- Source: Crocker children murders
Elwyn Crocker Jr. and Mary Crocker were two American children whose remains were discovered buried in their family's backyard in Effingham County, Georgia in December 2018.
Victims
Elwyn Crocker Jr., age 14, disappeared in November 2016. He was the older brother of Mary Crocker, who disappeared two years later, at age 13, in October 2018. Sometime before, the children's father, 49-year-old Elwyn Crocker Sr., and his wife (and the children's stepmother), 33-year-old Candice Crocker, had withdrawn each child from classes at South Effingham Middle School; they informed school officials that both siblings would be homeschooled. Six years earlier, in 2012, Elwyn Crocker Sr. and his wife had received counseling from Effingham County's Department of Family and Children Services following reports that they were abusing Elwyn Crocker Jr. Both adults agreed to undergo therapy and take classes in parenting, and the department closed the case in 2013. However, neither child was ever reported to be missing, and their disappearances were only discovered after the local police department received a tip from a family relative who believed that Mary Crocker was deceased. After police officers interviewed the children's father, they decided to search the grounds of the family's residence in Guyton, Georgia.
Human remains were discovered on the property on December 20, 2018, Mary Crocker's 14th birthday, and the Effingham County coroner noted that Elwyn Crocker Jr. would have been 17 years old. The cause of death had not been determined for either child as of December 26.
Suspects
Elwyn Crocker Sr. and Candice Crocker were arrested. Elwyn Sr. had recently worked in Rincon, Georgia, as a Santa for Walmart. Also arrested were three other adults who lived in the home: Candice Crocker's mother, Kim Wright, age 50; Wright's male companion, Anthony Prater, 55 years old; and Mark Anthony Wright, the brother of Candice Crocker. All five adults were charged with concealing a death as well as child cruelty..
At the time of the arrests, a third child who lived in the home was taken into the care of Effingham County social services.
Subsequent developments
Anthony Prater pleaded guilty to murder in February 2020, and will not face the death penalty. In late October of that year, the children's stepmother, Candice Crocker, pleaded guilty to murder, torture, and keeping both Elwyn Jr. and Mary in dog crates. She agreed to testify against her husband, mother, and brother to escape the death penalty. The trials of the three remaining defendants have not yet been formally scheduled by the court.
See also
List of solved missing persons cases
List of unsolved murders