A Virginia woman has confessed to the
double murder of two women 42 years ago because they taunted her for
being a lesbian, CNN reports.
The bizarre case of Sharron Diane
Crawford Smith began in 1967 when she killed Carolyn Perry and Connie
Hevener with a .25 caliber pistol at High's Ice Cream in Staunton,
Virginia.
Smith was able to conceal her crime
with the aid of David Bocock, the city's police investigator at the
time.
“He said he was gonna take care of
the gun,” Smith told investigators in her confession. “He said
that he was digging a hole, putting it in there, and that it would be
safe.” Bocock died in 2006.
In her November 28, 2008 confession,
Smith told police detectives that she killed the two women because
they taunted her for being a lesbian.
“Taunting, teasing,” Smith
explained to police, “about my lifestyle. ... I was just pushed so
far.”
Smith was arrested and charged with the
deaths of 19-year-old Connie Hevener and Hevener's sister-in-law,
Carolyn Perry, 20.
But Smith, 61, who suffered from heart
and kidney problems, died January 19.
Smith and the two women worked at
High's Ice Cream parlor. On the night she killed the pair, Smith
says she went to the store to tell the women she could not work the
next day and took her pistol with her.
The teasing turned physical, Smith
explained, and she shot the women.
“I was just going to tell them that I
couldn't work and one thing led to another,” she said.