I recently started following this case and would like to make a few comments. Like others I have no way of knowing if any of my ideas are accurate, but this is how I see it.
First I agree that it is very strange about the connections between Shields and Little. After her transfer Shields even worked Little’s old desk. And then there is the odd investigation going on at the bank. But in the end I am afraid that I cannot see enough to convince me that there is a connection. Or I should say that I see things in the Little case that lead me to believe there is no connection. Allow me to expand.
While her boss’ actions the day after her disappearance might seem odd, I can rationally explain them to my satisfaction. For one, he had a detailed description of where Little’s car was parked. The co-worker, Isla Stack, who was with her at the Mall on the night of October 14, told the boss where Little said she had parked her car and in fact left her walking in that direction. Remember some of Little’s friends and/or co-workers mentioned that she seemed to be uneasy in the weeks leading up to her abduction. She mentioned she was afraid of being alone and of course we are aware of her strange calls and the roses. So maybe the boss felt something bad might have happened to her and he was going the extra mile to check everything out. And lastly this man was the head of Personnel. I have a background in HR and people in this function do tend to take a greater interest in employees and their lives. In the late 1960’s it is not hard to believe that he would have gone there to see for himself. I admit that it is a stretch to explain why he did not just take the word of Mall Security when they said the car was not there, but maybe there is something we have not been told, something the police were holding back. In any event, if it was suspicious I have to believe that the Police would have checked him out at the time. They did not think it odd that he went to the mall to check and that is a good indicator to me. Even after the Shields murder the Police did not consider the boss a suspect.
I think the husband was an odd duck but I can dismiss him. He was military, went to the Citadel, and was aloof. He was so uptight and conservative he was training to be a bank examiner. This type of man would be hard pressed to leave the car in that condition. No, I will give him a pass as well.
And yes, someone did call Little’s old room mate who was married and tell the husband “your wife is next”. That is creepy, but nothing else shows up that relates back to this call, so I will have to leave it as unexplained.
Here is my theory. I think this is tied back to NC. I think Little had an old boyfriend, or at least someone who was serious about her. He may have been an older man, even an instructor that she met while in college or maybe just someone that she did not date openly or tell others about her relationship with him for some reason. Someone who was then living in the Charlotte area. He reconnected with her. He was calling her, asking her to come to see him. She declined but said he was free to visit her. He sent her roses, which made her uneasy. That meant he knew where she lived and where she worked so she started to feel uneasy, but not threatened. After all, she knew him personally. So her fear would come and go, depending on circumstances. She was not afraid on that night to walk to her car alone. The secret she spoke about at work may have been related to the sex scandal, but I don’t think it was related to this mystery suitor at all. Could have been but probably not.
What she did not know what that he was a more serious threat then she realized. He decided to go to Atlanta to do her harm. Or to abduct her and bring her back to NC. He stole a license plate in Charlotte and a few days later he put it on his car and headed for Atlanta. He watched the building where she worked and when she left he followed her to the Mall. He watched her park her car and waited for her to come out, or maybe he went in to the Mall and watched her eating and shopping. I think the guy that approached the other woman’s car, the one the FBI agent thinks was the killer, was merely a coincidence. Our man from NC was watching when Little approached her car.
He confronted her. She recognized him and did not sound an alarm. He convinced her to get into her car and they drove out together. The person that thought she saw the Comet leave with a woman driver may have been right. She just failed to see the man in the car. Or maybe by now he was slumping in the seat and forcing her to drive. Either way, he was in the car. He must have had some knowledge of Atlanta, or maybe he just ordered her to drive out of town until he found some rural roads that he directed her to drive on, about 20 miles from the Mall. Dirt roads that resulted in dust on the car. They sat in the car and smoked and he had her undress. She folded up some of her underwear and placed it neatly in the car. At some point they got out of the car and he forced himself on her, resulting in some small amount of blood. Maybe he used some pieces of her stockings that he cut with a knife to restrain her while he raped her. He allowed her to put her dress back on but the rest of her underwear remained in the car where she left it. But the bra was knocked onto the floor, either then or earlier when he grabbed the stockings to cut off a piece. When they got back into the car he tracked some blood in. I think he drove back to the Mall while she, wearing a dress and probably her coat, road in the passenger seat.
