My strangest case yet.... What happened to Molly Ruth Netherland?

                   

                          Molly Ruth Netherland

                 Missing from Kemper County

 It was a cold, clear night in January 2022. I had been to Philadelphia and was on my way home.  As I passed the Pearl River Resort Casino, I saw several police cars on the right side of the road with their lights on. Nothing unusual for a Saturday night.

As I got a little further down the highway, I passed a figure dressed in dark colored clothing walking alone on the right side of the road.  Although they had on a jacket with a hoodie, I determined from the shape of their body it was likely a woman. 

"0h my goodness," I thought.  "It is so cold outside they are probably about to freeze", and then I thought about the lady in Meridian that froze to death under a bridge.   

"I don't pick up hitch-hikers," I reminded myself, but as I got a little further down the road, I checked the temperature: 28 degrees.  I wondered at what degree a person freezes to death, so I ask Siri.

At 50 degrees and under a human can get hypothermia and die, but under 32 is freezing.

I decided to turn my car around and check on them. At first I breathed a sigh of relief.  I didn't see them anywhere and I surmised that someone had picked them up, but a little further down the road there they were.  

I had a dilemma.  Should I pick them up or not. I decided if it was a girl I would give them a ride, and if not, I could at least see if there was someone I could call for them.  

Although her head was shaved, I determined it was a girl, so I asked her why she was walking on such a cold night, and she said she had gone to sleep on the bathroom floor at the casino and they had kicked her out.  

I told her to get in the car and asked her where she needed to go.  She said Bogue Chitto and I asked where that was. Wiping tears from her eyes, she gave me some kind of vague directions and I decided I would not drive there that time of night, but instead would take her home with me.

I asked her name and she told me it was Cherokee Bell.

My nephew Justin was there and so was my friend Arlie so I felt it would be safe to take her to the house.  

Before I went to town, I had cooked a big pot of chicken-n-dumplings so when we got home, I fixed her a warm bowl of dumplings and she ate it like she was really hungry, and I knew the warmth was helping her defrost. 

She asked if she could she have another bowl and I said, "Sure."  Then she said, "You are the mother I never had."

If you know me, you know I like to talk so that opened up the conversation, and the first thing I wanted to know was why she was walking down the road on a freezing night and no one from her family had come to pick her up.

  

 TERRY BELL, A RETAIL SUPERVISOR AT PEARL RIVER RESORT,

DIED FROM STAB WOUNDS DURING A FIGHT WITH HIS SISTER.

She then proceeded to tell me that she had manslaughter charges pending against her because she and her brother had been drinking one night and got into a fight.  He was beating on her, so she stabbed him with a knife, and he died.  After that she said her mother and the rest of her family would not have anything to do with her, and that she currently lived with her cousin. 

I could tell from our conversation that she felt remorse about her brother so I told her, "We all make mistakes and God can forgive you and wipe the slate clean."

As we settled into more conversation, she asked me what I did for a living, and I told her I was an insurance agent. 

Then she mentioned a nice woman she knew of that use to go and visit the prisoners at the Neshoba County jail, but her following words blew me out of the water. 

"You remind me of that missing white woman.(she did not say which white woman). My cousin killed her, and I just think it is horrible to kill someone for money."

Although I felt some apprehension, I had two able bodied men at my house and one of them had a big gun, so I felt safe letting her spend the night on my couch.  

I wanted to question her some more, but when I got up the next morning she was gone.  

I called the Neshoba County Sheriff's department so see if they knew of a missing white woman and they said no.

I immediately started searching google for a missing white woman from Neshoba County but could not find anyone.  Then I went to Facebook and searched for a missing white woman.

I pulled up a post of a woman missing from Kemper County, the next county over, named Molly Ruth Netherland."

When I saw Molly's picture, she had short blonde hair like mine, and although she was older, I could see a resemblance. I felt in my gut this was the missing white woman Cherokee Bell was talking about. 

I looked on a map and found Bogue Chitto (although Cherokee never said which cousin murdered the missing woman),and saw that it was not far from where Molly disappeared.  

I surmised that if a person went from Bogue Chitto to Meridian they would likely take the back road, Highway 495 South, the road Molly disappeared on.  

On Thursday, September 2, 2021, Seventy-Nine-year-old dementia patient, Molly Ruth Netherland, disappeared from her Kemper County home, never to be heard from again.

