Pamela Ann Smith:Greensfork

    

   Pamela Ann Smith went for a walk on the evening of August 24th, 1975. 

   She was a newlywed of just six months. She and Gerald Smith had been married earlier that year in February. They owned a dairy farm along Indiana Highway 31 east of Greensfork, Indiana. 

   Originally from Covington, Kentucky Pamela had moved to Indiana with her family and graduated Highschool in Richmond, Indiana. She was the daughter of June and William McAllister. Pamela was born on September 24, 1951.  On the day she went missing she was 30 days away from her 24th birthday. 

   Pamela was 5 ft. 1in, 110 pounds and had long brown hair.  Seven agonizing months would pass before Pamela would be found “in a cornfield” by a Highway worker. Immediately I had questions.  How was she not spotted at harvest time in October/November of 1975? How was she not spotted during Spring planting of 1976?  Maybe the field was left fallow for that year. Maybe she was on the edge of the field near the road where it is sometimes overgrown. I don’t have the answer to those questions. Investigators did think that Pamela had been in that spot the whole time. 

   A Henry County Highway worker, Mr. Reed Vincent, was running a road grader when he spotted her body. If you don’t know what that is you probably did not grow up on a gravel road like I did.  It is a big vehicle made for scraping the rock road flat again. The driver's seat is pretty high up so he must have had a much better view than a car or truck. As people drive on a gravel road,  ruts are formed where their wheels are rolling. Gravel gets high in the middle and on the sides.  They come through on a regular schedule and scrape it back into place. This particular fellow said that he saw the body 2 months before but thought it was a dead animal. This time he saw that it was actually the body of a human. 

   If you find yourself frustrated with the fellow on the road grader; take a deep breath and remember that nobody was prepared for the number of bodies that the violent crime wave of the 1970’s and 1980’s was going to leave behind.  No one was prepared for this. His brain was programmed to interpret what he first saw as a deer not a human. 

   Pamela’s farm was located east of Greensfork.  Her body was found west of Greensfork near Straughn, Indiana.  

   Pamela’s cause of death was undetermined according to her death certificate. She suffered a skull fracture but the death certificate mentions that they were unsure if that was before or after her death. (I wonder if a forensic anthropologist has seen that skull fracture since then.) She had also suffered a wound to the right arm from a sharp instrument. 

   I was unable to find out if she was clothed when she was found.  One article mentioned she was tentatively identified by “clothing found at the scene and her wedding ring”. It sounds like her clothes were found there but we don’t know if they were on her body or off her body. 

   I didn’t find any description of animal activity scattering the remains. 

   Her husband estimated that he put over 2,000 miles on his car driving around looking for her in the months after her disappearance. He theorized that she had been grabbed and forced into a car. 

   Whoever killed her wasn’t particularly interested in hiding her body.  They weren’t worried about getting caught. They weren’t worried about evidence. 

    What else was happening in August of 1975 near Henry County?  

    On the evening of August 20th, 1975 in Hancock County three young girls were picked up by Thomas Edward Williams in a station wagon. They had been hitchhiking after getting some items at an East Indianapolis gas station. Williams raped the youngest girl and all three were slashed with a knife and left for dead in a cornfield in Greenfield, Indiana. All three would survive. Recently DNA would connect Thomas Williams to this vicious attack. 

   Also on the morning of August 20th, 1975, Cheryl Bolin was abducted, raped and murdered.  Her body would be found in the Spring of 1976 as well.  Could Thomas Edward Williams have committed both of those crimes?  I think it is possible. 

   He abducts Cheryl in the morning in Monrovia. (halfway between Indianapolis and Terre Haute) He rapes, murders and dumps her south of Terre Haute.  He heads back East and that evening he encounters the three girls who survived his brutality. 

   Four days later he is driving along this same East to West stretch of Central Indiana and encounters Pamela Ann Smith.  

    Sometimes a cluster of crimes are not related at all.  But what if they are?  Cheryl was young.  The three survivors were young. Pamela was petite and probably looked quite young to this man. 

   Could Thomas Edward Williams be responsible for all three of these crimes? I think it is quite possible. 

    (Steven Timothy Judy is also a possible suspect. Jeffrey Lynn Hand was in the custody of the State Hospital in 1975 so it can’t be him.)

    Pamela Ann Smith had a long life ahead of her.  She was a new bride on a dairy farm. She lived in the peace and quiet of the country.  It should have been an idyllic time.  It should have been just the beginning of her life story. 

    Rest in Peace Pamela Ann Smith and Cheryl Bolin.