The killer was near enough i suspect (a neighbour?) to see the flowers delivered and to see the reaction to the harassing calls, delight then fear, did anyone in particular come to the aid and comfort the 'damsel in distress' after those calls? imo.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...o-1960s/af71da10-b334-4fb3-aedf-02957de32461/
By John F. Berry
March 2, 1978 rbbm.

''Bennett A. Brown, who was named president and chief executive officer of Citizens & Southern National Bank in Atlanta on Tuesday, said yesterday that the bank's current troubles date back to the 1960s.

"It looked like the growth in the real estate market would never end," Brown said during a telephone interview from Atlanta. "We (C&S) became overly aggressive. We wanted to take the lead . . . and it has taken us this long to bail out."

Mary Shotwell Little – The Charley Project

''Friends told investigators that Mary had been receiving unsettling phone calls at work during the weeks leading up to her disappearance. She apparently gave some indications to the caller that she was married and could no longer visit with the unknown person, but he or she was welcome to visit her. The caller's identity remains a mystery.

Mary also received flowers from a "secret admirer" in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. The bouquets were traced to a florist near Mary's residence, but the purchaser's identity remains unknown. Mary never shared the details of the strange phone calls or discussed the flowers with anyone.

According to some of her friends, she was fearful of being home alone or driving her car unaccompanied in the weeks prior to October 14. She did not explain why she felt unsafe. A few days before she disappeared, Mary insinuated to her co-workers that she had something important to tell them. She never revealed what it was.

In May 1967, eighteen months after Mary vanished, another young woman who worked in the same office was murdered. Diane Shields was last seen leaving work in her blue and white Chevrolet Impala. At 2:30 a.m. the next day, the car was found near a laundry on Sylvan Road in Atlanta with Shields's body inside the trunk. She was fully clothed and had not been sexually assaulted, and she was still wearing her diamond engagement ring. She had died of suffocation; a scarf had been shoved down her throat.

Police speculated that Mary's and Shields's cases might be connected, due the similarities in their disappearances and the fact that the women worked together, but eventually that theory was discarded. Shields's homicide, like Mary's disappearance, remains unsolved.''

 

[Frank Smith]

Interesting WP article.

Brown replaced Kattel, who was Mills B. Lane’s handpicked successor. Lane was the head of C&S from the late ’40’s until ‘73, I think. His aggressive go-go style of banking had loan officers pushing mountains of money through the front door throughout the ‘60s. Of course, this led to a portfolio of sketchy real estate loans that nearly brought the whole house of cards down by the mid-70’s. Plenty of company skeletons here and perhaps even a motive to silence anyone inside the bank who was in a position to blow the whistle on dodgy or illegal activities on the part of the Bank or its clients.

Or perhaps Mary’s abduction and murder was arranged by some powerful executive at the Bank, someone who became really pissed off because the pretty young secretary had the audacity to spurn his advances? Perhaps Diane Shields found out something about this? Or experienced it? Or was murdered as a deflection as you suggest was a possibility.

The one thing that stands out to me in the disappearance of Mary is that her successor is murdered a little more than a year and a half after her disappearance.

The odds of these two events being a coincidence has to be astronomically small.

 

[Frank Smith]

Dotr, a question. What are your thoughts on Larry Stargel's statement to the FBI in September or October '66? I haven't actually seen the statement in its entirety, and without redaction, but it rings a bell when it comes to the idea about someone powerful arranging Mary's disappearance. Stargel claimed some bigwig in Atlanta paid a lot of money ($5k each to four abductors, a total of about $200k in today's dough) to a group of goons to kidnap, hold and ultimately murder MSL. I know Stargel's statement wasn't taken seriously by LE because there were supposedly a lot of inconsistencies and apparently someone that he accused of being in on the kidnapping of Mary on October 14 couldn't have been there. Nevertheless, if he was lying, he sure provided a lot of chilling details. I wonder if there was any truth to it after all.

