Flashing Lights and Shattered Lives: The cases of Carol Formby and Melinda Weathers

In the Spring of 1983, rural Lauderdale County, Mississippi, became the scene of a chilling patter: young women disappearing without a trace after pulling over their vehicles -- each one seemingly flagged down by someone posing as law enforcement.

Carol Jean Formby, 19, vanished on March 27, 1983, after leaving her shift at a McDonald's at 1:30 a.m. She phoned her family to say she was on her way home. She never arrived. The next morning, her mother reported her missing. Her car was found the next day, parked neatly on the roadside in a church parking lot, her keys missing. Weeks of desperate searching followed and at month's end a $4,000 reward was offered for information leading to her whereabouts.

Carol Formby

Six weeks later, Lauderdale County Sheriff's Department would get another call about a missing female. The case was eerily similar to the disappearance of Carol Formby and sent shockwaves through the community. Melinda Gail Weathers, an 18-year-old high school senior, went missing on May 4, 1983, after leaving a softball game. The following morning, her car, like Carol's, was discovered abandoned near a bypass--personal items intact, except for her wallet.

Carol Formby and Melinda Weathers' vehicles were found abandoned about a mile apart. The main difference in the two abandoned vehicles was that Carol's keys were taken from the vehicle, while Melinda's keys remained inside the car when it was abandoned. It appeared that Melinda had just pulled over, exited the vehicle, and didn't return. Another odd fact about the car is that it was facing the opposite direction of her home. She was last seen by a softball coach leaving the softball field in Meridian at around 9 p.m.

On May 7, 1983, Lauderdale County Supervisor H.K. Cunningham put together a large search party for Melinda Weathers. Her nude body was found on the side of a woods road in a rural area just off U.S. 45 North near Marion. She was found wearing only socks and shoes. Lauderdale County Coroner Marl Cobler said that there were no apparent signs as to a cause of death. He stated there were no bruises and no marks of any kind on the body of Weathers. He found no gunshot wounds, no stab wounds, nothing. He noted only one small bruise where it appeared her necklace had been snatched off.

An autopsy would be performed on Weathers' body to determine a cause of death.

On Sunday, May 8, 1983, between 200 and 300 persons would perform a search for Carol Formby in the area Melinda Weathers' body was located the day previous. Searches were conducted in an area about 12 by 12 miles.

The Lauderdale County Sheriff's Office had been receiving multiple calls from women stating that a vehicle had followed them flashing their headlights on rural backroads throughout the county around the time that both women disappeared. They believed that this is what may have caused both Carol and Melinda to pull over.

A meeting was held between local, state, and federal officers. Meridian Police Chief Jerry Marlo offered two detectives to assist the Lauderdale County Sheriff's Office with the case. Sheriff Keller accepted immediately.

In a twist, a Jackson man, Alvin Snelson, called Jackson Police Department and wanted to turn himself in. He said he had strangled and killed a woman somewhere near Hattiesburg. Deputy Sheriffs from Lauderdale County went to Jackson to question the man and ruled him out as a suspect in the disappearance and murders.

On Tuesday, June 7, 1983, Laurence "Larry" Fisher, 30, was arrested during a decoy operation. Five women volunteered to ride around rural Lauderdale County roads while a law enforcement office hid in the backseat. One of the women was stopped by a man who was flashing his lights behind her for more than a minute. The law enforcement officer advised her to go ahead and pull over and step out. When she did that, Fisher got out of the truck and approached the woman. He was apprehended and taken to jail.

Ironically, all calls to the sheriff's office related to women being followed by someone flashing their lights and the disappearances of young women abruptly stopped when Fisher was arrested. (This is important for later in the story.)

Fisher had been paroled last year after serving time for charges related to a 1977 conviction in Georgia. In that case, he had raped, kidnapped, and robbed a nurse. He got her to stop by flashing his lights at her, too. Fisher was also identified in a line-up by a rape victim in Meridian from February 1983. She said that she was on her way home from work at a popular Meridian nightspot at around 2 a.m. when a man in a white truck began following her on U.S. Highway 80 East. He was blinking his headlights. She stopped and he told her that her license plate was about to fall off. He then shoved something sharp into her side, which she thought was a knife. He drove her to a wooded area off the highway and raped her.

The following day, Wednesday, June 8, 1983, men driving a combine tractor in a wheat field stumbled upon a jacket belonging to Carol Formby. One of the men contacted Carol's brother to have him come and identify the jacket. He also found a pink keychain with the name "Carol" on it. Carol's brother arrived and identified the jacket as Carol's. They began looking around the area and found pieces of her McDonald's uniform before walking down a trail and finding her badly decomposed remains.

Carol's father, Roy Formby, would search that wheat field and the area in which her body was found for days searching for her jewelry. He said she had two diamond rings and a ruby on when she went missing two-and-a-half months earlier. Roy Formby said that it was crushing to him that he passed this area so many times and his daughter was just 40 to 50 yards away and he didn't know. From the area in which his daughter's body was found, he could see the driveway to his farm, which he visited every day to care for the property.

