IN IN - Elizabeth Collison, 45, Washington, 1 Aug 1972

[ChatteringBirds]

Please help find more information about this case.
NamUs Case Created: October 17, 2024

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

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Missing Person / NamUs #MP131531
Elizabeth Collison
Female, Multiple
Date of Last Contact: August 1, 1972
Missing From: Washington, Indiana
Missing Age: 45 Years
Current Age: 97 Years
Chosen Name/Nickname/Alias: Betty
Height: 5' 6" (66 Inches)
Weight: 140 - 175 lbs
Race / Ethnicity
White / Caucasian, Asian

Circumstances
Date of Last Contact: August 1, 1972

Circumstances of Disappearance
Mrs. Collison who also went by "Betty" left her residence, for a business dinner in Washington. Mrs. Collison told family she was meeting with a client for her bank, and would return later that evening. Mrs. Collison has not been seen or heard from since.

Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
Distinctive Physical Features: No Information Entered

Clothing: Grey and white summer dress

Transportation: 1972 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo

Vehicle was located parked at the bank behind the building.

 

[victoriarobinson642]

https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/software/mp-main.html?id=4940DFIN

More photos on her DoeNetwork page

George R. Murray, Jr. and Betty Collison 2

Clipping found in The Billings Gazette published in Billings, Montana on 8/15/1973. George R. Murray, Jr. and Betty Collison 2

www.newspapers.com

AT 1 P.M., BETTY put on her pretty gray and white summer dress. Two of her daughters, MB, 17, and N, 14, said she told them she was going with a woman friend to Evansville about 54 miles away to pick up a relative at an airport. Just before she left the house, she talked on the phone with a friend, L J. Mrs. J told investigators Betty said she was meeting G M at 9 p.m.

We found her Oldsmobile parked, unlocked, the next day behind the bank," Beasley says. "We believe Betty typed up a contract in her bank office sometime after 8 p.m., even though the bank was closed for business. We now believe M was possibly at the bank, but no one has positively put him there."
When we got to San Antonio on Saturday, M's wife said he'd come home all right but had gone hunting in West Texas the day before with his two sons.
They are convinced that M and only M held the clues to the disappearance of Betty Collison.
If they're right, the mystery may never be cracked. At 10:38 a.m. on Feb. 21, G M and his Volkswagen crashed at high speed directly into an abutment in San Antonio. M was killed, and Texas Rangers believe it may not have been an accident. At the time of his death, according to Henry Ligeon of the Rangers, he was a suspect in a triple slaying in Texas.

 

[iulia]

Her NamUs page has been removed but the resolved cases stayed the same. It looks like it's been hidden from public view.

 

[victoriarobinson642]

Her NamUs page has been removed but the resolved cases stayed the same. It looks like it's been hidden from public view.

Huh, not sure what to make of that.

 

[lightofmine99]

FWIW: Doe Network moved her to "2024 Closed Cases" today.

 

[Pinner]

https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/software/mp-main.html?id=4940DFIN

More photos on her DoeNetwork page

View attachment 539182

George R. Murray, Jr. and Betty Collison 2

Clipping found in The Billings Gazette published in Billings, Montana on 8/15/1973. George R. Murray, Jr. and Betty Collison 2

www.newspapers.com

AT 1 P.M., BETTY put on her pretty gray and white summer dress. Two of her daughters, MB, 17, and N, 14, said she told them she was going with a woman friend to Evansville about 54 miles away to pick up a relative at an airport. Just before she left the house, she talked on the phone with a friend, L J. Mrs. J told investigators Betty said she was meeting G M at 9 p.m.