Stargel fingered a guy by the name of Gerald "Jerry" Mason as the ringleader of Mary's abduction. Some articles claim this Mason is the same guy who was arrested in SC in 2002 for the murder of two police officers in El Segundo, CA back in '57. I am not sure they are the same person because of age discrepancies, but in any event, the "California" Mason is an interesting character. Apparently, he became a very successful and wealthy businessman in SC, with a loving family and well respected in the community. No one had any clue as to his criminal past. Wonder where he got the seed money to set himself up in business? The other interesting thing about Mason is that he murdered the two cops after being pulled over for running a light. He was driving a stolen '49 Ford at the time, which he had taken from two teenaged couples. He had snuck up on them while they were parked in a lover's lane, forced them out of the car at gunpoint, made them strip naked, and then tied them up with surgical tape. Before robbing them, he raped one of the girls, a fifteen-year-old, and then fled. A disgusting creep, but clearly, he knew how to abduct people from their cars, and then strip and bind them. Wonder if he's the same guy Stargel accused of kidnapping Mary?

 

[fred&edna]

Does anyone know (for certain) if Shields quit her job at the bank or was she let go? I think it could be important as many of us seem to come back to both Little and Shields employment at the bank.

 

[Frank Smith]

Does anyone know (for certain) if Shields quit her job at the bank or was she let go? I think it could be important as many of us seem to come back to both Little and Shields employment at the bank.

It's a good question and one that doesn't have a clear answer, at least not from the sources I am familiar with.

I took a quick skim of some of the major articles on the Shields case in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution from 1967 to 2004. I pulled the AJC article from May 23, 1967, published in the aftermath of Diane's murder. It said that Shields had worked for a time at the same job MSL held and subsequently resigned from her position at the Bank but did not elaborate on the circumstances surrounding her resignation. It also mentioned that Diane had roomed with a "girl" who had previously shared an apartment with Little.

Thirty-seven years later, the AJC published another article on the Little and Shields cases. On March 21, 2004, the AJC noted that Shields was transferred into Little's position in the Bank's personnel department and subsequently took a job at another company downtown, as well as moved from Buckhead, where she was presumably living with Little's old roommate, to live with her sister in College Park. It says nothing about why Diane left her position at C&S Bank.

My recollection from some source which I can't remember is that Diane was in Mary's position for about a year.

Your question is a good one and worthy of further research.

 

[dotr]

Very lengthy article much more info. at link.. 2019

5 Roses, 2 women: A confession in Mary’s case

A man serving time for murder tells police he knows what happened to Mary Shotwell Little.

www.11alive.com

''On Sept. 9, 1966, Larry Stargel, 23, of Gainesville, Ga., pens a letter to police from Reidsville State Prison, requesting an interview regarding Mary's disappearance. He is serving a life sentence for a murder conviction in Hall County, Ga.
Eleven days later, Lt. Jack Perry goes to Reidsville State Prison and interviews Stargel in the warden’s office at 2:45 p.m.
Stargel tells Perry that he was employed at a theater in Gainesville in July 1965. A man named Gerald “Jerry” Mason approached him in the theater.
They became friends and made regular trips to Atlanta together, where they met up with a 25-year-old man and hung out at the Imperial Hotel at Ivy and Peachtree Street.
He tells Perry that the threesome spent a lot of time at the Domino Lounge within the Imperial Hotel. And he, along with a few other men, committed several burglaries in the College Park area.
One night, after Mason, 23, had been drinking, Stargel says, he told him he wanted to show him something.
They drove to the Atlanta Municipal Airport and looked into a telescope. Mason pointed and said Mary is buried out there, indicating that her body was near a construction site behind the airport. Mason, he says, also showed him a C&S charge card, bearing Mary’s name.
According to Stargel, he accompanied Mason and the other man to the airport a few times, where they would open a baggage locker and remove a brown envelope. The only thing that they would tell him was inside, was “money.” Stargel tells the detective that Mason and the other man were blackmailing someone in Atlanta and that they had been paid to kidnap Mary.
Perry passes along this information to Ponder for further investigation by the FBI. ''

 

[dotr]

Ws thread..

GA - GA - Diane Shields, 22, strangled, beaten, found in car trunk, East Point, Atlanta, 19 May 1967

10/25/2019 Exclusive: A possible crack in the cold cases of Mary Shotwell Little and Diane Shields ''ATLANTA, Ga. (CBS46) – After years of endless tips and dead ends CBS46's crime scene investigator Sheryl 'Mac' McCollum said she's one-step closer to finding Diane Shields killer.'' ''In 1967...

www.websleuths.com

 

[Frank Smith]

Very lengthy article much more info. at link.. 2019

5 Roses, 2 women: A confession in Mary’s case

A man serving time for murder tells police he knows what happened to Mary Shotwell Little.