 Molly was last seen around 6:30 pm sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of her Old Jackson Road home, enjoying a cool breeze, a quiet country view, and an Almond, chocolate-covered, vanilla, Haagen-Dazs ice cream bar. Next to her chair was a basket she put collectibles in, such as rocks and sticks.  

Molly's sister, Ginger McKee, was busy inside finishing up the laundry.  Around 7:15 Ginger went out on the porch to check on Molly, but Molly was gone.  Ginger figured she had walked down the 1/2 mile long, winding, dirt driveway looking for sticks and stones and anything else she might find for her basket of collectibles.

Ginger waited and waited and when Molly did not return, she took her car and went to look for her, but could not find her so they called the Sheriff and reported her missing.

"The Sheriff's Department did everything they could possibly do to find her including Thermal cameras, a helicopter, Sonar, and search and rescue teams, all to no avail.

The best lead came from a tracking dog that followed her scent to the end of the driveway, right onto Old Jackson Road, and then South on Highway 495 toward Meridian. 

According to Sheriff Moore the dog followed her scent for 15 miles, all the way to the Lauderdale County line.  The tracking dog can track a person's scent whether they are on foot of in a vehicle.  It is believed that she was picked up by someone in a vehicle.

Over the last week she had talked about going to Pascagoula, her former home place, to look for some papers.  In her demented state she would have been confused and easily fooled.

Kim Turner, one of Molly's stepdaughters says, "Molly was always busy doing something and used to drive an Asbestos x-ray truck across the country doing x-rays.  My dad, Gary Crawford was from Sandtown and when he passed in August of 2020 Molly didn't' want to be by herself so she moved to Kemper County to live with her sister Ginger."  

Crystal Gale Crawford, another one of Molly's stepdaughters says, "Molly did not have any money or ID on her when she went missing.  I took care of Molly and my father for a long time and continued to take care of Molly after my father, Gary Crawford passed away.  I cry myself to sleep every night. If you find her, please mention the name Gary Crawford and tell her we love her."

It is hard enough to lose a loved one, but to have them missing and not know if they are dead or alive or where they are is sheer torture.

Molly is a white female with short, gray hair, 5'5", 125 lbs, blue eyes last seen wearing white jogging pants, a white shirt, crocks and a dark colored sweatshirt. 

Whether Molly was the missing woman Cherokee Bell was talking about or someone else, her story led me to this sweet, wonderful woman who has been missing for too long, and needs to be found.  Please pray for the family.

If you have information leading to Molly's whereabouts or info that leads to the arrest and conviction of anyone that may have abducted or harmed her, you can leave tips with: Muddy Mississippi Justice at 601-745-6276 or 601-842-7461 or email us at MuddyMississippiJustice@gmail.com.  

Also, you can reach The Kemper County Sheriff's Department: 601-743-2255 or Crime Stoppers: 855-485-8477.

 There is a $5,000 dollar reward being offered.

Shondra May Blue Lighted 3 days Before Disappearance!

For David Spivey it was a night like any other night.  Lying on the sofa watching TV, vehicle lights coming up the South driveway shone across the curtains and into the living room.  I knew it was Shondra because I knew her rate of speed so I told my dad, "Shondra is home, there goes her car headed up the hill."

Not long after I saw the car lights our phone rang.  It was aunt Nell, Shondra's mother.  She said, "Is Shondra at your house?"  She said Shondra had called and said she was headed home but had not arrived yet. We told her no.

Aunt Nell got into her car coming to our house, and as she was pulling down the hill her car lights hit Shondra's car, pulled over to the left, door open, but she didn't see Shondra.

When I got to the car, the door was open and unlocked with the window cracked about an inch.  The radio was on with the volume turned down, like you would if you were talking to someone, and the passenger seat was pulled back.  Her billfold was in an open position, but her drivers license was missing.

It was misting rain and three tiny muddy footprints led toward the back of the car and disappeared.  The driveway was shaped like a triangle with the Hypotenuse (the longer part of the triangle) facing Highway 35, and the legs of the triangle (being the South and North driveway) meeting at 90 degrees at the tip of the triangle and going straight out from the angle to Richard May Road that went past Shondra's house and remained a dirt road (now paved) that when followed dead ended into Pea Ridge Road. Taking a left on Pea Ridge Road would head you back toward Forest, and a right would take you toward Lena, Mississippi.

