Many new insights and previously unknown (to me, at least) facts surrounding the unsolved case in this, surprisingly, well written article from the AJC.
I think the husband did it. He was only 70+ miles out of town -- that's not so far that he couldn't have killed her and gone back to LaGrange, with no one the wiser. So what if the insurance he would have gotten was small -- people don't need monetary reasons to kill, after all.
The solution to the disappearance of Mary Shotwell Little has been posted on the Internet.
Key to the solution is that two women disappeared not one. Both used the same desk in that bank office.
Most people are unaware that design engineers discovered a conflict of physiology in the 1950's when workers using newly designed close-spaced workstations began having bizarre or psychotic episodes. The problem was peripheral vision reflexes and the solution in the business office by the 1960's was the Cubicle.
The problem is one of physiology related to subliminal sight not desks and chairs. (Vision Startle Reflex) Although you can ignore Peripheral Vision Reflexes that break your concentration, you cannot stop subliminally seeing movement that triggers them. You cannot tell your brain to stop trying to create and force the reflexes. The phenomenon can happen anytime and anywhere the conditions to create it exist.
Psychology texts and lectures briefly mention this problem. The historical reference is, "Subliminal Sight caused a problem in the early days of modern office design." Note the past tense. The explanation given is that a conflict arises in the mind as the victim continues to ignore the reflexes and it builds until there is a mental break.
Little and Shields were exposed and had similar episodes. Both began to say and do strange things before each disappeared two years apart.
These episodes and disappearances have not stopped happening. Today with Cubicles in use in business offices College Students are one at-risk group. They don't know that if a workstation where they will study or use a computer is located in a room with repeating detectable movement, Cubicle Level Protection must be designed into that workstation.
When I contacted the Cold Case Officer, Atlanta PD, about this solution he remembered that the Atlanta Police Department had problems with the old open-room unprotected-desk system before they installed Cubicles.
You can see the old office system any night on episodes of "Law and Order," "NYPD Blue," or "Barney Miller."
Neither the Bank or Authorities were aware of this phenomenon at the time.
Little may still be alive. Victims of Dissociative Fugue sometimes have amnesia of the previous identity and life.
College Student disappearances:
Ahmad Arain computer science major UCLA found in Mexico in an altered mental state.
Maura Murray disappeared after having a mental event in front of witnesses. The witnesses did not detect that. She damaged two cars in about two days, disappeared and has not been seen since.
Amy Bradley graduated college, went on a cruise and disappeared as the ship was preparing to dock. There have been two sightings of her but she is still missing.
Suzanne Lyall disappeared within 200 yards of her dorm room at the University at Albany. Her ATM card was used to withdraw $20 but there have been no sightings since.
Joseph Morse disappeared from Georgia Tech the morning of finals and was photographed at an ATM withdrawing his last cash. This summer his body was located. He had died in Miami the next day after he disappeared from Atlanta.
(All are on the Missing Students page.)
http://VisionAndPsychosis.Net
The Everquest Connection page explains the psychology and relates it to MMORPG players. Shawn Woolley's mother sued Sony believing that Everquest addiction cause his suicide.
Other pages on site explore the crash of Czar 52 at Fairchild AFB, 1994, the Alien Abduction of Barney and Betty Hill, 1961, psychotic episodes associated with Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga, and the Day Trader Shootings, Mark Barton Atlanta 1999 (draft outline).
Thanks.