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.