www.11alive.com

''On Sept. 9, 1966, Larry Stargel, 23, of Gainesville, Ga., pens a letter to police from Reidsville State Prison, requesting an interview regarding Mary's disappearance. He is serving a life sentence for a murder conviction in Hall County, Ga.
Eleven days later, Lt. Jack Perry goes to Reidsville State Prison and interviews Stargel in the warden’s office at 2:45 p.m.
Stargel tells Perry that he was employed at a theater in Gainesville in July 1965. A man named Gerald “Jerry” Mason approached him in the theater.
They became friends and made regular trips to Atlanta together, where they met up with a 25-year-old man and hung out at the Imperial Hotel at Ivy and Peachtree Street.
He tells Perry that the threesome spent a lot of time at the Domino Lounge within the Imperial Hotel. And he, along with a few other men, committed several burglaries in the College Park area.
One night, after Mason, 23, had been drinking, Stargel says, he told him he wanted to show him something.
They drove to the Atlanta Municipal Airport and looked into a telescope. Mason pointed and said Mary is buried out there, indicating that her body was near a construction site behind the airport. Mason, he says, also showed him a C&S charge card, bearing Mary’s name.
According to Stargel, he accompanied Mason and the other man to the airport a few times, where they would open a baggage locker and remove a brown envelope. The only thing that they would tell him was inside, was “money.” Stargel tells the detective that Mason and the other man were blackmailing someone in Atlanta and that they had been paid to kidnap Mary.
Perry passes along this information to Ponder for further investigation by the FBI. ''

I

Very lengthy article much more info. at link.. 2019

5 Roses, 2 women: A confession in Mary’s case

A man serving time for murder tells police he knows what happened to Mary Shotwell Little.

www.11alive.com

''On Sept. 9, 1966, Larry Stargel, 23, of Gainesville, Ga., pens a letter to police from Reidsville State Prison, requesting an interview regarding Mary's disappearance. He is serving a life sentence for a murder conviction in Hall County, Ga.
Eleven days later, Lt. Jack Perry goes to Reidsville State Prison and interviews Stargel in the warden’s office at 2:45 p.m.
Stargel tells Perry that he was employed at a theater in Gainesville in July 1965. A man named Gerald “Jerry” Mason approached him in the theater.
They became friends and made regular trips to Atlanta together, where they met up with a 25-year-old man and hung out at the Imperial Hotel at Ivy and Peachtree Street.
He tells Perry that the threesome spent a lot of time at the Domino Lounge within the Imperial Hotel. And he, along with a few other men, committed several burglaries in the College Park area.
One night, after Mason, 23, had been drinking, Stargel says, he told him he wanted to show him something.
They drove to the Atlanta Municipal Airport and looked into a telescope. Mason pointed and said Mary is buried out there, indicating that her body was near a construction site behind the airport. Mason, he says, also showed him a C&S charge card, bearing Mary’s name.
According to Stargel, he accompanied Mason and the other man to the airport a few times, where they would open a baggage locker and remove a brown envelope. The only thing that they would tell him was inside, was “money.” Stargel tells the detective that Mason and the other man were blackmailing someone in Atlanta and that they had been paid to kidnap Mary.
Perry passes along this information to Ponder for further investigation by the FBI. ''

Thank you, Dotr.

Fascinating.

And bone chilling.

Perhaps I am wrong, but this article infers the FBI found reasons to discredit Stargel's statement and never pursued authorization to dig up the area where Jerry Mason claimed Mary was buried.

"On Sept. 23 at 9 a.m., F.L. Russell and G.E. Davis contact Charles Fairbanks and Kenneth King with the FAA at the Atlanta Municipal Airport to verify Stargel’s story.

Fairbanks and King take them to Slide Slope Runway on the southwest end of the runway, known as runway No. 33.

King tells them that on Nov. 30, 1965, he saw what looked like a freshly dug hole with dirt covering it. Police note that the area has been washed over and a rock is placed on top of it. It would be necessary to have the construction department dig up the location—however, first they would have to contact Fred Lowdness, the AFS chief for clearance.

They make note in the case file that this investigation is “incomplete.”

Sure, some of Stargel's statement may have been inaccurate, or lies, and thus appropriately discredited, BUT the FBI had to, or should have, wondered if there was any truth to at least some of it? Why didn't they proceed to dig up the area? It would have either verified that Stargel was totally unreliable or the remains of MSL would have been finally discovered. Perhaps the FBI had their reasons to think that Stargel's statement was a complete fabrication, without a shred of truth, but over half a century later it's not clear what those reasons would have been.

