https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/us/25virginia.
html
Motive in Double Killing 42 Years Ago Is Revealed
By The Associated Press
Jan. 24, 2009
STAUNTON, Va. (AP) When she was a teenager working part time at an ice cream parlor in 1967, Sharron Diane Crawford
Smith shot two co-workers in the head after they mocked her for being lesbian, a terrible secret at the time.
Ms. Smith confessed to the crime, and revealed her motive, when she was terminally ill last November, and the police made
the information public Friday, four days after Ms. Smith died.
Ms. Smith ensured some mystery would outlive her, however, when she also claimed that the lead detective in the case, who
is now dead, helped her bury the murder weapon. Investigators said on Friday that they would try to verify that accusation
and to find out why one of their own might have hidden Ms. Smith’s guilt in a case that has practically become folklore in this
city of 25,000 in the Shenandoah Valley.
“If he had anything to do with covering this thing up,” the commonwealth’s attorney, Raymond C. Robertson, said as
residents lined the City Council chambers to hear the news, “we are hell-bent on finding out what it was and why.”
Ms. Smith, 61, died Monday, more than a month after her arrest in the deaths of the victims, Constance Smootz Hevener, 19,
and her 20-year-old sister-in-law, Carolyn Hevener Perry, on April 11, 1967. Ms. Smith told investigators she shot both women
in the head in the back room of the ice cream shop because they teased her about being homosexual, Mr. Robertson and the
police chief, Jim Williams, said.
“That was different in 1967 than it is today, extremely different,” Mr. Robertson said. “It would have been a matter that it
would have had different ramifications that it would today if it had been made public.”
Ms. Smith told the police she gave the .25-caliber pistol she used to shoot the women to the detective, David Bocock, and
they buried it.
Detective Bocock died in 2006, leaving a wife who is now in a nursing home. The police are investigating his involvement,
although they said other aspects of Ms. Smith’s confession had checked out.
“We know that’s what she told us,” Mr. Robertson said, “and we’re trying to corroborate every aspect of her confession.”
He did not know the extent of the relationship between Ms. Smith and Detective Bocock, though he said she had practiced
shooting at Detective Bocock’s farm.
Kim Graves, left, daughter of Carolyn
Perry, a victim, and Joyce Bradshaw,
who tipped off police.
Steve Helber/Associated Press
Ms. Smith took $138 from the store as she fled, which led the police to think it was a robbery. The police initially focused on
William Thomas, who told them he saw two men running from the scene. Mr. Thomas was tried for one of the murders and
acquitted, but the other murder indictment remained on his record until Dec. 30, when Mr. Robertson said the police were
satisfied that he had nothing to do with the murders.
Mr. Thomas said it was tough to have that hanging over his head for 40 years, though it could have been worse.
“My loss is not comparable to what happened to those families,” he said recently.
Ms. Smith moved away for a long time after the killings, got married and had two daughters, both of whom have declined to
speak with The Associated Press.
About two decades after the killings, Ms. Smith returned to Staunton without her husband and moved in with a woman,
living with her new partner until her death. Her partner also has refused interview requests.
The investigation meandered until last summer, when the police heard from Joyce Bradshaw, who worked with Ms. Smith at
her other job in 1967. Ms. Bradshaw said she went out to grab a burger with Ms. Smith about a week before the shootings and
that Ms. Smith showed her a gun and told her she had two bullets one for her stepfather, who had sexually abused her, and
one for “that Hevener girl.”
After the shootings, Ms. Bradshaw said, she told Detective Bocock about Ms. Smith’s statements. The detective came back to
her a couple of days later and told her that Ms. Smith had taken a polygraph test and passed it, and that the bullets did not
match Ms. Smith’s gun.
Ms. Bradshaw said Detective Bocock also mentioned that Ms. Smith was a good shot, something she took as enough of a
threat that she was afraid to go back to police after that.
“I tried 41 years ago, but it just didn’t work out,” Ms. Bradshaw said. “But I always knew that she was the one.”
Chief Williams said the police had not focused on Ms. Smith until recently because their records indicated she had been
cleared.
Carolyn Perry’s widower, Danny Perry, said he was glad that he knew at least who the killer was.
“We’ll just have to wait and see down the road the real why and if there was a cover-up,” Mr. Perry said.
Mr. Robertson said that he worked with Detective Bocock for more than a decade and that he always knew him to be a
“genuinely good, responsible and competent police detective.”
The authorities promised to continue to seek the truth.
“While we are continuing to investigate this matter,” Chief Williams said, “the fact remains that there will likely be questions
surrounding this case we will never be able to answer.”
