Many police records from case have disappeared; bits remain
Mystery at Camden — III
Editor’s Note: Camden attorney and civic leader Maud Crawford vanished March 2, 1957. Her disappearance has been researched for decades by Beth Brickell, a filmmaker and former reporter who grew up in the Ouachita County city.
From July to December 1986, the Arkansas Gazette ran “Mystery at Camden,” an 18-part series by Brickell about the mystery. The series was slightly edited and compiled into a book, “The Disappearance of Maud Crawford.” Its chapters are reprinted with permission starting June 19 on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. ARKANSAS GAZETTE Thursday, July 31, 1986
CAMDEN—This city in South Arkansas is perhaps best known as the home of former Arkansas Governor and current United States Senator David Pryor, of Matthew Rothert, who was responsible for “In God We Trust” appearing on American currency, and for the disappearance of Maud Crawford.
REPORTED WIDELY
The account of Crawford’s disappearance appeared in many newspapers around the country and even received wide coverage in the international press. Twenty-nine years later, those press clippings are the best record available of the mystery.
Ironically, the police records have largely disappeared in much the same fashion as Crawford. There is no record whatsoever in the Camden Police Department or in the Ouachita Country sheriff’s office.
BURNED, ‘THROWN OUT’
Chief G. B. Cole, police chief in Camden from 1945 to 1971 who headed the initial investigation, said recently that his files burned in a City Hall fire in 1963.
Grover Linebarier, sheriff of Ouachita County from January 1957, two months before Crawford’s disappearance, to 1970, said his extensive files on the case were “thrown out” by the sheriff who succeeded him, Jerry McMahan, now deceased.
In 1970, new developments caused a brief reopening of the case when Andy McKay, an investigator who worked for both the Camden police and the county sheriff’s office, accumulated a new Crawford file. McKay said recently that all of his records “disappeared” after he left the job as an investigator in 1977.
Although no local records exist, there are Maud Crawford files with both the FBI and the State Police.
FBI ONLY OBSERVES
The FBI never conducted an active investigation of the case and its reports consist only of observations of the local investigation and second-hand information. The information was conveyed from local FBI agent Ralph D. Scott at Camden to Little Rock, then to FBI headquarters at Washington. Director J. Edgar Hoover received all reports on the Maud Crawford case.
FIRST FBI REPORT
The FBI file begins with a first report the day after the disappearance.
“3-3-57, Director, FBI, Urgent. Maud Crawford, missing person. Mrs. Crawford, age sixty, an attorney associated with firm, Gaughan, McClellan and Laney, Camden, Ark., reportedly disappeared from home between eight and eleven p.m. March 2 last. Relatives fear foul play or amnesia as she is normally rational and follows predictable routine. Orderly condition of home does not suggest forcible abduction.”
The FBI file subsequently reports the main facts of the early investigation, and then essentially reports “no additional developments” weekly, then monthly, then every few years until 1976.
STATE POLICE FILE INCOMPLETE
Although the State Police was involved in the investigation, its file is small and incomplete. Odis Henley, of El Dorado, was the lead criminal investigator for the State Police and is now a deputy sheriff in Union County. Henley said recently that some of his reports that he sent to Little Rock are missing from the file. Moreover, according to Henley, much of what disappeared did so as fast as he sent the information to Little Rock.
Only two full reports and the final page of a third report by Henley have been retained.
SAYS LEADS ON BERG WERE FOUND
According to Henley, his missing investigative material contained leads involving Henry Myar (Mike) Berg. At the time, Berg was one of seven Arkansas State Police commissioners. It has recently been revealed in this series that Berg, a Camden multi-millionaire who is now deceased, was engaged in a bitter controversy with Maud Crawford involving a $20 million estate before her disappearance.
Tom Smalley, former State Police criminal investigator now retired and living at Waldo (Columbia County), was briefly involved in the investigation of a new lead in the Crawford case in 1970.
He said recently that he read through Sheriff Grover Linebarier’s large investigative file in the Ouachita County sheriff’s office before it was destroyed. “Only one motive showed up in the file,” Smalley says. “It was the Rose Berg estate and Mike Berg.”
NOT ALWAYS ACCESSIBLE
The incomplete State Police file has not always been accessible even to requests from law enforcement authorities. According to McKay, when he reopened the Crawford case in 1970, he went to Little Rock seeking the State Police file because no local city or county records existed. McKay said that although someone who knew the record system assisted him in an all-day search, he was only able to find a three-by-five card with Maud Crawford’s name on it.
The director of the Arkansas State Police at that time was Ralph D. Scott, director from 1968 to 1971. Scott also was the original FBI resident agent at Camden when Crawford disappeared.
INTRIGUING CIRCUMSTANCES
This reporter gained access to the incomplete State Police file, consisting of 70 pages, during this investigation. A thorough first investigative report by Henley and newspaper clippings from the time give an account of intriguing circumstances surrounding Crawford’s disappearance.
It was a rainy Saturday night. Her husband, Clyde, a floor finisher and cabinetmaker, had gone to a movie. Four young women who rented upstairs rooms in the Crawford house were away for the weekend.
Maud Crawford was alone in her home with her dalmatian, Dal, a vicious guard dog who wouldn’t let anyone near her without her permission, not even her husband.
She was snapping string beans, watching television and working on two abstracts she had brought home from the office.
A cousin, Martha Robins Carver, called at 8:30 p.m. to say she couldn’t spend the night with the Crawfords as planned, but would be there for Sunday dinner the next day.
A woman who had worked as a maid for the Crawfords walked past the home between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m. and saw Crawford sitting in her living room in full view of the quiet residential street.
When Clyde Crawford returned from the movie at 11:00 p.m., his wife was gone. Lights were on in the house as well as on the front porch and in a rear parking area. The doors were unlocked, as was customary. Maud Crawford’s car was at the back of the house with keys in the ignition, as was usual.
Her purse was on a chair in the living room with $142 in cash and two checks inside. The television was on. Two pans of beans, one containing snapped beans and the other with those not yet snapped, had been placed on the dining room table on top of the abstracts Crawford had brought home from the office on Friday.
The dog was docile and showed no distress. There was no sign of a struggle.
NO TRACE EVER FOUND
No trace was ever found of Maud Crawford. What added to the mystery was a consensus that Crawford, the first and only woman attorney in Camden, and the first and only woman ever elected to the city council, was highly respected by everyone in a community to which she gave tirelessly through civic efforts and frequent personal kindnesses.
Next: The lead that got away.
Beth Brickell recently published “Solving the Maud Crawford Puzzle,” her fourth work on the mystery. The other titles are “The Disappearance of Maud Crawford,”“In Their Own Voice: Interviews from the Maud Crawford Investigation,” and “Most Credible Conclusions from the Maud Crawford Interviews.” The books are available at luminousfilms.net.