We found her Oldsmobile parked, unlocked, the next day behind the bank," Beasley says. "We believe Betty typed up a contract in her bank office sometime after 8 p.m., even though the bank was closed for business. We now believe M was possibly at the bank, but no one has positively put him there."
When we got to San Antonio on Saturday, M's wife said he'd come home all right but had gone hunting in West Texas the day before with his two sons.
They are convinced that M and only M held the clues to the disappearance of Betty Collison.
If they're right, the mystery may never be cracked. At 10:38 a.m. on Feb. 21, G M and his Volkswagen crashed at high speed directly into an abutment in San Antonio. M was killed, and Texas Rangers believe it may not have been an accident. At the time of his death, according to Henry Ligeon of the Rangers, he was a suspect in a triple slaying in Texas.

 

[mtlupy]

I found this interesting update from MPIA:

MPIA is trying to find out what happened to Elizabeth Collison Case. She has not been found, based on what family had stated. Their family told us they were concerned about rumors being spread against their family, then the case was removed.

It's very unethical for a missing person to be removed from the missing person database, until they are in fact found. Removing people from the database would hamper efforts to identify the unidentified when they're found. We're working with politicians to create a federal law, in terms of missing people, to ensure missing person reports are taken and or removed prior to the missing person being found.

Missing Person: Elizabeth Collison Missing from Washington, Indiana | Missing People in America

 

[INfisherman]

I’m a lifelong IN resident & have never heard of this missing person. So sad. Washington traditionally isn’t an area of high crime - kind of isolated in the SW portion of the state & in the middle of farm country. Although our news tends to be isolated to state regions from time to time - this may have been covered more in the Evansville or Vincennes media. Sad none the less.

 

[friendlysleuther]

Bumping for others and so I can come back to this tomorrow

 

[Pinner]

I found this interesting update from MPIA:

Missing Person: Elizabeth Collison Missing from Washington, Indiana | Missing People in America

Maybe I can offer some insight. When Betty went missing, the rumor mill cranked up. She was a successful banker in the 1970s and she had seven children. She and her husband were solid citizens in Washington, Indiana, both having been born and raised there.

But let's get back to the successful banker part. In that era, women who were successful in business had probably slept their way to the top, right? Of course not, but that's what people would have thought. That contributed to the rumor mill set off after Betty disappeared.

Betty Collison also had a bank customer who would only talk with her. He was a tall, handsome former Green Beret who had been highly lauded for his work in Vietnam. She had an appointment with him that evening. This bank customer lived in San Antonio, Texas. He did his banking in Washington, which was a little bit suspicious. He, too, had been raised in that area and was a few years younger than Betty.

I can't think of his name right now, So I will call him George. He had driven in from San Antonio the day before Betty disappeared. His mother was along for the ride to visit friends.

He dropped her off in Washington and stayed at a friend's cabin on the river. He drove on to Indianapolis the next day to get a hotel room and rent a car. Renting the car was suspicious. He already had a car. He put 15 mi total on the rental car and kept it for 2 days.

He then drove back to Washington the next night to meet with Betty. Betty let a friend know that this meeting was taking place. That's the only reason George became a suspect. Otherwise, no one would have known.

Betty never came home that night. Her husband was working out of town, and they had talked earlier the night she met with George. Betty and her husband had a great relationship. They had worked hard, and they had a beautiful home with a pool in the nicest neighborhood. (More reason for the rumor meal to churn.) Their kids were self-sufficient, and the youngest at the time was around eight. However, there were several siblings who were ages 14 to 20 to look after him. That Betty did not come home that evening was probably framed by her children that she had come in after they went to sleep and had left before they got up. Her husband came in the next day and did not think much about it when she did not come home that evening because she often had out of town trips. However, by the next morning, he was worried.

He went to the bank and saw Betty's car was there and the door was ajar. The car was new and Betty was careful with it. She would not have left it like that.

That's when the husband called the sheriff. The sheriff wasn't in his office and it was the next morning before a search was started for Betty. When her friend learned she was missing, she called the sheriff and told him who she had met with.

The bank discovered two things. One, Betty had written George a check for $8,000 the night she disappeared. Two, Betty had marked all of George's loans PAID IN FULL and initialed them.

