I grew up in Atlanta, and have had a life-long interest in Mary Shotwell Little's disappearance (true confession: I'm considering writing my dissertation on her case). As much as I read and go over every piece of information I can find on her case, it still doesn't make sense because there are so many strange details and inconsistencies.
1. I have NEVER understood why Diane's murder was considered a coincidence. That is one HELL of a coincidence. Two young women, the same age, one of whom replaced the other at her job, who had the same circle of friends. Both receive odd deliveries of flowers. One disappears, one ends up murdered a few years later, and it's a coincidence? Really?
Atlanta was metastasizing during this time period, and C&S Bank, where both women worked, was very much involved with the construction boom. Huge amounts of money was being borrowed and invested into Atlanta. (That is fact, the rest of this is just a theory). Mary Little indicated to friends that she had something to tell them. What if she discovered some banking irregularity and went to someone at the bank whom she trusted, and whom she thought was dealing with it? If he asked her to stay quiet while he "investigated", and then kidnapped her when he knew her husband would be out of town? Maybe Diane knew something without actually knowing what she knew?
Equally likely is that, because of their overlapping social and work circles, they both met some psycho.
2. It's been commented that it is awfully strange that Little's credit cards were used in North Carolina, since that's where her family lives and where she grew up. It is another strange coincidence. However, another reason as to why her cards where used in North Carolina hours after her disappearance is that, at that time, I-85 was the closest Interstate to Lennox Square. In fact, the fastest way to Little's apartment from Lennox involved I-85 back then.
3. This has always bothered me. Every report I've read stated that Little went grocery shopping at Colonial Grocery (which was located at Lennox), met her friend Isla for dinner at the S&S Cafeteria, and then went shopping with Isla. What groceries did she buy? Unless she just picking up canned goods, why would you grocery shop first? Atlanta in early October isn't usually cool enough that you could leave any sort of perishable in your car for a couple of hours.
4. Why did the girls meet at Lennox? Whose idea was it? From what I've read, most of Little's friends lived in the Decatur area (on the east side of Atlanta), and she lived in the Belvedere section of Decatur. She worked smack downtown, not in the Buckhead area. Belvedere, at that time, was a very nice open air shopping plaza, similar to Lennox, that also offered a Rich's Department store, Colonial Grocery, and a cafeteria-style restaurant. Have I gone out of my way to go to Lennox? Yes! But now Lennox is a high end mall that offers stores not found anywhere else in Atlanta. That wasn't true in the mid-1960s. The girls could have had that exact same experience at Belvedere.
5. Mary's car. How was her car not there at night (when other cars were ticketed), not there Friday morning when the guards checked for it, but there when her boss checked for it around noon? Especially how was her car there when at around that same time her gas card was being used in North Carolina? That would mean that, at a minimum, two people were involved. How did her car get covered in red dirt?
One witness says she saw Mary drive away from Lennox that night on her own. By 1965 the area of town Mary would have transversed between home, work, and Lennox would not have had dirt roads. What those areas were full of were construction sites.
I've always wondered if Mary wasn't flagged down by someone she knew. I remember, pre-cell phone, sometimes seeing a friend on the road and them motioning for me to pull over into a parking lot, or something.
6. Atlanta had some strange people floating around town at the time. Franklin Delano Floyd was in prison, but his buddies were hanging around town. I'll admit that when I first started reading about Gary Hilton I wondered if Mary wasn't perhaps one of his first victims. Something about the way she was taken, the descriptions of her using those gas cards...it just seems to fit. But I ruled him out for some reason (military? prison?). I need to find my notes.
However, I can't get over Diane and those roses. I need to find out why, exactly, the police ruled out a connection.
I forgot to mention the missing evidence. I can't remember when, exactly, the evidence box for this case went missing. Does anyone else know? However, in the late 1960s the APD managed to lose the evidence regarding the other famous case with a Mary- Mary Phagan. Historians and cold case detective rue the idiocy that lost that case file. If Little's file was lost that early, it makes me wonder if someone hasn't forgotten a storage locker somewhere. Or, you know, if APD was dirtier than even I think they were.