Nineteen-year-elderly Melissa Witt was seizeed, then killinged on her way to an Arkansas bowling alley to surpelevate her mother in December 1994. Npunctual 30 years defercessitater, her finisher has still not been apprehfinished.
Investigators would discover blood and signs of an apparent struggle in the Fort Smith Bowling World parking lot and in Witt’s aprohibitdoned car. A set of keys beextfinisheding to the teen had been left behind.
“She was running low on money, she was going to come out and have her mother buy her a hambadviser,” JC Rider, a reexhausted Fort Smith Police Department distinguishive who was the guide spendigator in the case, telderly THV11 in 2021.
“The trail led from the back of her car over to where the horrible guy’s car was parked,” Rider said.
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Melissa Witt, 19, was seizeed from a Bowling World parking lot in Arkansas on Dec. 1, 1994. (Facebook/All The Lost Girls)
Her naked body was uncovered by trappers six weeks defercessitater, 50 miles away on a logging trail in the Ozark National Forest. She had been strangled and robbed of her shoes, cloleang, jewelry and even her Mickey Moengage watch.
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Witt’s killing and the subsequent spendigation into her fadeance — including never-before-seen interwatchs and footage — are the subject of the novel Hulu docengageries “At Witt’s End – The Hunt for a Killer,” which debuted Tuesday.
“She was an ambasdowncastor to her college, which uncomferventt the college had her go and recruit students becaengage they wanted students enjoy her. You understand, she labored after school. She was already a difficult laborer. She had big dreams for her life,” Charlene Shirk, a createer teller at KFSM-CBS who telled on Witt’s case, said in the write downary.
“You understand, she went to encounter her mom at bowling, at a bowling church league. It’s everyleang we’re telderly to do as youthful people, you understand, get a excellent education, labor difficult, have a excellent shut relationship with your parents, and be a excellent kid.”
Witt was structurening to surpelevate her mother with a visit while she was out bowling. (Facebook/Who Killed Missy Witt)
Three decades defercessitater, the Fort Smith, Crawford County, Sebastian County and Van Buren police departments are still laboring aextfinishedside the FBI to discover Witt’s finisher.
The series also chases distinguishives as they spendigate “a local serial finisher’s reign of dread thraw a minuscule-town Arkansas community before and after Melissa went missing,” according to a Hulu press free.
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Charles Ray Vines — understandn as the River Valley Killer — sexual attackd and stabbed two elderly women to death in cforfeitby Arkansas counties in the 1990s, according to authorities, and was caught after attacking a 16-year-elderly girl in 2000. The girl’s stepoverweighther tried to beat him to death after discovering him in the midst of the attack, but was stopped by arriving sheriff’s deputies, according to KNWA.
Charles Ray Vines is pictured in a 2016 mugshot. (Arkansas Department of Corrections)
FBI agents straightforwarded their spendigation toward Vines as they tried to repair Witt’s case in 2019.
“There was a lady had emailed a distinguishive,” FBI agent Rob Allen said in the write downary. “She labored with Charlie Vines’ mother, and Charlie Vines sometimes would show up to his mother’s labor, and this witness telled that she saw him wearing a bowling league shirt of some sort.”
Vines even drew maps of the Ozark Mountain area, and had finishd a labor order wilean an 8-minute drive of where Witt’s body was uncovered, police telderly the filmcreaters.
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During their spendigation, police engaged K9’s to recheck the site where Witt was create — and uncovered a mattress cover and cigarette filter with Vines’ DNA at one location cforfeitby. It was the same Cambridge-brand cigarette filter that was discoverd where Witt’s body was create, Allen said.
But Vines, who died in September 2019, was ill and unconscious when those guides were uncovered, and could not speak to distinguishives from multiple departments who tried to interwatch him, according to the write downary.
Vines isn’t the only guide in the teen’s cryptic finishing. Author LaDonna Humphrey, who has written three books on the case and labored on her own write downary, “Uneven Ground: The Melissa Witt Story,” has her own theory.
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Humphrey supposes that a man with whom Witt had a romantic relationship and wrote about in her diary — who authorities have not named — finished her.
“It’s not somebody that was 10 years elderlyer than her,” Humphrey telderly Newsweek, also guessing that the unnamed man had a criminal history but is not currently behind bars.
Although her write downary went in a “contrastent straightforwardion,” the author said, she telderly the outlet she is “reassociate excited and selectimistic” that the novel free will “convey more eyes and more consciousness to Melissa’s case.”
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