Arrest made in ‘67 deaths

Staunton's most notorious unsolved case, the 1967 double homicide of two young women at an ice cream store, may finally be solved with the arrest of a dying woman.

Sharron Diane Crawford Smith, now 60, was charged yesterday with first-degree murder in the slaying of 20-year-old Carolyn Hevener Perry and 19-year-old Constance Smootz Hevener.

Smith was 19 at the time of the killings and worked part time at the store.

Staunton Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Robertson said he is confident police have arrested the right person, though he declined to say whether she had confessed. Police were led to Smith by new information revealed by a witness who recently talked to police and private investigators looking into the 41-year-old case.

"There is concern she won't live to see a trial,'' Robertson said at a press conference yesterday. "She might not make it through the weekend."

Smith, who is on oxygen, has end-stage heart failure, chronic kidney disease, severe anemia and chronic pain and nausea; she can't walk, he said.

Because she is so gravely ill, Smith was released on a personal recognizance bond. She is being treated at a medical facility that is not being named because of fears for her safety, Robertson said.

Perry and Hevener were sisters-in-law who worked at a High's Ice Cream store at a small shopping center. Late in the evening on April 11, 1967, a customer who walked into the store found the dying women in the back room of the store.

Police rushed to the scene. "Both had lost a lot of blood,'' chief detective Sgt. D.L. Bocock wrote in a police report. "We checked the pulse of both women, one was strong and one very weak."

Each had been shot once in the head with a .25 caliber handgun right at closing time. About $138 was stolen from the store.

However, robbery was not the motive for the slayings, Robertson said. "We do have evidence of a motive,'' he said, though he declined to elaborate.

Over the years, police worked the case in what can only be called a luckless fashion. Smith had initially been named a suspect by a witness but was discounted by investigators as the killer. "Her name was in the file," said Robertson. "She was investigated but there was no hard evidence linking them."

A Staunton man, William W. Thomas Jr., was indicted for both murders and was tried for one in 1968 but was acquitted. This week, he asked prosecutors to drop the long-standing second indictment.

Other tips over the years led nowhere.

Danny Perry, who was married to Carolyn Perry when she was killed, attended the news conference with their daughter Kim, who was 2 years old at the time of the slaying. He said he hoped the arrest would "close the books'' on a "selfish, unnecessary tragedy."

Peter Campbell, whose wife, Ada, was Carolyn Perry's sister, told reporters that "we've seen the pain and suffering involved. . . . Now let Constance and Carolyn rest in peace. Today is a day to begin the healing process."

Smith has an initial appearance scheduled in Staunton District Court for Jan. 7.
Contact Carlos Santos at (434) 295-9542 or .