The unthinkable happened in a small Mississippi town in 1986. Residents are left wondering 36 years later: who killed Shondra May?

Introduction

Shondra Denise May was a 17-year-old high-school senior at Leakes Academy, a tiny school with only 36 students in its senior class. She was a member of the National Honor Society and was involved with both the school newspaper and the Student Christian Organization. By all accounts she was well liked by faculty, her fellow students, and coworkers at her part time job at a McDonalds restaurant in the nearby town of Forest. She was very close to her parents, with whom she lived in Pea Ridge, Mississippi.

The Disappearance

Tuesday, February 4, 1986 was a typical day for Shondra. She had dinner with her mother, then left home at 5:30 pm to make the 12 mile drive to work for her 6 pm shift. It was a slow night and her manager allowed her to leave early; before she left the restaurant at 7:40 pm Shondra called her mother to let her know she was coming home.  She made one detour on her route: a quick stop by a variety store to buy a Valentine’s card for her boyfriend. Witnesses placed Shondra in the parking lot of the variety store at about 7:45, just after she left McDonald’s, and the cashier remembered her leaving the store alone. Shondra's father Richard was working out of state at the time and called home to check on his family at around 8:20; her mother Genell was worried by then that their daughter still wasn’t home. Richard suggested that Genell call her brother in law and neighbor, Alton Spivey, to see if Shondra had stopped by on the way home; if not, perhaps Alton could drive along Shondra's normal route to see if she had run into car trouble.

As Alton hadn’t seen Shondra he prepared to retrace her route as Richard suggested; meanwhile, Genell opened her front door and was immediately startled by what she saw: Shondra's car, front door ajar and interior light on, was parked on a small gravel road only about 80 yards from her home. All of Shondra’s belongings appeared to be inside and there were no obvious signs of a struggle. At a loss to explain the odd scene, Alton and his son left to look for her while Genell stayed home and began calling Shondra’s friends and boyfriend. When none of them reported having seen her, she reported Shondra missing.

Confronted with the baffling scene, investigators at the Scott County Sheriff’s Office immediately issued a missing person bulletin to neighboring counties and began searching for Shondra. One of Shondra’s cousins, David Spivey, thought he had seen her headlights approaching their respective homes that night, and no other vehicle seemed to be following her as she drove up. Investigators also discovered that while Shondra’s purse was in her car, her drivers license was missing. Over the next few weeks intensive air and ground searches spanning three counties and assisted by Mississippi State Police, the FBI, and the National Guard failed to turn up any clues - it seemed Shondra had simply vanished into thin air.

The Murder

On February 26, 1986, on what would have been her 18th birthday, Shondra May was found dead by an off duty firefighter in a creek near Bolton, Mississippi, more than 80 miles away from her last known whereabouts. Her autopsy revealed that she had been sexually assaulted and hit in the head with a heavy object prior to her death; her ultimate cause of death was ruled strangulation, probably by tape, remnants of which were found still tightly bound around her neck. Her body, gagged and hog-tied and wrapped in garbage bags, had then been thrown into Baker’s Creek. Horrifyingly, the medical examiner determined that she had been deceased 5-10 days, meaning that she was alive and presumably being held captive for 12-17 days after she had disappeared.

The Investigation

Virtually everyone acquainted with Shondra was looked at in the ensuing murder investigation, but there is no indication that a clear suspect ever emerged from that pool. Shondra’s father, uncle, and boyfriend were all officially cleared of involvement by law enforcement.

Rumors swirled that Shondra had been abducted by someone impersonating a cop. Her missing drivers license lent credence to this theory; had she thought she was being pulled over it was logical that she would have her license out at the time of her abduction. Several local residents reported that a car with a single flashing blue light had attempted to pull them over. Over the years suspects have emerged - some known for using flashing lights to pull people over - but no one was ever charged. Investigators have acknowledged that serious errors in evidence preservation were made: the tape that bound her body and the garbage bags in which she had been wrapped were removed almost immediately by a deputy when her body was found, and Alton and David Spivey had used Shondra’s car to look for her the night of her disappearance, rendering any evidence it may have held compromised or even unusable.

In an article published in March 2021, current Scott County Sheriff Mike Lee was interviewed:

“We will need something physically that links [the perpetrators(s)] to Shondra,” he says. “We know that there are items missing from Shondra,” things like her clothing and the driver’s license. “I believe that some of that has been kept as maybe a way for the person to re-live that event.”

Sheriff Lee believes he knows who did it, but he does not yet have the evidence to link that person to the crime.

Shondra’s mother Genell died in 1994. Her brother Tim and father Richard are both alive and still live in Mississippi. They would love to see resolution in their lifetimes. Will someone finally give investigators the information they need to make an arrest?

Links

After 34 years, the death of Shondra May still haunts a small Mississippi town

3 On Your Side Investigates: 1986 disappearance of Shondra May still unsolved

Old Dogs, Fresh Eyes: Retired investigators probing Shondra May mystery