Apparently Stargel's statement to the FBI is 19 pages long, and from the excerpts I have read, he provided amazing details. His recollection of Mary's final days paints a picture of an unending nightmare for the unfortunate young woman. Even if what Stargel said about Mary's fate is only partially true, it nevertheless raises unsettling questions. According to Stargel, Mason talked about someone in Atlanta paying each member of the kidnap crew $5,000. A lot of money back in 1965. Did someone rich and powerful, perhaps a higher up at the Bank, pay to have Mary kidnapped and then kept in appalling conditions for two to three weeks before finally ordering her murder? Was Mary being interrogated for what she might have known about malfeasance at the bank? Or did this person just enjoy knowing that Mary was being tortured by her kidnappers? Stargel's statement certainly raises these questions.

Perhaps Stargel's statement is a total fabrication, but the thought of Mary's being under surveillance at work and home by someone, again perhaps a higher up Bank executive, who targets her with unsettling phone calls at her desk, and then has her kidnapped by a bunch of hired thugs who torment her for weeks before finally murdering her, seems to have a ring of truth about it.

Stargel shouldn't have been so easily dismissed without Mary's alleged grave at least having been dug up. Perhaps it was, but I have never seen or read anything about it.

I wonder if anyone can provide a link to Stargel's complete and unredacted statement to the FBI?

 

[dotr]

2019

 

[Frank Smith]

Very lengthy article much more info. at link.. 2019

5 Roses, 2 women: A confession in Mary’s case

A man serving time for murder tells police he knows what happened to Mary Shotwell Little.

www.11alive.com

''On Sept. 9, 1966, Larry Stargel, 23, of Gainesville, Ga., pens a letter to police from Reidsville State Prison, requesting an interview regarding Mary's disappearance. He is serving a life sentence for a murder conviction in Hall County, Ga.
Eleven days later, Lt. Jack Perry goes to Reidsville State Prison and interviews Stargel in the warden’s office at 2:45 p.m.
Stargel tells Perry that he was employed at a theater in Gainesville in July 1965. A man named Gerald “Jerry” Mason approached him in the theater.
They became friends and made regular trips to Atlanta together, where they met up with a 25-year-old man and hung out at the Imperial Hotel at Ivy and Peachtree Street.
He tells Perry that the threesome spent a lot of time at the Domino Lounge within the Imperial Hotel. And he, along with a few other men, committed several burglaries in the College Park area.
One night, after Mason, 23, had been drinking, Stargel says, he told him he wanted to show him something.
They drove to the Atlanta Municipal Airport and looked into a telescope. Mason pointed and said Mary is buried out there, indicating that her body was near a construction site behind the airport. Mason, he says, also showed him a C&S charge card, bearing Mary’s name.
According to Stargel, he accompanied Mason and the other man to the airport a few times, where they would open a baggage locker and remove a brown envelope. The only thing that they would tell him was inside, was “money.” Stargel tells the detective that Mason and the other man were blackmailing someone in Atlanta and that they had been paid to kidnap Mary.
Perry passes along this information to Ponder for further investigation by the FBI. ''

I


Thank you, Dotr.

Fascinating.

And bone chilling.

Perhaps I am wrong, but this article infers the FBI found reasons to discredit Stargel's statement and never pursued authorization to dig up the area where Jerry Mason claimed Mary was buried.

"On Sept. 23 at 9 a.m., F.L. Russell and G.E. Davis contact Charles Fairbanks and Kenneth King with the FAA at the Atlanta Municipal Airport to verify Stargel’s story.

Fairbanks and King take them to Slide Slope Runway on the southwest end of the runway, known as runway No. 33.

King tells them that on Nov. 30, 1965, he saw what looked like a freshly dug hole with dirt covering it. Police note that the area has been washed over and a rock is placed on top of it. It would be necessary to have the construction department dig up the location—however, first they would have to contact Fred Lowdness, the AFS chief for clearance.

They make note in the case file that this investigation is “incomplete.”

Sure, some of Stargel's statement may have been inaccurate, or lies, and thus appropriately discredited, BUT the FBI had to, or should have, wondered if there was any truth to at least some of it? Why didn't they proceed to dig up the area? It would have either verified that Stargel was totally unreliable or the remains of MSL would have been finally discovered. Perhaps the FBI had their reasons to think that Stargel's statement was a complete fabrication, without a shred of truth, but over half a century later it's not clear what those reasons would have been.

