191. Looks Like Murder Without A Motive - The Illogical Tragedy Of Bonnie Neighbors

The holiday season was in full bloom in the small North Carolina town of Benson on Thursday December 14, 1972 when 33 year old Bonnie Neighbors was planning to pick up her oldest son Ken from school, taking her three-month old baby boy Glenn along with her.  A witness even saw Bonnie’s car leave her driveway that afternoon – although, strangely, she seemed to be driving erratically and at a high rate of speed – and in the opposite direction of Ken’s school.  When Bonnie’s husband (Ken, Senior) got a call from young Ken’s school telling him that no one had come to pick up the young Ken, and when it was later discovered that both Bonnie and baby Glen were missing – and that Bonnie had obviously packed diapers and baby formula – and that her favorite green pantsuit was missing from the closet – an intense search began that got the entire community involved. v First found was Bonnie’s station wagon – parked near her home – virtually untouched.  Then, three days after she and the baby disappeared, Bonnie’s body was found lying on a cot inside the concrete walls of an abandoned migrant labor camp in nearby Meadow Township. She had suffered a severe blow to the back of the head and had been shot twice, through her coat and her pantsuit.  She was fully-clothed and there was no evidence of sexual assault.  There was no blood anywhere, indicating that she had been killed elsewhere and then moved.  Next to Bonnie’s body, crying and cold, was baby Glen.  Nearby were several dirty diapers, leading investigators to believe that Bonnie had been alive and taking care of her baby for at least a short while before she was murdered.  Glen was rushed to the hospital, where he fully recovered.  A single bullet casing and a number of cigarette butts were on the floor near a bench next to the cot. That was the extent of evidence of the existence of a perpetrator – and all that police had to work with.  Until 2019 – when the absolutely heroic foresight of the investigating officers 47 years earlier who had preserved those cigarette butts and bullet casing long before DNA testing was even dreamed of – yielded enough of the perpetrator’s DNA to finally arrest one Larry Scott, a drifter with a small-time police record who was 18 years old at the time of Bonnie Neighbors’ disappearance and who was living in Bradenton Florida.  After initially fighting extradition, Scott finally agreed and was indicted back in North Carolina in May 2019.  But here’s where the story gets odd – and where Tip-Sters everywhere can dig in and help out:  After the 2019 arraignment, Melissa has not been able to find out what happened to Scott – she hasn’t found evidence of a trial – or of Scott’s death – or his connection, if any, to Bonnie Neighbors – or anything at all.  Get ready for Melissa’s rendering of an engrossing tale of awful and seemingly illogical murder – and the mystery still surrounding the outcome of this seemingly never-ending case.