tried to find the clerk, but the store was empty. Then he decided that perhaps there had been a robbery, so he called the police.
In the brown purse an officer found a driver's license belonging to Denice Haraway. The customer looked at the photo on the license and made a positive identification. That was the young lady he'd passed on the way into the store less than half an hour earlier. Yes, he was sure it was Denice Haraway because he stopped at McAnally's often and knew her face.
Detective Dennis Smith was already in bed when the call came. "Treat it like a crime scene," he said, then went back to sleep. His orders, though, were not followed. The manager of the store lived nearby and he soon arrived. He checked the safe; it had not been opened. He found $400 in cash under the counter, awaiting transfer to the safe, and he found $150 in another cash drawer. As they waited for a detective, the manager tidied up the place. He emptied the ashtray with a single cigarette butt in it and threw away the beer can. The police didn't stop him. If there were fingerprints, they were gone.
Steve Haraway was studying and waiting for his wife to come home after McAnally's closed at 11:00 p.m. A phone call from the police stunned him, and he was soon at the store, identifying his wife's car, textbooks, and purse. He gave the police a description and tried to remember what she was wearing-blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a blouse he couldn't recall.
Early Sunday morning, every policeman on Ada 's thirty-three man force was called in for duty. State troopers arrived from nearby districts. Dozens of local groups, including Steve's fraternity brothers, volunteered to help in the search. OSBI agent Gary Rogers was assigned to lead the investigation from the state level, and once again Dennis Smith was to direct the Ada police. They divided the county into sections and assigned teams to search every street, highway, road, river, ditch, and field.
A clerk at JP's, another convenience store a half a mile from McAnally's, came forward and told the police about two strange young men who'd stopped by and spooked her not long before Denice disappeared. Both were in their early twenties with long hair and weird behavior. They shot a game of pool before leaving in an old pickup truck. The customer at McAnally's had seen only one man leaving with Denice, and she did not appear to be frightened by him. His general description sort of matched the general description of the two weird boys at JP's, so the police had the first hint of a trail. They were looking for two white males, between twenty-two and twenty-four years of age, one between five feet eight and five feet ten with blond hair below his ears and a light complexion, the other with shoulder-length light brown hair and a slim build.
The intense manhunt on Sunday produced nothing, not a single clue. Dennis Smith and Gary Rogers called it off after dark and made plans to reassemble early the next morning. On Monday, they obtained a college photograph of Denice and printed flyers with her pretty face and general descriptionfive feet five inches tall, 110 pounds, brown eyes, dark blond hair, light complexion. The flyer also listed a description of the two young men seen at JP's, along with one of the old pickup truck. These were placed in every store window in and around Ada by cops and volunteers.
A police artist worked with the clerk from JP's and put together two sketches. When the drawings were shown to the customer at McAnally's, he said that one of them was at least "in the ballpark." The two composites were given to the local television station, and when the town got its first look at the possible suspects, calls poured in to the police station.
Ada had four detectives at the time-Dennis Smith, Mike Baskin, D. W. Barrett, and James Fox-and they were soon overwhelmed with the number of calls. More than a hundred, with about twenty-five names given for potential suspects.
Two names stood out. Billy Charley was suggested by about thirty of the callers, so he was invited in for questioning. He arrived at the police station with his parents, who said that he had been at home with them throughout Saturday night.
The other name given by about thirty concerned citizens was that of Tommy Ward, a local boy the police