Post by Scumhunter on Mar 28, 2016 17:38:38 GMT -5
(Above photo credit: hbtv.us)
The murders of couple Elmer & Joette Thrasher in their Alabama home also coincided with a strange missing persons case. Below is a 2007 article about the case (admittedly old, but I feel it is the best summary available on the web):
From timesdaily.com:
Five or six miles of crooked country roads, or as some say, "just a few miles as the crow flies," separated Randy Whitfield's home from that of Elmer and Joette Thrasher in northern Winston County.
The Thrashers and Whitfield were only casual acquaintances. After all, in most small, rural communities, everyone has at least some knowledge of their neighbors.
But the mysterious 2001 disappearance of Whitfield and the shooting deaths of the Thrashers just two days later will forever link all three, unless investigators and family members can finally learn what really happened just a couple of weeks before Christmas 2001.
Randy Whitfield disappears
The evening of Dec. 8, 2001, may have been like many others inside Randy Whitfield's mobile home on Winston 478. His home sat just north of the runway at Haleyville Municipal Airport.
Whitfield may have tinkered with some cars or tractors on his property that day like he did on many occasions. Then he apparently went inside to settle in for the evening.
But what happened later that night no one knows. Or at least no one is telling the right people.
Whitfield, 39, suddenly and mysteriously vanished from his home, never to be seen again.
Weeks later, when family members realized that no one had seen or heard from him, they began looking for answers.
"I called him about four days before he came up missing and asked if everything was OK," said his mother, Virginia Horsley.
Whitfield worked as a mobile home escort and was often gone for days at a time on transport jobs. Horsley said it was not uncommon for the family to go periods of time without talking to one another. "We never visited a lot, but we would all call and find out if everybody was doing OK."
She never suspected that her son was missing until her other son, Calvin, told her that he had not been seen.
"When we went to his trailer, the doors were unlocked, his supper from that night was cooked and sitting on the stove," Horsley said. "His dog didn't have any food or water, and I know Randy wouldn't have left the dog like that. I knew then that something didn't add up."
Horsley said she realized that her son was missing "two days short of three weeks," after he had last been seen. That time period extended into the Christmas holiday.
"He loved Christmas," she said. "When we went in the trailer there were wrapped presents that he had bought. He would have never left like that and not told us. Somebody took him from that trailer."
Who exactly took him from the trailer, if that's what happened, and where they took him, are questions that investigators have never been able to answer.
"He just basically disappeared off the face of the earth," said Haleyville Police Chief Kyle Reogas. "Somebody out there knows something and has the answers to the questions we need answered."
Reogas said the case has been baffling because there is so little information.
"It was not common for Randy to leave his shop unlocked at any time, but on this particular instance, everything was unlocked," Reogas said.
No items inside the home were taken so a break-in appears unlikely. A Haleyville man, however, was later charged and prosecuted for having a vehicle and car hauler that had been taken off Whitfield's property.
Investigators said there has never been enough information to arrest anyone in the case, but Horsley has held out hope that her son will be found.
She said the family has been told several stories, including one in which Whitfield was taken to Mississippi and held for two days before being killed. Another story is that Whitfield's body was buried somewhere 80 feet below the ground.
"I am not going to rest until we find my baby," Horsley said.
Investigators have searched several areas, including one area in Franklin County earlier this year, where the body was believed to be.
Reogas said his department has been working with sheriff's investigators, agents from the Alabama Bureau of Investigation and others to find out what happened to Randy Whitfield.
"It's been six years and we continue to discuss this case every week," he said. "It is something that we want to solve and bring closure to this family."
The Thrashers are slain
The night of Dec. 10, 2001, was cool and foggy. The perfect kind of night for a family to settle inside and prepare for a rest-filled evening before another hard day at work. That may have been just what Elmer and Joette Thrasher were looking forward to until a killer suddenly took their lives.
Joette was sitting on the couch inside the family's home on Alabama 195 between Haleyville and Double Springs, just across the heavily traveled road from the couple's business, J.E.T. Furniture. Her husband, Elmer, had been in the back of the house near where their 6-year-old granddaughter was asleep in the bed.
Just before 9 p.m., something happened that caused Joette Thrasher, 52, to pick up the telephone and dial 911. But before emergency responders were able to answer the phone, a gunman shot through the plate-glass window in the front of the house, killing her with a single shotgun wound to the back of the head.
