Case Study: County Village

On November 20th, 1986 a young lady, that was seventeen years old, named Madeline Ponds also known as Midge, came up missing. Madeline came up missing one night while she was working at a convenience store called PJ’s one stop, in Columbus, Mississippi. Her mother brought her dinner to the store since she was working late, after her mother left not even five minutes later she was gone. A customer came into the store and started complaining about no one tending the front of the store. There was money taken but it didn’t seem like any foul play went on a detective said. Madelines car and her belongings were still at the store but she was not in sight the investigation went on some time but finally they gave up on finding her. Everyone looked for her in the community but she never came up found so they closed the

The police brought the investigation back up on December 17th, 2010. Investigators believed that her body was thrown down into a well behind the store that is now known as County Village. The capped well is now under a barbeque pit inside of the store. A dog with the K-9 unit alerted the police after sniffing fumes that could have possibly been a body inside the well. Investigators then decided to hire a private company to plumb the well and drain it. An investigative team sent down a camera inside the well but it was very unclear and they didn’t see anything conclusive. When the investigators opened the case back up they asked why they didn’t go to the extreme measurements then instead of waiting this long , his reply was that they didn’t have the technology back then like they do now. Madelines case will forever be