What happened to Shirley? Family questions Fayetteville teen's 51-year death case

Susan Morris remembers the T-shirt she saw her sister Shirley George Hoffman last wearing before Shirley went missing in July 1973.

The shirt belonged to Susan and was found with Shirley’s skeletal remains five months later.

Shirley was 16. Susan was 15.

“She had a driver’s license, I didn’t,” the 65-year-old Morris said by phone Thursday from her Jasper, Alabama, home. “She was pretty young. She was an outdoor person, and we hung around a lot before she disappeared.”

Shirley's remains were found in a field behind Alger B. Wilkins Elementary School on Dec. 28, 1973.

Time before sister disappeared

Morris said Shirley ran away once before for about two or three weeks in June 1973.

Shirley had dropped out of Pine Forest High School her junior year when she became pregnant at 15, her sister said.

The baby’s father never claimed paternity, and Shirley married soldier Dale Hoffman in April 1973, 10 days after her daughter Brandy was born.

The young couple went to California to see Dale’s parents, but “something happened,” by the time they came back, Morris said.

“Dale went to Germany, and Shirley wanted my parents to adopt Brandy because she didn’t want Dale having her,” she said.

After her conversation with her parents, Shirley was gone for about a month until a family friend spotted her near the Boulevard Motel on Bragg Boulevard, and the family brought her home.

Morris said she and her sister grew close when she came back, but she doesn’t remember if her sister ever told her why she left.

“I figured she had to get away for a while,” she said.

On the day she was last seen, July 17, 1973, Morris’ parents were being baptized at Bonnie Doone Baptist Church, and the family saw Shirley inside a small corner grocery store on their way home.

The sisters argued because Susan was upset Shirley was wearing her shirt.

"So the last time I saw her, we were both fussing at each other,” Morris said.

Shirley walked away on Johnson Street toward Bonnie Doone.

“I feel bad. It was a stupid shirt. That’s what she was found wearing,” Morris said.

Morris thinks her sister was killed that night.

“I don’t know why somebody would do that,” she said. “There’s no reason. She never had an enemy that I knew of.”

Family hears new detail

Morris said there are several theories about what could have happened to Shirley, but 40 years later, there are still no answers.

Morris said Dale Hoffman's best friend, who was also in the Army, is just about the only person still living who is still familiar with the case.

Hoffman died earlier this year, she said.

She suspects the friend might know what happened to her sister but thinks he is suffering from memory loss.

Morris's daughter, Stephanie Hill, said that during the conversation, the friend claimed Shirley's parents found a letter in Shirley's room telling them she was running away, but her grandmother "says that is absolutely not true."

Morris said that after decades, the friend recently told her daughter he heard rumors that Shirley was cheating on Hoffman before her death and implied he could have done something.

Morris said that unless Hoffman received military clearance to leave Germany and sneak back to Fayetteville, she doubts he was around when her sister was killed.

“I don’t think he done it. He wasn’t the type, but Dale kind of gave me the willies. We went to Fort Bragg to go swimming while he and Shirley were dating, and he held me underwater to the point I thought I was going to die,” Morris said.

Morris said that when Hoffman returned from Germany for Shirley’s funeral, he made everyone leave the room during the visitation.

“I don’t know how long he was in there, but he came running out and said that Shirley had talked to him,” Morris said. “It was really weird.”

After the funeral, she said, Hoffman went back to her family’s home and “tore up Shirley’s room,” as if he were looking for something.

Inconclusive case

Morris said that she thinks authorities in the 1970s mishandled the case, leading to more questions than answers.

Law enforcement, she said, waited more than a month to declare her sister missing.

According to an April 1995 Fayetteville Observer article, the autopsy report was inconclusive and found no bullet marks, no broken bones or skull damage, but the lower jawbone was missing.

Shirley’s shirt was around her neck and shoulders. Her jeans were around her ankles, and tests of stains on her clothing were inconclusive, the article stated.

Morris said that shortly after her sister’s body was found, she went to the site and found an ink pen with matted hair, a piece of skin on a tree limb and a small bone fragment.

“I put the stuff in a small paper lunch bag and took it to (the detective), who lived across the street,” she said.

Morris said the detective refused to take the items, so she placed the bag in his boat, telling him she at least wanted “my sister buried with all her bones.”

Years later, she said, the detective disputed her claim.

The case was reopened in 1995, Morris said.

According to the Observer article, investigative notes were gone, and the file on Shirley’s death was misplaced or lost.

Then-Lt. Craig Hart of the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office ordered detectives in April that year to talk to family members and see if there was enough information to resurrect the investigation, according to the article.

Morris said the shirt Shirley was found with was supposed to be sent for DNA testing, but it also went missing.

“That was a whole lot of he said, she said, and no one could tell us what happened to the shirt,” Morris said.

She said that in 1996, she happened to call authorities around Valentine’s Day and found out that they’d received an anonymous call saying Shirley was strangled.

Authorities dismissed the call, she said.

“Every time we tried to get something done, there was always something happened that stopped things, and I don’t know why,” she said.

Family still grieves

Morris said that her 85-year-old mother, Jewel George, still grieves Shirley’s death.

“It broke her,” Morris said. “There’s not a day that goes by that she doesn’t think about Shirley.”

Shirley was the oldest, born in November 1956. Morris was born a little more than a year after her sister, and their brother Robert is two years younger than Morris.

Their father, Jerry George, died in May 2016 not knowing what happened to his oldest daughter.

The family still clings to hope that there is someone who knows something and will come forward.

“We need closure. My mother needs closure. I’ve tried to put it in the back of my head,” Morris said through tears. “My mother hasn’t.”

Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Family seeks answers in Fayetteville cold case death of Shirley Hoffman