Closure

Staunton police on Friday arrested a 60-year-old, terminally ill woman in the 1967 killings of two young women at a local ice cream stand, ending an agonizing 41-year odyssey for the victims’ families.

Authorities declined to elaborate on a motive for Sharron Diane Crawford Smith, whom they charged with gunning down Constance Smootz Hevener, 19, and her sister-in-law, Carolyn Hevener Perry, 20, shortly before closing time April 11, 1967, inside High’s Ice Cream.

Smith is near death, suffering from kidney and heart disease, and remains bed-ridden in a nursing home at an undisclosed location, authorities said. She was allowed to remain free on her own recognizance on the first-degree murder charges, authorities said.

“This will effectively close the case,” Staunton police Chief Jim Williams said during an afternoon news conference.

But questions remain in a case that has perplexed family and the community since the day the shots rang out inside the store.

Among the biggest: Why was the arrest so long in coming? Joyce Bradshaw, of Verona, told police shortly after the killings that Smith, then 18, had displayed a pistol and vowed to kill her stepfather and Hevener, a former Staunton police investigator said. Why did police never question victims’ families? And what were investigators doing between July, when they were given information about Smith, until her arrest Friday?

“From July to present, I understand what appears to be the perception of [police] not reacting quickly enough. That’s out there,” former Staunton police detective Roy Hartless said last week. He worked the case in the department and recently as a private investigator.

Asked to respond to community sentiment that police have dragged their feet, Staunton Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond Robertson responded that he would, “tell them they’re nuts. [Police] never dragged their feet on this.”

“Things just broke,” Williams said. “They broke when they broke.”

The only other suspect arrested in the case was William Thomas, who was acquitted for one of the murders in 1968.

The case file was only a half-inch thick when Hartless reopened it in 1998 after years of it toggling between active and inactive status. One of the first things he learned was that the Hevener family had never been interviewed.

The case gained new life in June, when Bradshaw told a distant relative of the murdered women about Smith’s threat 41 years earlier. That relative, Lowell Sheets, has been looking into the case since 2001.

He wasted no time once Bradshaw came forward, and even spoke to Smith.

In July, he told the suspect’s name to Hartless, who notified police, as his profession requires.

In August, Hartless said, he and Staunton investigator Wayne Snodgrass interviewed the suspect, but did not obtain a confession. Snodgrass remains a Staunton detective.

In September, Sheets said, a third man looking into the case contacted police via CrimeStoppers. Relatives also followed up with police.

Sheets and Hartless said police obtained a confession from Smith on Nov. 28. Police declined to provide a timeline or discuss evidence and the alleged confession.

Authorities said family members kept the case alive and called Hartless “quite instrumental.”

Last week, Hartless deflected kudos, crediting other police investigators and Sheets.

“It brings closure to us as well,” Robertson said. “It’s something no police department or prosecutor’s office wants on their books.”

Danny Perry, widower of Carolyn Perry, thanked Hartless, Sheets, Bradshaw and others in a written statement, describing the anticipation of bringing the “nightmare to a close.”

“I have seen the pain and the suffering,” said Pete Campbell, husband of Carolyn Perry’s sister. “In the bat of an eye they lost a wife, a sister, a daughter and a cousin”

The mystery over why the documentation was so thin and other questions about the original investigation might never be solved. The investigator who originally handled the case has died, Hartless said. So too has the judge who tried Williams.

But Robertson promised to disclose information about Smith if she dies before trial.

“If [Smith is] no longer around,” Robertson said, “I’ll tell you everything I know about her.”