Do you know who murdered Avery Vernie \Peaches\ Shorts in 1980? On the day after Christmas in 1980, a six-year-old African-American girl named Avery Vernie 'Peaches' Shorts left her home in the Montgomery Village housing project in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her mother, Hazel Smith, had given her 58 cents to walk to a nearby convenience store and buy a soda. Avery, known as 'Peaches' because of her rosy cheeks, was wearing a pair of blue cotton pants, a blue long-sleeve shirt with a snowman on it, a checkered coat, a maroon toboggan cap, and blue Mickey Mouse
tennis shoes, with her hair in ribbons. It was a short walk, a trip that should have taken about fifteen minutes, but Avery never returned home.
Hours turned into an agonizing wait, and when Avery still hadn't come back, her mother contacted the police. This sparked one of the largest search efforts the city of Knoxville had ever seen, with law enforcement, volunteers, and helicopters scouring the area. The search for the little girl with the spunky personality and shy smile continued for days, then months, with no sign of her. The community was deeply affected, holding out hope for her safe return, but as time stretched on, that hope began to fade.
More than a year later, on a cold January day in 1982, the search came to a tragic end. A rabbit hunter discovered the remains of a small child in a rural area off Singleton Station Road in Blount County. The body was found under a cattle chute. Forensic analysis confirmed the remains belonged to Avery 'Peaches' Shorts. Her death was immediately classified as a homicide. An autopsy revealed that she had been brutally strangled, with a wire found wrapped around her neck. Her coat was still buttoned to the top.
The investigation into Avery's murder quickly focused on a primary suspect: Mitchell Arvell Reed, who also went by the name Mitchell Arvell Webb. Reed was in a relationship with Avery's mother at the time of her disappearance. Investigators believed his motive was revenge against Hazel Smith after an argument. Reed was questioned multiple times and had been a suspect in the strangling death of another woman a year prior, though he was never charged in that case either. Despite strong suspicions and circumstantial evidence, including a witness who claimed Reed confessed, authorities were never able to gather enough physical evidence to formally charge him with Avery's murder. Mitchell Reed died in a nursing home in 2010, taking any secrets he may have had to his grave. To this day, the murder of Avery 'Peaches' Shorts remains one of Knoxville's most well-known and haunting unsolved cold cases, a painful story of a young life cut short and a family left without justice.
