madfrank
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This year will mark the 50th anniversary of Carol Blades's body being found on Christmas Day, 1970 -- over a year after she had gone missing, in a still-unsolved case marked by possible LE malfeasence.
This is a very interesting case but little exists online about it -- it's half a century old.
But it looks like it has a little of everything -- a young woman victim snatched from a local business; her husband an easy suspect, though apparently only by innuendo; a mistrusted sheriff rumored to have had something to do with the case, said to have bungled evidence; a townsperson said to have failed a lie detector test and suspected by the family; and of course the grieving family and friends -- all of which came to a head a year after the disappearance, on Christmas Day 1970, half a century ago, with the belated discovery of Carol Blades's body on a farm in a neighboring county.
And is unsolved to this day.
Lastly, I believe the text in the article at the family obituary site in the OP may have appeared in the Christian County Republican (now defunct, it appears). The initials "CCR" top the textual information. (Too, it may have been a Springfield News-Leader story also printed there.)
Unsolved killing stills haunts kin, friends of victim
(Springfield News-Leader; published in Columbia Tribune 31 Dec 2010)
Forty years ago Christmas Day [in 2010; fifty years this year, 2020], the body of Carol Blades of Nixa was found in a grove of cedar trees on a Stone County farm.
Blades, 20, disappeared from a Nixa laundromat more than a year earlier, on Dec. 15, 1969, leaving only her clothes in a washing machine and her car, pulled onto the shoulder of Highway 160 with its engine blown.
...
[Christian County Sheriff L.E. “Buff”] Lamb “was either really plumb stupid about stuff, or he was protecting somebody,” Rob Horton [Carol Blades's brother] said. “For him not to do the fingerprinting and seal the evidence."
...
Stories circulated for years that Lamb was involved, accusations he denied in a 1980 interview. He died in 2001.
Geraldine Horton [Blades's mother] wonders about another man, a business owner who failed a polygraph test, she said.
...
more
Blades, Louise M., d. 1941 - Blansit, Gary Earl, d. 2003 (on a family obituary page; text source?)
Blades, Neva Carol (Horton) 8 Jul 1949 - 15 Dec 1969 CCR 31 Dec 1970 p1
Long Vigil Ends on Christmas
Body of Carol Blades Found in Stone County
[....] The body was found by Ernest Wilhelm, Route 1, Galena, as he looked for cattle on his farm just west of Ponce de Leon. Wilhelm had gone to check on his cattle about 2:00 o’clock Friday afternoon, When he did not find them in the open pasture, he remembered a cedar glade west of his home which the cattle sometimes used as a windbreak. As he walked through the cedars, he saw something lying against a log. When he went to investigate what he thought was a fallen cow, he found it to be the remains of a body. [....] The remains were identified by members of the Blades family and articles of clothing found at the scene matched those worn by Mrs. Blades at the time she disappeared more than a year ago. A later comparison of teeth and dental records was made and the results were “positive“. Little doubt remained that Carol Blades had been found. [....] A metal detector brought to the scene by Deputy Gene Haworth, Nixa, located Mrs. Blades’ wedding and engagement rings about 20 feet from where the body had rested. They were buried under a mat of leaves. Officers said the body bore no visible sings of violence. No skull fractures were detected, and there was no blood stains that could be seen with the eye on the clothing. [....] Tuesday morning, Christian County Deputy Harold Wampler said that a strong lead had turned up. but no information could be released at this time. He also said that three persons had taken polygraph tests since the discovery of the body and that more will be asked to submit to the tests in the immediate future. [....] On December 8 [1970], petitions were presented to Judge Garner L. Moody of the 38th Judicial Circuit, asking that a grand jury be called to investigate the circumstances involved in the case. The petition and request had not been acted upon at the time the body was found.
--
much more
(Springfield News-Leader; published in Columbia Tribune 31 Dec 2010)
Forty years ago Christmas Day [in 2010; fifty years this year, 2020], the body of Carol Blades of Nixa was found in a grove of cedar trees on a Stone County farm.
Blades, 20, disappeared from a Nixa laundromat more than a year earlier, on Dec. 15, 1969, leaving only her clothes in a washing machine and her car, pulled onto the shoulder of Highway 160 with its engine blown.
...
[Christian County Sheriff L.E. “Buff”] Lamb “was either really plumb stupid about stuff, or he was protecting somebody,” Rob Horton [Carol Blades's brother] said. “For him not to do the fingerprinting and seal the evidence."
...
Stories circulated for years that Lamb was involved, accusations he denied in a 1980 interview. He died in 2001.
Geraldine Horton [Blades's mother] wonders about another man, a business owner who failed a polygraph test, she said.
...
more
Blades, Louise M., d. 1941 - Blansit, Gary Earl, d. 2003 (on a family obituary page; text source?)
Blades, Neva Carol (Horton) 8 Jul 1949 - 15 Dec 1969 CCR 31 Dec 1970 p1
Long Vigil Ends on Christmas
Body of Carol Blades Found in Stone County
[....] The body was found by Ernest Wilhelm, Route 1, Galena, as he looked for cattle on his farm just west of Ponce de Leon. Wilhelm had gone to check on his cattle about 2:00 o’clock Friday afternoon, When he did not find them in the open pasture, he remembered a cedar glade west of his home which the cattle sometimes used as a windbreak. As he walked through the cedars, he saw something lying against a log. When he went to investigate what he thought was a fallen cow, he found it to be the remains of a body. [....] The remains were identified by members of the Blades family and articles of clothing found at the scene matched those worn by Mrs. Blades at the time she disappeared more than a year ago. A later comparison of teeth and dental records was made and the results were “positive“. Little doubt remained that Carol Blades had been found. [....] A metal detector brought to the scene by Deputy Gene Haworth, Nixa, located Mrs. Blades’ wedding and engagement rings about 20 feet from where the body had rested. They were buried under a mat of leaves. Officers said the body bore no visible sings of violence. No skull fractures were detected, and there was no blood stains that could be seen with the eye on the clothing. [....] Tuesday morning, Christian County Deputy Harold Wampler said that a strong lead had turned up. but no information could be released at this time. He also said that three persons had taken polygraph tests since the discovery of the body and that more will be asked to submit to the tests in the immediate future. [....] On December 8 [1970], petitions were presented to Judge Garner L. Moody of the 38th Judicial Circuit, asking that a grand jury be called to investigate the circumstances involved in the case. The petition and request had not been acted upon at the time the body was found.
--
much more
This is a very interesting case but little exists online about it -- it's half a century old.
But it looks like it has a little of everything -- a young woman victim snatched from a local business; her husband an easy suspect, though apparently only by innuendo; a mistrusted sheriff rumored to have had something to do with the case, said to have bungled evidence; a townsperson said to have failed a lie detector test and suspected by the family; and of course the grieving family and friends -- all of which came to a head a year after the disappearance, on Christmas Day 1970, half a century ago, with the belated discovery of Carol Blades's body on a farm in a neighboring county.
And is unsolved to this day.
Lastly, I believe the text in the article at the family obituary site in the OP may have appeared in the Christian County Republican (now defunct, it appears). The initials "CCR" top the textual information. (Too, it may have been a Springfield News-Leader story also printed there.)
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