Polk County ‘John Doe’ murder solved 52 years later thanks to DNA

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A 1972 Polk County “John Doe” murder has finally been solved 52 years later, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.

On May 12, 1972, a fisherman in unincorporated Eloise found the body of Mack Lavell Proctor, 57, lying in a field south of the canal between Lake Lulu and Lake Ship.

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The sheriff’s office said when deputies arrived, they found the body in an advanced stage of decomposition, but they were able to determine the victim was a white man in his 40s or 50s who was shot twice in the left side of his head. However, he was missing his wallet and had no identifying documents.

Without any leads or witnesses, deputies were unable to identify the victim. Mack Proctor was considered a “John Doe” and buried at Lakeside Memorial Cemetery.

However, the case would pick back up in January 1974 when Charles Williams, who was a Florida state prisoner at the time, contacted the Polk County Sheriff’s Office about information he had on Mack Proctor’s murder.

According to the sheriff’s office, Williams told detectives that in 1973, he was in Raiford Prison with a man named Clarence Ingram, who was imprison for killing a man in Lake County in 1973.

Williams said Ingram told him he and a man named Edgar Todd got into an argument with a man they met at a Winter Haven bar.

Detectives said according to Williams, Ingram and Todd were leaving the bar in the victim’s white Chevrolet car when Ingram gave Todd a gun. Todd then shot the man twice in the head.

Williams claimed that the two suspects then dumped the victim near the canal so the turtles would eat him. They also took the victim’s rings and wallets from his body.

The sheriff’s office said Williams told them Ingram and Todd sold the victim’s tools to Ingram’s brother and drove the Chevrolet to Keeler, Michigan, where they sold it for $500. One detail Williams also revealed was that the Chevrolet had a George license plate before it was sold.

Detectives later confirmed that Ingram was stopped by police in Paw Paw, Michigan, on May 25, 1972, eight days after Mack Proctor’s body was found. Paw Paw is 20 miles away from Keeler, Michigan, according to the sheriff’s office.

While Williams’ information was found to be “extremely accurate,” deputies would not be able to identify Proctor’s body until decades later.

At first, they believed he was a missing man named Lewis House, who disappeared under similar circumstances, but a 2017 DNA test found that there was no match between the victim and House’s relatives.

However, in November 2023, detectives sent a part of Proctor’s femur bone to Othram, a lab that specializes in forensic genealogy for cold cases. Othram sent back a report in April saying that the victim could be Mack Proctor.

Detectives contacted the victim’s son, Wright Proctor of Elijay, Georgia, who said he last saw his father around 1969 or 1970 in Georgia. He also said his father was a “master mechanic” and kept his tools in his car, according to the sheriff’s office.

A second DNA test found that Wright Proctor was the victim’s son, finally confirming his identity.

“We are extremely grateful for the assistance from Othram, Inc., who provided us with investigative leads that ultimately lead to our ability to positively identify Mack Proctor as the unknown 1972 homicide victim,” Sheriff Grady Judd said. “Through that information, and the information provided to us by Charles Williams in 1974, we were able to piece together circumstantial evidence that strongly points to his killers: Edgar Todd and Clarence Ingram.”

However, by the time deputies identified Mack Proctor as the victim, the people involved in his death were already dead. Edgar Todd died in 2015, Clarence Ingram died in 1995, and Clarence’s brother Jonny Lee Ingram, who bought the victim’s tools, died in 2003.

“They are dead, and unfortunately, we cannot hold them accountable for the cold-blooded killing and robbery of Mr. Proctor,” Judd said. “However, we have provided some closure to Mr. Proctor’s family and concluded a cold case homicide investigation. I am so thankful to our outstanding team of detectives who worked hard to solve this case, especially our lead detective Master Deputy Jason McPherson.”

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