Posted on 02/23/2023 11:22:59 AM PST by Drew68
GEORGIA - Human bones found inside a submerged car near the Georgia-Alabama state line in 2021 have been matched to a college student who had been missing for 47 years, according to a Georgia sheriff.
Kyle Clinkscales, 22, of LaGrange, vanished in January 1976 after leaving the Georgia club where he worked as a bartender to return to school at Auburn University in neighboring Alabama.
Investigators got a break in the cold case in December 2021, when someone spotted a car in a murky Alabama creek. The 1974 Ford Pinto pulled from the water belonged to Clinkscales, and some of his belongings were still inside. So were about 50 bones, including part of a skull.
The office of Troup County Sheriff James Woodruff announced in a statement Sunday that forensic tests by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the FBI have concluded that the bones found inside the car more than a year ago are Clinkscales' remains.
"At this time an official report has not been completed or released by the GBI as it relates to a manner of death," according to the sheriff's statement.
GBI spokesperson Nelly Miles confirmed Wednesday that investigators have not determined how Clinkscales died or whether foul play was involved.
In 2006, Jimmy Earl Jones pleaded guilty to making false statements to authorities about Clinkscales' death and was sentenced to four years in prison.
Jones had told investigators that Clinkscales was fatally shot by someone else, but he gave conflicting accounts that prosecutors determined were useless to uncovering the truth.
Pete Skandalakis, the former district attorney who prosecuted Jones, said after Clinkscales' car was found that the "most plausible explanation" for his death was that he accidentally ran off the road.
I remember that one. From satellite the car was clear as day. Kind of spooky.
The bog ate his homework.
If he had been in a Vega the oil slick would have given him away.
I worked at a gas station in the mid ‘70s. A guy with a Vega would stop in every night for a quart of oil.
They called the local sheriff who came out with a wrecker and they hauled it out of the river.
Sheriff said it probably belonged to a local dude who was currently in prison and was likely pushed off the bridge by his ex-wife...........LOL!
A lot of times, it is vampires that get these missing people. When they do, you will never get the body back.
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