This series will be told from a unique perspective: First Person.
This is the story of the investigation into the abduction and murder of Melissa Witt.
I’ve been told that Thursday, December 1, 1994, began unremarkably in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The sun rose at 7:07 a.m., and set at 5:05 p.m.
Melissa “Missy” Witt spent the first part of the morning with her beloved mother, Mary Ann. However, before she left for her day to attend classes at Westark Community College, Missy had a minor disagreement with her mom. Missy asked to borrow money, Mary Ann said no, and the pair went on with their day.
Mary Ann and Melissa were very close. Missy was born the year Mary Ann turned forty, and by 1994, Mary Ann had been a single mom for years. It’s believed that Mary Ann felt sad about the brief argument she had with Melissa that morning so she left Missy a note. In the note, she told Missy that she loved her.
She also said she’d be at Bowling World (she bowled on a league) in Fort Smith, by the time Missy read the message and invited her to stop by. Mary Ann offered to buy her a hamburger.
After classes that morning, Melissa headed to her part-time job as a dental assistant -- a job she loved. She worked until five o’clock. After work, she discovered that her 1995 white Mitsubishi Mirage wouldn’t start. The battery was dead. A co-worker stayed with Missy while a local business owner was kind enough to jump-start her car.
When Missy arrived home, she must have seen Mary Ann’s note, because after changing clothes to put on a V-neck top, jeans, gold hoop earrings and a Mickey Mouse wristwatch, authorities believe she headed to Bowling World. It’s believed she arrived between 6:30 and 7pm.
What happened between 6:30pm and 7:45pm is unknown.
At 7:45pm, Missy’s car keys were found in the parking lot, but no one noticed the small splatters of blood that painted the keys.
Mary Ann wasn’t suspicious when Melissa didn’t show up that evening. She simply assumed her daughter had made other plans. So as Mary Ann left the bowling alley, she didn’t look for Missy’s car.
Why would she? She didn’t think Missy ever came by that night.
Mary Ann arrived home and didn’t begin to worry until the hours rolled by… Missy never called to check in. As Thursday turned into Friday morning, Mary Ann began to call Missy’s friends. No one had seen Missy. By 9am, Mary Ann called the police.
Within a matter of days, Missy’s car was discovered in the parking lot of Bowling World.
In the parking lot, authorities also found something more sinister: blood stains, a broken hair clip, and one of her hoop earrings.
It was clear that Missy had been attacked and abducted. But where was Missy Witt?
Christmas came and went.
Next, the New Year.
And then it happened. On January 13, 1995, in the Ozark National Forest near Turner Bend, two trappers found Missy’s nude body on a lonely mountaintop logging trail -- 50 miles from Bowling World.
Her body had been moved from where the killer had initially left her -- behind a tombstone-shaped rock. She had been strangled.
The killer had taken everything. Including her Mickey Mouse watch.
Some two decades later our documentary team entered the scene. We had no doubt that Melissa’s case needed renewed attention. We immediately began working with the Fort Smith Police Department Detective Troy Williams. Before his departure from the FSPD, Williams was assigned to the Witt case.
The entire documentary team wanted to take on this project -- it really hit home with us because it happened in our own backyard.
We have spent countless hours researching the case, as well as interviewing law enforcement, witnesses, and potential suspects.
This team has put their heart and soul into this project -- we all want to see justice for Melissa Witt. Some weeks, our team puts in 50 hours or more -- all unpaid. In fact, this entire project has been a labor of love.
We have also been blessed to have the former Fort Smith police detective J.C. Rider consult on this project. Rider was the lead detective on the Melissa Witt case for eight years, and he retired as captain of detectives.
We go over the case files and our notes day after day. We keep looking for that one piece of information that we missed.
One piece of evidence that our team finds particularly disturbing is the recording of a phone call that was left for law enforcement just before Missy’s body was discovered.
The call was made by a woman with a strong Southern accent who urges a young man believed to be her grandson, to tell police what he’d discovered.
But the phone call cuts off abruptly, after the young says, “I can’t” and the two never called back.
The call could be critical because it’s believed that someone (possibly the young man from the phone call) moved Missy’s body from behind the tombstone-shaped rock so that it would be found.
It’s believed that Missy argued with someone she knew that night, and someone who had a connection to the area where her body was found.
There have been rumors that several people were involved, and I just don’t think that’s the case. Statistics show us that if more than one person is involved in a crime, the chances of solving that crime go up. It doesn’t just double, it quadruples. Somebody always talks.
It’s highly unlikely multiple people were involved in this crime. It’s possible. It’s just not probable.
Our team believes that Missy’s killer could have been someone who felt jilted by Melissa. Perhaps she spurned their advance.
We believe it could be someone who has problems with women. Checks up on their women, follows them. Melissa was a beautiful girl. I think someone was overcome with their desire for Melissa Witt.
Throughout this series, I will touch on some of the possible suspects in this case. One such suspect is currently on death row in Texas for an eerily similar crime. I have people ask me every single day how would someone like that cross paths with an innocent girl like Melissa Witt?
It’s easy. It could have been as simple as a chance meeting -- something that happens a dozen times a day.
As I’ve worked this case, I have had the opportunity to read Melissa’s diary half a dozen times. The words she wrote are sacred to me.
She was a kind, sweet girl. She loved music; she loved jewelry. She loved makeup. She was boy-crazy. She was a typical teenager. She had the kindest, most pure heart. Melissa saw the world through rose-colored glasses. She was trusting and naïve to the evil in this world.
She was the daughter any mother would dream of. I’ve laughed when reading her diary, and I’ve cried. Melissa’s very last entry was about some boys she liked, and how she was buckling down in her classes in college.
Since we started this project in 2015, we have talked to hundreds of people. We haven’t found anyone that didn’t love Melissa Witt.
Sadly, shortly after her abduction, there were some horrific rumors started that put Melissa’s character into question. It was suggested that her behaviors were placing herself in harm’s way.
Those rumors were all false. Every last one of them. Was Melissa perfect? No. What teenager girl is? Melissa was a normal teenage girl.
In fact, my oldest daughter is now 19-years-old -- the same age Melissa was when she was abducted…. and it gives me chills to think that this could happen to my family… but it could. It could happen to any of us at any time.
In fact, it could have happened to me.
When I was in the fourth grade, living in southwest Oklahoma, I was in a bowling alley, ironically, with my dad, who played on a league, just as Missy’s mom had.
While my dad bowled, a man, who we later learned had already abused one girl, started a conversation with me. And when my dad went to the restroom, he tried to lure both me and my sister outside. We got all the way to the door, and my dad came out of the restroom and screamed, ‘Wait!’
The next thing I remember were people chasing that man with pool sticks. And my next memory was being in court, identifying him.
It really could have been me. I think maybe that’s why I am so personally drawn to this case.
In a twist of fate, I moved to Greenwood, Arkansas a few years later and I became friends with kids who would later become Missy’s friends. My emotional connections to this case are many, and complex, but they are sincere.
While most documentaries spend at least half of their time fundraising for their projects, our team has funded this with our own resources.
I know eventually we may have to seek traditional funding avenues, but for now, we are investing our own blood, sweat, tears and resources.
We care about this case. We want justice for Melissa Witt.
If you knew Melissa Witt, we want to hear from you. This documentary is as much about her life as it is her untimely death.
Please contact us at whokilledmissywitt@gmail.com or visit us on facebook at: Facebook.com/whokilledmissywitt.
To be continued with Part 2: Serial Killer Swearingen?
\