On December 1 that year, Larry Fisher was indicted on the sexual assaults and slayings of both Melinda Gail Weathers and Carol Formby. He was also indicted for the rape of another woman from February. The first trial would be for the death of Weathers.

In April 1984, Larry Fisher would be tried for the capital murder of Melinda Gail Weathers. During the trial, several witnesses would take the stand. Meridian Police Department Detective Bobby House told the court that a pendant belonging to Weathers was located in the ashtray of Fisher's truck after his arrest during the decoy operation on June 4, 1983.

House testified that while he and the woman who volunteered for the decoy operation where traveling on U.S. Highway 80, east of Meridian, a truck that was following them began flashing their lights. House let the vehicle continue to flash their lights for about a minute before House told the woman to pull over. She pulled into the same church parking lot Carol Formby's car was abandoned. House said he told the decoy to exit the vehicle and stand by the door, which she did. House got out of the backseat and arrested Fisher at gunpoint. During the arrest, Fisher continued to tell the detective that he thought the woman in the vehicle was his girlfriend "Linda". House described the look on Fisher's face as "glazed" and stated that Fisher was going right for the decoy before he exited the car and took him into custody.

Two pathologists were called as prosecution witnesses. They both testified that there were bruises on Weathers throat showing that she had been strangled. Dr. John Davis of Jeff Anderson Regional Medical Center said that there were bruises on Weathers' vagina and that signs of sexual intercourse were found during examination.

Former Lauderdale County Chief Deputy, Ernest Jackson, said when Weathers' body was found, she was nude except for tennis shoes and socks. She was found face up with her clothing lying on either side of her body and underneath her body. Between her legs, authorities found a green shop rag. It was noted that the rag was one that mechanics use. Larry Fisher was a mechanic at the time of his arrest.

Sue Weathers, Melinda Gail's mother, was also called as a witness during trial. She explained to the court the final time she saw her daughter. On the day of her disappearance, Melinda Gail went to Rush Foundation Hospital to visit her cousin's sick toddler. She said that when Melinda Gail left the hospital, she hugged and kissed her mom, they exchanged "I love yous", and she walked her mother to her car. At the time, she was wearing a Seiko watch and three pieces of jewelry. A 14-karat gold necklace, which was found under the dashboard in Fisher's truck, the back of an earring found behind his seat, and a gold Italian Horn pendant given to Melinda Gail as a gift. That pendant was the one found in Fisher's ashtray.

A co-worker of Fisher, Robert Monsour, told the court that after Fisher's truck was released to his mother, she brought it to Nelson Hall Chevrolet to have the truck appraised. Another employee said to check in the dash to find Fisher's secret stash of marijuana. Monsour said when he checked within the dash, he found a cigarette box. Inside the box, he found a necklace and three rings. The necklace was Melinda Gail Weathers'. The rings belonged to Carol Formby.

After a four day trial, a Lauderdale County jury would find Laurence "Larry" Fisher guilty of the capital murder of Melinda Gail Weathers. Immediately after the verdict, Fisher was taken to a room where his mother was and was allowed to hug her for a few minutes before he was taken to jail. Fisher would be taken to a Maximum Security Unit while he awaited the jury's decision on his fate.

The following day, they decided to sentence Larry Fisher to death.

In October 1985, on an appeal, the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned the capital murder conviction and death penalty imposed on Larry Fisher. The court would order a retrial based on the fact that Larry Fisher and his attorneys had requested a change of venue due to pre-trial publicity. That request had been denied by the Lauderdale County judge.

In fact, due to this case being overturned, a new law was made by the Mississippi Supreme Court regarding the rights of a person accused of a capital offense to seek a change of venue. In doing so, the court assured that future capital murder cases would not be tried in the county in which the crime had occurred.

The retrial took place in Brandon, Mississippi at the Rankin County Circuit Court on December 13, 1985. During that trial, Fisher's mother took the stand and told the court that both she and Fisher new about the decoy operation that the Lauderdale County Sheriff's Office and Meridian Police Department were carrying out to try and catch the murderer. She said she was sure that Fisher knew about the operation because she was the one who told him. All of the same witnesses were present during the trial.

The Brandon Circuit Court jury acquitted Fisher of the capital murder charges though he was still incarcerated for the rape of the Meridian woman in February 1983. While he would not be found guilty of the murder of Melinda Gail Weathers, he would stay in prison until those court proceedings took place.

Moments after Fisher left the courtroom, Sue Weathers exited the front door of the Rankin County courthouse. She went to a vehicle and retrieved a handgun. A deputy noticed the gun in her hand and wrestled it from her. No charges were filed against her.

There would be no trial for the murder of Carol Formby. The only charges Larry Fisher would face were the charges for the rape. He was sentenced to life in prison for that offense.

In 2006, after serving 20 years in prison, Fisher appealed to the parole board but was denied parole. In 2015, he was up for parole again. The family of Carol Formby started a petition and sought to obtain 1,000 signatures to submit to the parole board to keep Fisher in prison. In all, they received 2,300 signatures. The parole board again denied his parole.

In May 2018, Larry Fisher died at the hospital at Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.