The car and skeletal remains of a missing college student were found in Georgia in an unsolved four-decade-old case.
Kyle Clinkscales, 22, from Georgia, is an Auburn University student who went missing on January 27, 1976. It is told that he was working at the Moose Club in LaGrange and he was driving back to Auburn when he went missing.
Authorities searching for Clinkscales who’s been missing for more than 45 years got a big break after his car was found in Alabama Creek along with his wallet, ID card, and suspected human remains.
Georgia police received a tip from a man who said he had spotted a 1974 Ford Pinto vehicle partially submerged in a creek 20 miles from the college.
Sheriff James Woodruff, from Troup County, Georgia, told a news conference that Clinkscales’s white Ford Pinto was found in an Alabama creek.
He said: “The 22-year-old never arrived at the Alabama school, and neither he nor the car were seen again until perhaps now. Sparking a multistate search that left Georgia and Alabama investigators confounded.”
He continued: “For 45 years, we have searched for Kyle and his car. We have followed hundreds of leads and never really had anything substantial develop from those leads.”
“They’ve drained lakes and conducted numerous searches in hopes of finding Clinkscales, LaGrange is north of Columbus in West Georgia and is about 20 miles from the Alabama state line,” he added.
Someone called 911 to report seeing what appeared to be a car in a creek off County Road 83, about a mile from County Road 388, Terry Wood. When authorities arrived at the said place, they saw the partially submerged vehicle, which Woodruff said was visible from the two-lane road that runs over the creek.
Sheriff Sid Lockhart from Chambers County said the car was found about three miles away from his university. He said he did not know if the area was searched when Clinkscales initially went missing. The car’s hatchback was open, but Lockhart said he doesn’t know if it came open after years in the water, or if the water level in the creek has gone down.
After the submerged car was removed from the water, local law enforcement entered, and with a Troup Country License plate, they determined it was a white Ford Pinto. Local officials then contacted the Troup County Sheriff’s Office, which ran the tag number through its system and determined that it was Clinkscales car.
Back in 2005, investigators arrested a man they suspected was involved in Clinkscales’ death. They said the suspect recounted a conversation with another man, who claimed to have shot Clinkscales, hid the remains in a lake, then moved the body to “another location where no one would ever find him,” the then-sheriff said at the time.
According to the Troup County Sheriff’s Office, over 50 different skeletal remains were recovered as well including a partial skull bone which will all be sent to the GBI Crime Lab for further analysis.
Woodruff said: “We called in the Georgia Bureau of investigation, they are currently at our facility taking that car apart and if they can, looking at what’s in it to determine how many bones are in there and if they are indeed his bones.”
He said he hopes that the cause of death can be determined but claims “we may never know”. What happened exactly to the vehicle remains unknown, however, Woodruff said the driver could have swerved off the road and into the creek accidentally.
He said: “Just the fact that we have hopefully found him and the car brings me a big sigh of relief.”
Kyle Clinkscales’ parents both passed away before this discovery was made, his father in 2007 and his mother in January this year.
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