I cannot explain how the security missed the car the next day. I have trouble believing there was another person involved with this. I have two theories. Either the security guard missed the car, but then again others said the car was not there when they arrived. The only other explanation is that we are dealing with an accomplice who either lived in the area or they had a room in a motel/hotel. If the latter, then the accomplice returned the car sometime the next day. But that begs the question why he would return a car to the scene of the crime and then walk away, on foot, chancing that someone would see him. I can see no reason for someone who had committed a crime to return this car to the Mall the next day in the middle of the morning, between 10 am and noon. No, I think they somehow missed the car and it was there all along, parked the night before. It is the only logical explanation I can see.
I think he forced her to get out of the Comet and they got into his car with the stolen tag that was still in the Mall parking lot or nearby. It was about 9:30 or 10 PM by now. They drove straight to Charlotte, where he used her card to get gas. He might have picked up a friend, either around that time or shortly afterward. In the intervening time they were either at his house or at the friend’s house. At some point they drove to the Raleigh area. It might not have been a full 10 hours later. In those days you would call in gas charges in bunches, not always once they were charged. Sometimes you waited until the end of your shift and called all of them in at once. There was no time recorded on the charge, just a date. The time was the time it was called in to the gas company, if there was any time recorded at all. The police were probably depending on the memory of the attendant for the time of the charge, and after two weeks had elapsed it may have been faulty. Even so, they may have just stayed at the abductor's house in Charlotte for several hours before heading out to Raleigh.
That also calls into question the attendant’s memory of a second man in the car. I myself do not think there was a second man in the car. I think it is unlikely that suddenly a second man was involved. This was a private affair. But I will admit it is possible. Maybe the assailant had a brother, close friend or even his father who came to his aid once he discovered what the assailant had done. Maybe the assailant suddenly didn’t know what to do and realized he was in big trouble. He thought Little would agree to come away with him and now he realized he was guilty of kidnapping and rape and was in big trouble. He turned to someone he trusted and needed help in getting out of this mess. Maybe the person lived in the Raleigh area and that is why they drove over there, or maybe they just wanted to get as far out of Charlotte as they could. But…..
If this was Little in the car, as the signature implies it was, and if her abductor along with man number 2 (if there was one) were planning on killing Little, why have her sign for the gas? Maybe it is as simple as the fact that, by the time they got to Raleigh, they needed gas and had no money for any. She had to sign for the gas as the card was in her name and the attendant would not take a man’s signature. Shortly afterward, Little was killed and her body was disposed of near Raleigh. The killer(s) drove back to Charlotte, the plates were switched back, and that is the end of that. The other man, if there was one, never talked. Maybe he died shortly afterward. Maybe he was also killed?
If I were to reopen the case I would look at her past to see if there was some forbidden romance or someone who was infatuated with her. It’s too bad her best friend was never interviewed in detail. I would check her college record as much as possible to see if there were any issues with her old professors, especially if one eventually moved to the Charlotte in the late 60”s. Any complaints from coeds around that time? Maybe someone she just happened to strike up an acquaintance with like a clerk at her regular restaurant or someone that worked in the library?
An alternative explanation is that it could be someone that she met in Atlanta, before she got married, and never told anyone about him. Like her, he is from NC, maybe even the Charlotte area, and he moved back to Charlotte. Or maybe he was working in Atlanta and either got transferred to Charlotte or moved to take a job there. That would explain his familiarity with the roads in Atlanta and how he was able to get around so well the night of October 14.
I do not think this guy just decided to up and drive to NC. No, there is a connection to Charlotte. Maybe he didn’t mean to kill her; he thought she would willingly come with him, if he could only talk to her in person. Someone that no one would ever think about and probably did not even know she knew them. But he was in Charlotte a few days before the abduction, when he stole the tag. Maybe he was in one of those “if I can’t have her no one will” moods, hence the stolen tag to cover his tracks. The fact that he apparently stole this tag several days prior to the crime tells you had been making plans and that he had something bad in mind before he went to Atlanta. He was planning on doing something that he did not want to get tracked back to him. And he drove directly back to Charlotte within hours of her disappearance. And they were still in NC later, using her gas card.
I think whoever did this is the same person who was calling her and sending her roses. And I would really look for a NC connection if I was to reopen the case
