Mary Shotwell 25 year old, worked as a secretary at Citizens & Southern Bank in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1965, and had recently married her husband, Roy Little. She mysteriously vanished on October 14, just six weeks after her wedding, leaving behind a trail of intriguing hints and bone chilling clues.  the disappearance of Mary Shotwell Little has remained one of history’s creepiest crime mysteries that still to be solved to this day.

The Strange Disappearance Of Mary Shotwell Little

Mary had dinner with a coworker at the Piccadilly Cafeteria in the Lenox Square Shopping Center on October 14, 1965, while her husband Roy was out of town, then went shopping for a few hours, bid her friend goodnight around 8:00 PM, and went to her parked car, a grey 1965 Mercury Comet.

When Mary didn’t show up for work the next day and couldn’t be reached at home, her boss, Gene Rackley, called the Lenox Square Shopping Center to see if her Mercury Comet was parked there, but they couldn’t find it.

Rackley went to the shopping centre himself around noon and discovered the Mercury Comet in the parking lot, so he called the cops. There would be many strange details surrounding Mary’s disappearance now.

Strange Clues To Mary’s Disappearance

Inside the Comet, women’s underwear, a slip, and a girdle were neatly folded. A bra was on the floorboard, next to a stocking that had been cut with a knife. Mary’s car keys, purse, and the rest of her clothing had vanished.

There were blood stains on the undergarments and throughout the vehicle, including the windows, windshield, and seats, as well as an unidentified fingerprint in the blood on the steering wheel. However, the amount of blood was so small that it could have come from something as insignificant as a nosebleed. The licence plate had been stolen from another vehicle.

Roy Little kept detailed mileage logs for the Comet, and after comparing them to the odometer, investigators estimated 41 miles were missing. No witnesses, including a cop who patrolled the parking lot at 6:00 a.m. the next morning, remembered seeing the vehicle parked at Lenox Square overnight.

Mary’s gasoline card was used twice in North Carolina on October 15, according to investigators. The first usage occurred in the early morning hours in Charlotte, Mary’s original hometown, and the second 12 hours later in Raleigh. The credit slips were signed in what appeared to be Mary’s handwriting, “Mrs. Roy H. Little Jr.”

The gas station attendant remembered seeing a woman who matched Mary’s description, who avoided direct eye contact and appeared to be treating a cut on her head in both cases. She was accompanied in Charlotte by an unidentified male companion and in Raleigh by two unidentified male companions who appeared to be very controlling of her.

Surprisingly, despite the fact that these sightings occurred 12 hours apart, the drive from Charlotte to Raleigh takes less than three hours. Investigators now turned their attention to Mary’s husband, Roy Little, who appeared unconcerned about his wife’s disappearance and refused to take a lie detector test.

Some of Mary’s friends disliked Roy and refused to attend their wedding, but Mary always seemed content with her marriage. Roy was ruled out as a suspect because he was outside of Atlanta on the night Mary went missing, and he also had no logical motive.

Anonymous On The Other Side

Soon after, Roy received an anonymous ransom call demanding $20,000 in exchange for Mary’s release. The caller directed Roy to an overpass in North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest, where further instructions would be posted on a sign. In Roy’s place, an FBI agent discovered a blank piece of paper attached to this sign. The caller was never reached again.

According to some of Mary’s friends, she was receiving phone calls at her workplace in the weeks leading up to her disappearance that left her visibly shaken. Mary was overheard telling a caller once, “I’m a married woman now.” You are welcome to visit my home at any time, but I am unable to visit there.” Mary also received a dozen roses from an unknown secret admirer at her apartment, but she never told her husband about it.

Was Mary’s Workplace Involved In Her Disappearance In Any Way?

Furthermore, Citizens & Southern Bank had recently hired a former FBI agent to investigate possible lesbian sexual harassment and prostitution on the bank’s property. Mary’s boss, Gene Rackley, insisted that this was a minor scandal involving low-level employees and that she was unaware of it, but others claimed Mary had mentioned the investigation to them.

Despite these concerns, Mary’s coworker stated that she appeared to be in good spirits when they had dinner together the night she went missing.

Mary Shotwell’s case is still unsolved. What Happened to Mary Shotwell and where is she now?