In the late summer of 2013, Deborah Lee Crawford, a 41-year-old Black female, vanished. Having moved from Toledo, Ohio, to Marietta, Georgia, for a fresh start, she was last seen by a friend on August 19, 2013, at a motel off Interstate 75 in Bartow County. Her family grew worried when she didn't make her daily call to her son. The day before her 41st birthday, her sister Cynthia spoke with her, promising a birthday song and a gift the next day.
But August 20th came and went with no word from Deborah.
The search for Deborah took a grim turn on October 18, 2013, when a hunter discovered human skeletal remains in a shallow grave off Dabbs Bridge Road in a wooded area of northern Paulding County. It would take investigators six months to positively identify the remains as those of Deborah Crawford. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and anthropologists from the University of Tennessee determined that she had been murdered, sustaining blunt force trauma to the head.
The investigation into Deborah's disappearance and murder was complex, spanning multiple counties. A friend who was with her on the day she disappeared initially provided false information to the police, claiming she had dropped Deborah off at a Kmart parking lot. She later admitted to leaving her at the motel in Bartow County and was subsequently arrested for making false statements. Authorities learned that Deborah may have been involved in a high-risk lifestyle that included drug activity. Her sister believes a woman she had befriended in Atlanta may have led her astray, possibly involving her in a scheme to obtain and sell prescription painkillers and introducing her to prostitution.
Despite the efforts of the Paulding County Sheriff’s Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Deborah Crawford's murder remains unsolved. Investigators have exhausted all leads in the case. A reward of $2,000 is being offered by Crime Stoppers of Atlanta for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for her death. Her family continues to hope for justice, remembering a woman nicknamed "Peanut" at birth, who they believe fell in with the wrong crowd after the death of her father.
