THREE RIVERS AREA — It was springtime and warm when 20-year-old Sandra Lynn Williams of Beebe was murdered. This month marks 24 years since her body was found between Floyd and Romance. She lay near a bluff for approximately two weeks after she went missing, and her family is looking for closure.
Williams worked at a nursing home in Lonoke, and her mother, Norma Cagle of Bradford, also worked there.
“She worked that day and was going to her boyfriend’s house in Guy,” Cagle said. “She left about 4:15, and he called me about 10 that night and wondered where she was.”
Cagle and Williams’ boyfriend, Bruce Taylor, immediately began searching for Williams.
Her charcoal-gray 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme was found sitting on the side of the road along Arkansas 31 in Romance, and her body was found by a fisherman about three miles away two weeks later on April 25, 1987.
“Another set of tire tracks behind her car left a pretty good set of ruts and went off toward the bluff,” said Carey Williams of Beebe, who was 16 when his sister was murdered.
Cagle said that when the car was found, the driver’s-side window had been lowered about 2 inches, as if Williams had been cautiously talking with someone. Her purse was missing, but her keys were found tucked deep into the pocket of her blue jeans.
White County Sheriff’s Department investigators first believed that Williams may have had car trouble and began walking, but her car ran fine and had plenty of gas.
“The next morning (after the car was found) as we walked up and down the side of the road, I knew at that point that she was gone from me, but I didn’t know where she was,” Cagle said with the years of pain showing in her eyes.
Williams had been stabbed twice in the chest and multiple times in the back, and Cagle said there were no drugs or alcohol found in her system, and no signs of a struggle or sexual assault.
“There were eight of her teeth found under her hair when they turned her over,” Cagle said.
Her daughter was fully clothed except for “one sock was missing, and a shoe that was found, still laced.”
The day after Williams’ car was found, Cagle said, about 40 people, including Taylor’s father, Larry Taylor, combed the nearby area, but the family believed that the Sheriff’s Department wasn’t taking the incident seriously.
“Larry Taylor told the deputy that this is a 20-year-old girl, and she’s not a runaway — there’s something wrong,” Cagle said.
After that, an investigator showed up, and the National Guard was called in with helicopters.
Carey Williams recalled being at school while the search was going on.
“I could hear the helicopters land at the armory,” Williams said. “It was tough. I wanted to be out there with them.”
The White County Sheriff’s Department has questioned many people during its 24-year-old investigation, including members of Williams’ family.
“No one has been ruled out,” White County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Jeremy Clark said. “It is currently an open investigation. ... We plead for new information.”
The murder weapon, which is believed to be a hunting knife, was never found, but other pieces of the puzzle have surfaced over the years since the murder.
“They found her Social Security card in the lost and found at [Arkansas State University-Beebe],” Carey Williams said. “A couple of years after that, a doorman at Tramps (a nightclub in Jacksonville) called the police and said someone had tried to use [Williams’] driver’s license to get in.”
Clark said the Social Security card was found before Williams’ body was discovered, and that generated some leads that were investigated at the time.
In 2005, Cagle said the Sheriff’s Department went back through the case to utilize some of the current technology to see if it generated anything new, but the murder is still a mystery.
During the 2005 re-investigation, Carey Williams found a folded piece of notebook paper tucked into his mailbox with what he described as a timeline and a map with names. The only name he recognized was his sister’s. The note was turned over to the Sheriff’s Department, and a dusting for fingerprints turned up nothing.
“I know the list is very long, both male and female,” 17th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Chris Raff said about the people to whom investigators had spoken. “You always hope that somebody comes forward.”
Raff said he holds out hope for the Williams case.
“We would just like some closure,” Cagle said. “The Lord will take care of it in his own time.”
White County Sheriff’s Department deputies have no motive for Sandra Williams’ murder, and Cpl. Steve Hernandez said the department has run out of leads. Anyone with information on this cold case is asked to call the White County Criminal Investigation Department at (501) 279-6279 or e-mail whitecountycid@sbcglobal.net. All calls and e-mails can remain anonymous.