My belief is Betty was killed in the bank that night. She was coerced by George to write "paid" on his notes and give him $8,000. George said he paid off his loans in cash and gave it to Betty. The rumor mill would suggest that this actually happened, that Betty took his $40,000+ in cash and ran off. Nobody wants to hear that about their mother or grandmother. Social media is brutal and people say whatever comes to mind without thinking of how it affects other people.

I also think that George stored her body in his station wagon until he found a good place to hide it. The day after Betty disappeared, George had a lunch date with a friend's sister. He drove the rented car to that lunch and it was the only mileage on that car.

George was a killer. He got himself into a financial mess after he left the army and retired. He had decided he would have an antique gun dealing business. I guess he never gave thought to the fact that he had to make that business work, or that he would have to invest heavily in an inventory.

A few months later, in Ingram, Texas, a beloved Justice of the Peace, who happened to be a gunsmith with a vast collection of antique guns, was found dead in his home. His son, part owner In the gun business, and his pregnant daughter-in-law were killed too, with their 2-year-old twins asleep in the next room.

How does this relate to Betty or George? Well, the JP and his son made the mistake of extending George credit to help him get his business off the ground. He allowed George to take many of his pieces on consignment to give him plenty of inventory.

George was indebted to the JP for about $30,000. The day the JP and his family were slaughtered, George had been in their shop, and the JP had asked for his guns back or to be paid. He had told friends he was considering suing George, and he might have told George that he was going to sue him. That night, that the killings took place in Ingram.

The sheriff in Washington, Indiana had been making regular calls to the Texas Rangers and San Antonio Police Department because George lived in San Antonio. He had told them of his suspicions. During the investigation, they discovered the tie between George and the JP's gun shop.

If the Indiana sheriff had not done that, they would have had no clue about the significance of George owing the JP money.

Later, it was discovered the JP had marked on the paperwork between him and George that George had paid off all the guns. The JP had written PAID IN FULL and initialed them... Just like in Betty's case, and it was undoubtedly from coercion. I'm sure the killer told the JP that if he would just sign off that he had paid for the guns, he would leave and never bother him again.

Betty's bank was coming after him because George had quit paying on his loans, contending that he had already paid them off.

George knew the SAPD, Bexar County Sheriff's Department, Kerr County Sheriff's Department, and the Texas Rangers were investigating him, and he had agreed to meet with authorities that day. Prior to that, the investigators had presented evidence to the grand jury. Right before the meeting at which George would have been arrested, he drove his Volkswagen at 90 mph into a concrete embankment.

About a month before George took his own life, he had purchased an insurance policy. It had just come into effect. His wife got into litigation with the insurance company, but I do not know who won.

George had put all the receipts that had been marked paid into an envelope. He told his wife the contents would prove he had done nothing wrong.

The case was closed upon George's death. However, law enforcement made a statement that beforehand, the grand jury voted to indict George for the three murders of the family members in Ingram,Texas. They said unfortunately, he had escaped Justice and they had closed the case.

I am firmly convinced that Betty did no wrong. There was an allegation she had overextended George's credit credit by $8,000 without approval.

I don't believe she did it without someone telling her it was okay. Betty thought the world of the bank president who had hired her as a receptionist /secretary when she was right out of high school. She had never done anything wrong in her career.

I believe once it appeared for a short time Betty may have absconded with the bank's money, it was better optics for the bank, to say she did it on her own. Or it could have been that the person who approved the extension realized he would be drawn into any wrongdoing of Betty's... guilt by association, and in Washington, Indiana, banking jobs weren't a dime a dozen.

I am not related to her family in any way.

I wrote a book about these cases that I give away to build an author's mailing list, and that is why I know a lot about Betty and her family.

Betty's name has been changed In my book. I did so after reading about her family not wanting her listed any longer because of the rumors and gossip. I didn't have to... It is all public record... but I can only imagine how I would feel if I read on Facebook that there was hanky panky going on or that Betty stole the bank's money and left town.

My book is not currently offered on any site for sale. Once I found out how the family felt, I changed the names and decided to use it as a lead magnet.