Sharron Diane Crawford Smith, 60, died on January 19, 2009, two months after confessing to police that she killed two women on April 11, 1967. She reportedly turned a gun on the pair because they had been harassing her about being a lesbian.
The slayings took place in a Staunton, Virginia ice cream store. The victims were Constance Smootz Hevener, 19, and her 20 year old sister-in-law Carolyn Hevener Perry. According to Smith, the three women worked together at High’s Ice Cream. On the night of the murders, Smith went to her workplace with a .25-caliber automatic handgun. She intended to tell the women that she wouldn’t be at work the next day but instead got into a physical altercation with one of the women and ultimately killed them both.
A suspect, William Thomas Jr., 24, did stand trial for one the murders but was acquitted, leaving the case an unsolved mystery for 41 years. The investigation was jump started on September 10, 2008 after a Crimestoppers tip. A co-worker of the three women, Joyce Crawford, came forward indicating that 18 year old Smith had opened her glove compartment and showed her a handgun and remarked that it had a bullet in it for one of her co-workers. This conversation took place several days before the murders.
Smith, suffering from kidney and heart disease and interviewed at a terminal care center, confessed to police on November 28 and was arrested on December 12, 2008. During a police interrogation, Smith said she gave the gun to police detective Davie L. Bocock, who she said was a friend and had taught her how to shoot. He told her he would bury the weapon.
Crawford reportedly went to Bocock with her suspicions after the murders but the detective brushed her off by saying Smith’s gun had been cleared in the case.
Bocock died in 2006 and it is unclear just how involved he was in the crime Smith had committed or the apparent cover up. The detective held on to the weapon for 14 years and then gave it to another police officer in 1981.
That officer is also deceased but his widow Kathy Myers, circulation manager at the Staunton News-Leader, read news reports of Smith’s recent murder confession and realized that the gun in question was among her husband’s personal effects. She has since turned it over to authorities who say it matches the description of the weapon that Smith reportedly used in the murders.
Staunton Police Chief Jim Williams indicates Smith’s December hearing was canceled because of the dire condition of her health. Following her death, he now considers the murder investigation closed but his department will continue to look into recently leveled allegations that suggest Bocock may have been a ‘dirty cop‘.
Photo below, including Sharron Diane Crawford Smith yearbook photo and police mugshot.