Apparently Stargel's statement to the FBI is 19 pages long, and from the excerpts I have read, he provided amazing details. His recollection of Mary's final days paints a picture of an unending nightmare for the unfortunate young woman. Even if what Stargel said about Mary's fate is only partially true, it nevertheless raises unsettling questions. According to Stargel, Mason talked about someone in Atlanta paying each member of the kidnap crew $5,000. A lot of money back in 1965. Did someone rich and powerful, perhaps a higher up at the Bank, pay to have Mary kidnapped and then kept in appalling conditions for two to three weeks before finally ordering her murder? Was Mary being interrogated for what she might have known about malfeasance at the bank? Or did this person just enjoy knowing that Mary was being tortured by her kidnappers? Stargel's statement certainly raises these questions.

Perhaps Stargel's statement is a total fabrication, but the thought of Mary's being under surveillance at work and home by someone, again perhaps a higher up Bank executive, who targets her with unsettling phone calls at her desk, and then has her kidnapped by a bunch of hired thugs who torment her for weeks before finally murdering her, seems to have a ring of truth about it.

Stargel shouldn't have been so easily dismissed without Mary's alleged grave at least having been dug up. Perhaps it was, but I have never seen or read anything about it.

I wonder if anyone can provide a link to Stargel's complete and unredacted statement to the FBI?

Addendum: According to the 5 Roses, 2 Women report, the Gerald "Jerry" Mason accused by Stargel of kidnapping and holding Mary, as well as being a co-conspirator and accomplice in her gruesome murder, is this guy:

Arrest Shreds Genial Image Decades in the Making

Model resident of South Carolina community was traced from two partial prints.

www.latimes.com

Mason, after a young life of murder, rape, and robbery, married, started a family, and set himself up in the gas station business, becoming a pillar of the community. How did he do that? Where did he get the money?

"According to Stargel, he accompanied Mason and the other man to the airport a few times, where they would open a baggage locker and remove a brown envelope. The only thing that they would tell him was inside, was “money.” Stargel tells the detective that Mason and the other man were blackmailing someone in Atlanta and that they had been paid to kidnap Mary."

Who was the someone in Atlanta that Mason and his pal were blackmailing? Who had paid them to kidnap Mary?

I am still not completely certain that the Gerald "Jerry" Mason fingered by Stargel is the same person who killed the two cops in California back in 1957, but if he is, it raises some very interesting questions, doesn't it?

 

[Frank Smith]

Was Gerald "Jerry" Mason involved in the abduction of Mary Shotwell Little as Larry Stargel claimed?

While Mason is mainly known as a cop killer, what is sometimes overlooked is that shortly before gunning down two police officers in El Segundo CA in July 1957, he had stealthily snuck up on two teenaged couples parked in a lovers lane. Mason quickly subdued them at gunpoint, and using a flashlight he blindfolded them with surgical tape and then drove them a short distance to a secluded area where he forced them to strip naked, bound them, and sexually assaulted one of the teenaged girls. He robbed the teenagers of their valuables and then left them bound in a field as he drove away in their car. Mason, all by himself, had quickly abducted four people in a car and effectively rendered them helpless and unable to resist.

Two Officers Down in El Segundo: The Cold Case Murders of Richard Phillips and Milton Curtis

Fingerprints and a Signature Crack a 45-Year-Old Case.

loriajohnston.medium.com

Is it so hard to imagine a scenario where Mary got inside her Comet, rolled down the driver’s side widow to air out the interior - the weather in Atlanta was unseasonably warm that day - only to be blinded by a flashlight accompanied by a gun barrel pressed against her head, and a male voice saying, “This is a robbery. Do what you’re told and you won’t get hurt.“ Terrified, Mary would comply with the surgical tape blindfold being placed around her eyes, hoping the robbery would be quickly over with, not realizing it was only the first step into a nightmare. We can well imagine what happened next.

Given what we can surmise about how Mary was probably abducted as she either approached her car at the Lenox parking lot - perhaps she was already inside it - and then what likely happened immediately afterwards, Mason‘s undeniable ability to subdue and assault people, as he demonstrated in California eight years prior, ought to at least raise questions about his involvement.