On October 14, 1965, 25-year-old Mary Shotwell Little of Atlanta, Georgia, vanished after going to dinner with a coworker. Her disappearance came just six weeks after she tied the knot with her husband, Roy Little Jr.
At the time, Mary worked as a secretary at C&S Bank, now known as Nation’s Bank, and lived in a Decatur, Georgia, apartment with Roy.
He was a bank examiner training to become an auditor, so Roy was actually out of town the day Mary disappeared. Leading up to the night she went missing, she’d been planning a party for his return home.
That Thursday, Mary worked during the day and bought groceries after her shift. Later, she went to Piccadilly Cafeteria in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood to have dinner with a coworker.
According to her colleague, everything seemed to be fine, and at about 8:00 p.m., Mary headed back to her car following dinner. This marked the last time she was ever seen or heard from again.
She was supposed to work on Friday, October 15, 1965, yet she never showed up. However, the coworker Marry had gotten dinner with last night knew that her vehicle, a metallic pearl grey 1965 Mercury Comet, had been parked in a lot close to Lenox Square, where C&S Bank was located.
In the beginning, security guards reportedly weren’t able to find Mary’s car. Then, a supervisor at the bank arrived and noticed it.
The outside of the vehicle was covered in red dust, like from a dirt road, and numerous items were left inside. They included four bags of groceries, a pack of Kent cigarettes, and undergarments.
Most of the undergarments were folded neatly on the center console, but a pair of stockings, which had been cut, and a bra were discovered on the floor. Even more strange, Mary’s outer garments, as well as her coat, purse, and car keys, were also missing.
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Investigators determined that blood, which belonged to Mary, had been smeared on multiple areas of the car, specifically the steering wheel, the front seats, the passenger side window, and the driver’s side door. There was also blood on the undergarments.
Although some police officers believed the scene had been staged since the amount of blood was very small and it was smeared in so many regions. Plus, they located a fingerprint in the blood on the steering wheel that couldn’t be identified.
The very next day, Mary’s gas credit card was used two different times in North Carolina: once at an Esso station in Charlotte, Mary’s hometown, during the early morning hours. Around 12 hours later, it was used again at another Esso station in Raleigh.
Gas station attendants claimed to have seen a woman with a minor head injury who’d been with one or two men. The men seemed to be controlling the woman, and she didn’t ask the attendants for any assistance.
The fact that 12 hours passed between Mary’s credit card being used in Charlotte and Raleigh left investigators perplexed, as the two cities weren’t that far away from each other. Additionally, the credit card slips were signed “Mrs. Roy H. Little Jr.” and looked to be in Mary’s handwriting.
This led authorities to believe that someone had Mary and was attempting to throw them off track, leading them away from Atlanta.
Other strange details emerged in the investigation, too. The police realized the license plate on Mary’s car was from Charlotte, North Carolina, and had actually been stolen the month she disappeared.
She didn’t need those plates, as her car had been legally registered in Georgia, but the stolen plates might explain why security guards had trouble finding her car.
Not long afterward, facts about Mary’s investigation got out, specifically regarding the credit card slips. This prompted an unknown person to call Roy and demand $20,000 in ransom.
Roy was instructed to visit a Pisgah National Forest overpass, where instructions regarding the ransom would be posted. Instead, an FBI agent checked out the scene, finding only a blank piece of paper.
The caller never contacted Roy again, and the police began looking into him. They learned that Mary’s roommates weren’t fond of Roy and wouldn’t even attend their wedding. When asked to take a polygraph test, he also refused on multiple occasions.
Nonetheless, Mary and Roy’s marriage showed no signs of turmoil, and his alibi for the day she disappeared was strong. So, Roy has never been charged.
This dead end pushed the police to wonder if Mary’s disappearance was linked to a workplace scandal. Apparently, there were claims of “lesbian harassment of employees” at the office, so C&S Bank hired a former FBI agent to get to the bottom of it.
Furthermore, Mary’s friends revealed how, up until she vanished, she’d been getting weird phone calls from a still-unidentified person. Mary supposedly told the person she was married and couldn’t see them anymore, but they were welcome to visit her.
Along with the phone calls, a secret admirer reportedly sent Mary flowers, too. The police were able to trace the flowers back to a florist near her home, but it’s unclear who purchased them.
Mary’s friends detailed how she’d been afraid to drive her car or be at home alone in the weeks before she went missing. Even so, she never discussed why or spoke about the bizarre phone calls or flowers.
Daine Shields, who also worked at C&S Bank, was murdered 18 months later in May 1967. Following her shift, she was last seen leaving in her car, which was discovered the next day at 2:30 a.m. on Sylvan Road. Diane’s body was located in the trunk with a scarf in her throat. Her case of death was suffocation.
Investigators initially thought the cases might’ve been connected, but Diane’s murder remains unsolved, and the theory was ultimately abandoned.
To this day, different officers have varying opinions about what happened to Mary. Some suspect she staged her disappearance for reasons that remain to be seen, while others think she was abducted.
It’s now been over 59 years, though, and what exactly transpired on the evening of October 14, 1965, is still a mystery.
Mary was five foot six, weighed 120 pounds, and had brown hair and hazel/green eyes. She was last seen wearing a long-sleeved olive green dress with small white flowers, a London Fog raincoat, flats, and various jewelry pieces, including her solitaire engagement ring.
Anyone with information regarding her case is urged to contact the Atlanta Police Department at (404) 853-3434.