It is my feeling that whoever took Shondra came down Richard May road and blocked her car from entering. As she came up the South driveway her tracks went straight across the longest part of the triangle, like she may have been blocked, and then her car swung around to the left and parked on the edge of the North driveway. (Theoretically someone could have followed her as far as the first Pea Ridge Road turn off and went past her house the back way and blocked her entrance.)

I think Shondra felt she was being pulled over by an officer of the law, or someone she knew, because if she felt she was in trouble she would have honked her horn.  We also had three dogs and not a one of them so much as made a whimper, and they would bark at their own tail.

We called the Sheriff's department and they said she was a runaway, and would be back.

I didn't believe that, but a secret Shondra had shared with me begin to weigh on my mind.  Three days before she disappeared she told me someone in a Dark colored truck stopped at Calvary Baptist Church on HWY 35 had blue lighted her on her way home.   At first she thought it was her boyfriend Tony's truck, but when the person stepped out of the truck she realized it was not Tony or his truck so she took off.  (It is rumored that both McLain and Willie McCurdy owned a dark truck during this time period.)

"I like making my own money and buying my own clothes, Shondra pleaded, Please don't tell mom and dad because they will make me stop working, and I don't want them to worry!"  "I didn't tell cause I promised Shondra I wouldn't", says David through his tears.

The night before she disappeared my aunt and great-grandmother saw a dark complected man about 6'3" wearing a blue windbreaker going through the trash and burn barrel at Shondra's house.  The police were called, but he was gone when they got there.

Shondra had left a note on the door for her boyfriend Tony telling him she was at her grandmothers house because her grandad was in the hospital.  Tony never got the note.  The note was found several days after Shondra disappeared, down the embankment not far from where her car was found.  It was given to Sheriff Glenn Warren and he just threw it in the trash can.

Shondra had a lot of admirers.  One day someone went through the drive through at McDonalds and handed a flower to the girl at the window, (this version varies from the one I was told by someone else) The girl said, "I don't want it" and they told her, "It isn't for you, it's for Shondra."  They waited at the drive through until Shondra got the flower, then left.  Only one person was in the car, and as soon as they left Shondra threw it in the trash because it was dead.

Kenneth McLain was another one of her admirers.  He worked out at the Karate place next door to McDonalds, and was always trying to get her to go with him, but she wouldn't because she was head over hills in love with her boyfriend, Tony Adams.

One Sunday afternoon after church we all went to Roosevelet State park in Morton, Mississippi.  Kenneth McLain was there and Shondra said, "This dude wants me to ride around the lake with him in his black Pontiac Trans Am.  I won't get in the car with him, we will just ride on the hood."  Shondra and my sister Elizabeth rode around the park on the hood of his car, and then came back.

After that McLain came into McDonalds and told her he wanted to take her water skiing, but she said the place he wanted to take her skiing was not big enough for a boat.

McLain destroyed and burned his Trans-Am right after Shondra was killed.

One night I went to the casino and McLain was there dancing.  When I saw him I said, I got to go, I think that SOB killed my cousin.  I took the backroads through Laurel Hill and he followed me in my Grand Prix GT.  If I sped up he would speed up, if I slowed down he would slow down, but never pass me.

Not long before Shondra May disappeared another young girl, Robin Lewis, was headed home through a swampy area between Harpersville and Hillsboro.  She drove a car similar to Shondra's and it is belived she was blue-lighted.  She was thrown out the sunroof of her car and landed in the water of the creek and drown. 

Former Shondra May Co-worker Speaks Out!

The following was written by one of Shondra's former coworkers.  They wish to remain anonymous.  

Growing up in Forest, Mississippi was very boring. There was not much for young people to do. Most of the time kids hung out in the parking lots talking, drinking beer and listening to music. Kids would pile up in one car and circle back and forth from Sonic to McDonalds, to TG&Y and Cat's Cave. The boys all had blue lights they stole from the airport and would hook them up to a battery to make a strobe light.
           
My parents were very strict on me and I was not allowed to hang out with the fun kids back then. I was only allowed to attend the Baptist church, go to school at Scott Central and to my job at McDonalds in Forest.
           
 My first day at McDonalds I had to fill out a bunch of papers. Shondra May was in the break-room eating lunch and asked me if I needed help. She was so pretty. She had short black hair, green eyes, dark complected . I wished I looked like her. I was so flat chested I looked like a boy. She was just the opposite.
           
