A sleepy Florida community was hit with despair and devastation when the murder of a sweet, bubbly, kind little girl rocked the community’s entire foundation.
In 1980, 12-year-old Georgia Crews was living her best life. She had two parents, Linda and Mike, who adored her, and two older brothers, Charles, 15, and Tony, 16. They were a very happy family, living quietly in Montverde, Florida.
Georgia was known to be a kind, sweet, gentle, yet quirky girl. She was full of life, and a bundle of energy. She enjoyed taking walks with her bulldog, Tiger, barefoot, spending time with her friends, listening to Kenny Rogers, sewing her own clothes, and indulging in Rice Krispie Treats. Georgia was your average, happy-go-lucky, run-of-the-mill 5th grader.
On April 8th, 1980, Georgia and Tony stayed home for the evening while their parents and Charles went catfish fishing on Lake Florence. It was fairly common for the family to go fishing together, and Tony and Georgia wished their family good tidings as they set off.
Around 5:30 PM or 6:00 PM, Georgia told Tony that she was taking Tiger out for a walk. She intended on stopping by the only convenience store in town, the Stop & Go, to buy snacks, and then she’d head over to a friend’s house for a little while. She assured her brother that she wouldn’t be that long.
Wearing jeans and a tanktop, Georgia set off barefoot on her journey to the store, her trusty sidekick, Tiger, in tow. Georgia never made it to her friend’s house, or the convenience store.
After a couple of hours, Tony began to worry about his sister. She wasn’t the type to wander off, and she didn’t like being out after dark, as she was afraid of the dark. It was unlike her to be away without word for so long. In a panic, Tony began scouring the neighbourhood, shouting Georgia’s name.
In his search, Tony found Tiger sitting still near a crosswalk. It was as if the dog was keeping vigil. He refused to move.
When the rest of the family returned from their fishing trip, they found a frantic, and massively panicked Tony. Tony informed them that Georgia had set off, and never come hom. As a family, they went to the store to see if anyone there had seen Georgia. They hadn’t.
The family proceeded to call the police.
As midnight neared, a massive search for Georgia had been organized. Members of the community trekked through orange groves and woodlands, looking for the young girl. In an effort to cover all their bases, the authorities dragged the bottom of Lake Florence, looking for Georgia. A bloodhound was brought in to search for a scent around the swamplands. A helicopter was seen flying overheard, search beam on high. None of it proved fruitful.
The only evidence the police had were the footprints – Georgia’s bare footprints.
Police had followed the trail of Georgias footprints right to the crosswalk where Tiger sat, refusing to budge. That was where the footprints left off, no sign of Georgia anywhere.
No one had seen Georgia, nor had they seen what could have potentially happened to her. No one came forward. No one had seen her, nor had noticed if she’d been with anyone, or gotten into a car. It was as if Georgia has simply up and vanished.
The entire Montverde community came together to help search for Georgia. They put together search parties, starting from the very night the Crews family called the police, and handed out flyers, beseeching anyone passing through the sleepy town to speak up if they knew something, or had seen anything.
On April 10th, 1980, two days after Georgia had disappeared, the Crews household received a disturbing phone call. On the end of the line, a voice said: “Hello… yeah… you know that girl that you looking for… yeah, the twelve year old… yeah… she’s dead”.
The caller made their disturbing statement, and then hung up. Georgia’s grandmother, and the wife of the town’s police marshal both got similar phone calls. None of the calls were able to be traced, and record of them has since been lost.
That phone call, though, would prove prophetic.
On April 16th, 1980, approximately 30 miles from Montverde, a family came across a gruesome discovery near Casselberry. As they were walking by, they noticed a very strong, very horrendous smell. Upon further inspection, the family found a body in some slight woodland and weeds.
The young girl was heavily decomposed, and found facing up, with one leg bent at the knee.
She was so badly decomposed, the coroner had ti identify her as Georgia Crews through dental records. Thankfully, the family never had to see Georgia like that.
At autopsy, it was revealed that Georgia’s cause of death was one stab wound to the back.
However, the big question was – how had Georgia gotten there? There had been no sign of a struggle along the road where Georgia’s footprints left off. The Montverde community began suspecting each other. Surely, they believed, this was the work of a local – someone Georgia knew; someone she trusted.
As suspicions grew, the community would forever be changed.
With no leads, the list of suspects was both vast and daunting, and lacking promise. Family, friends, relatives, colleagues of Mike and Linda, one by one, were all eliminated as suspects. There simply wasn’t enough to question them further, or truly suspect them of having harmed Georgia.
Soon, authorities would have a very promising suspect.
In September of 1980, just a few months after Georgia was found, a man by the name of Albert Lara caught the attention of investigators. At the time, he was incarcerated in Fort Madison, Iowa. He’d been convicted of the murder of Jill Annette Peters, a 15-year-old. He made a full confession, stating:
“I turned off what seemed to be a gravel road, well, a paved road. Half and half. And 300 yards or so, I spotted a girl there. I pulled over… pulled over on her side. She was opposite of me, and I started talking to her, asking directions. And while I was talking to her, a car went by. After the car passed, I grabbed her, got out of the car and threw her int he car. Drove up about two, maybe three hundred yards and spotted a house, so I turned around… I drove down a couple miles or so and pulled over where a bunch of trees were and kind of hid my car and… threw her int he back of the, I guess, the trunk of whatever. Then I drove on, found some trees, sat there and drank some beer, thought a while, and then I took her out of the trunk and put her in the back seat. I guess I commenced to rape her or something. She started struggling. She got away. I grabbed her, and at the time, my right hand found an object, an ice pick or a screwdriver or something, and I stabbed her on her lower back…”
This confession seemed like the nail in the killer’s coffin. However, upon further inspection, it was found to be full of inconsistencies, and was dismissed.
In 1994, the case had gone cold, and Albert Lara’s confession was revisited. It was later dismissed for the same reasons – it just didn’t match the evidence found at the scene where Georgia’s body was found, nor did it support evidence from the autopsies.
Lara was also prone to making false confessions. He’d been known to confess to all kinds of murders, all over the United States. It was heavily theorized that Lara made these confessions, as well as the confession to Georgia’s murder, in the hopes of being transferred out of Iowa to sever his sentence somewhere else.
As Albert Lara was once again dismissed as a viable lead, the Georgia Crews murder case went cold.
However, in 2013, police announced they had a new lead, and the Georgia Crews case was once again front-page news. As new investigators had been reviewing the case, they came across a photo of a necklace Georgia was wearing when her body was found.
The necklace appeared to be a type of cross forged together out of motorcycle parts. This was not a necklace that Georgia owned. Her family attested to that, stating that she only ever wore a small, gold pendant, which had been a gift from her grandmother.
It is highly contended that if someone can identify whom the necklace belonged to, they will find Georgia’s killer.
Multiple theories as to what happened to Georgia have been posited. Most prevalent, it is believed that a local Montverde resident took Georgia, and murdered her. Others believe that Albert Lara is the true culprit. And still, others believe that a stranger, just driving through town, abducted Georgia.
One thing is clear – someone knows something.
If you have any information regarding the investigation into the Georgia Crews murder case, please contact the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office here.
If you would like to remain anonymous, you can do so through Crimeline, or by calling: 1-800-423-TIPS.
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Sources:
The Unsolved Murder of Georgia Crews – Emily G. Thompson – True Crime Files
Murder Minute Podcast – The Mystery of Georgia Crews