Apparently hearing the gunshot, Elmer Thrasher, 54, made his way into the living room, where he was fatally wounded with a shotgun blast to the chest.
"It's like they were ambushed," said Elmer's brother, Wilson Thrasher, who lived less than half a mile from the couple.
The couple's granddaughter was found safe in the bed, but has never been able to help investigators with details.
"It's like it's blocked out of her mind," said Winston County Sheriff Ed Townsend.
Townsend said he believes the couple knew the person who killed them. "They saw them before they were shot. I don't think Joette was afraid enough to run."
Townsend said there were seven seconds between the time Joette Thrasher finished dialing 911 to the time that an operator answered the call.
"It happened during that time," he said.
The couple's daughter, Melinda Haynes, said she can't understand why this happened to her parents.
"I miss Momma and Daddy so much," she said. "I just want to know why."
Her husband, Patrick, said he, too, will never forget the in-laws that he cared so much about.
"I will never forget it," Patrick Haynes said. "When we got the call, my first thought was that Elmer had caught someone trying to break in."
The Thrashers' home had been burglarized on several occasions when the couple was out of town. Elmer Thrasher had installed a security camera, but on the night they were killed, the camera was down while he was getting ready to build a new front porch on the house.
Police have spent hours looking over clues and answering tips, but nothing has led to an arrest. The only item taken from the house was a briefcase, which could have contained money. It was found a couple of years later on the side of a road in rural Franklin County.
"We've interviewed hundreds of people," Townsend said. "We investigate every tip we get; it's just aggravating that we haven't been able to solve this. This is something we talk about all the time."
The Thrashers' family believes that mistakes were made during the initial investigation by allowing officers to walk all through the home, possibly scattering or trampling evidence.
"There were investigators all over the place, and it was a mess," Wilson Thrasher said.
Are the cases linked?
The strange circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Randy Whitfield just two days before a double murder in the county is puzzling to investigators and the families. There are varying opinions on whether or not the cases are linked, but no one disputes the bizarre timing of the cases.
"Randy didn't disappear on his own, and the Thrashers were definitely murdered by someone else, so the question is whether or not they are connected or just a coincidence," Reogas said.
By most accounts, the Thrashers and Whitfield knew one another, but how well, no one knows for sure.
Both families involved say that whether or not they are linked, they feel for one another and grieve for the other's loss.
"We have been on searches with the police looking for Randy's body," said Elmer Thrasher's brother-in-law, Jimmy Cummings. "We are kind of all in this together. We want them to find out what happened to him like we want to know what happened to Elmer and Joette."
The families have been looking for help since December 2001. A a retired Haleyville native now living in Georgia has taken it upon himself to help them get their answers.
Dr. Joe Teal, a retired chiropractor who is still active in Haleyville, has been helping the families work together and look for outside assistance.
"All I do is enable and encourage and connect the dots for other people to act on," Teal said. "No one can do anything of great importance by themselves."
Looking for answers
Investigators have been looking for clues from the community and have taken their search nationwide. Townsend and Reogas said they have sent requests to several national media outlets hoping to garner interest in the case.
"I've sent them to anyone I can think of that might help," Townsend said. "Somebody knows something, and we need them to come forward."
Attorney General Troy King has formed a "cold case unit" that will be dedicated to the investigation and prosecution of difficult unsolved criminal cases throughout Alabama. He said the unit will be "exclusively dedicated to helping those who have not yet seen justice done for the horrible acts that have been committed against them."
Townsend said he hopes the unit will get involved with the two Winston County cases. Police urge anyone with information about the case to call.
"I think we could have gotten an indictment in this case, but not a conviction," he said. "We want the right person who committed these crimes."
www.timesdaily.com/archives/six-years-after-slayings-families-look-for-answers/article_e1b7c817-73cd-5789-aec5-ba252dd3c2d0.html
Thoughts? Just for reference, I was able to find a partial AMW archived description of the case, but it's truncated: www.inarchive.com/com/a/amw.com/7941/2011-11-22-description/68/AMW_Fugitives_Unkown_Elmer_and_Joette_Thrasher_Killer_Case/
Also, here is a photo of Randy Whitfield (photo credit: pen-n-sword.com):
Admin Note #1: According to internet research sites on this case, If you have any information that may help solve this murder, please contact the Winston County Sheriff's Office (Alabama) at 205-489-2115
Admin Note #2: If you have any (news-related) updates on this case, please contact us here: amwfans.com/thread/1662/website-contact-form