 Right away I noticed that all the guys were attracted to her. She would Hug the boss, a skinny guy with glasses named Tony.  I thought to myself," I know good and well she don't like him". He'd yell at us to get to work. He'd say "If you got time to lean, you got time to clean".

 A cop came every day through the drive-through. I can't remember now if his name was Willie McCurdy or Jamie Veezy. I honestly don't remember. He was chubby and dark headed and wore glasses. When he came he would not give me his order, rather he insisted on seeing Shondra. I told him one day that Shondra was busy. He said I'll wait and would not leave or pull up so the people behind him could get their food. She always knew what he wanted before he came to the window, a medium Dr. Pepper. She would lean out the window, give him his drink, flirt and act like she liked him, then roll her eyes when he drove off.

I always got the job of mopping the lobby and the bathrooms. There was an old guy that sat in the lobby for several hours everyday smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and staring at the girls. He had no shame about it. He would look you up and down, and down and up. He had shoulder length grey hair and a Sam Elliot mustache that twisted on each end. He was freaky looking (but all the older men looked freaky to me.). I think he drove a white Monte Carlo.  

One day one of the boys that worked the drive-through window said," Someone left this for you Shondra." He then handed her a dried up, long stem rose. It had thorns, not store bought. It was withered and white. She asked, "Who was it? " He said it was just some guys, he didn't know them. Everybody started picking at her saying,"ooooweee, Shondra's got a boyfriend, Shondra's got a boyfriend". She threw the rose on the counter and said, "I don't want it! " I thought she was being a snob, because if I got a rose I would be happy and grateful. I was too young to know that a dead rose is not flattering.

I would go to TG&Y after school several days a week. I enjoyed looking at makeup, magazines and tapes. There was always these three boys riding through the parking lot trying to pick up girls. They would yell at me and call me sexy and hot stuff. The driver was fat and red headed with a crew cut. The front passenger had kinky, red , bushy hair, a cap, and tattoos on his fingers. The boy in the back was kind of cute. He had black hair and real blue eyes. He looked a lot younger than them. They drove an old, loud, red car, a Firebird, I think.

 At first I was polite, but my daddy said not to talk to them at all so I began to ignored them.   One day the red headed passenger jumped out and tried to pull me up close to him. He was trying to pull me into the car. I pushed away and ran in the store.

When Shondra disappeared my daddy wouldn't allow me to work anymore. I was not allowed to go anywhere alone, not even TG&Y.  If I went shopping, I had to take a friend.  I never saw the boys that so frequently circled the parking lot in the red Firebird again.   However, I heard through friends that the driver became a Pentecostal preacher within months of her death, the red headed passenger went to prison for robbery and murder, and the cute black headed boy, who seemed the nicest of the bunch, killed himself or was killed, not sure which.

All us kids from McDonalds were interviewed by FBI . I told them I thought the cop did it. The investigator said that's highly unlikely because he never missed a day of work. The cop told me she was raped by more than one man, then he said something that sent chills over me," At least one of her killers was red headed."
           
I remembered the three boys in the red Firebird. I told him what happened to me, and how other girls were harassed by those three. From then on and to this day, I have always thought it was them.
          
 I haven't been back to Ms in 20 years. My mother passed and my father moved to Denver to be near me and my husband. I stay in touch with dear friends from there and enjoy seeing pictures on Facebook of classmates from Scott Central. I have no desire to ever return to Scott County.
          
 Last Sunday I sat near the window of our small church and watched the snow pile deeper and deeper around the glass. My mind was on Shondra. I could not forget her sweet smile, gentle voice and green eyes. I felt guilty for my childish jealousy.
          
When the preacher said," Remember the dead who have gone ahead of us", he caught my attention. He went on to read a passage in the Living Bible that talked about the first murder. Cain killed his own brother, Able, in cold blood and then tried to hide it from the Lord. Then God asked him, "Where is your brother?" Cain Said, "How should I know? Am I my brothers keeper?" The Lord then said,"What have you done? Listen! Your brothers blood is calling to me from the ground!"

We have a responsibility to solve this murder. Someone out there knows the truth. Someone has got to come forward. Shondra's blood is crying out from the ground!  LISTEN!


ANY SMALL DETAIL COULD HELP THE POLICE SOLVE THIS MURDER, IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING, NO MATTER HOW SMALL, PLEASE TELL IT.  SHONDRA COULD HAVE BEEN,YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE. HELP GIVE THE FAMILY PEACE.  STOP CARRYING THE GUILT AROUND WITH YOU.