Kyle Clinkscales: Remains of Georgia student, 22, who vanished in 1976 found in car sunken in creek
TROUP COUNTY, GEORGIA: Skeletal remains recovered from a Chambers County creek in Alabama matched positive with the remains of Auburn University student Kyle Clinkscales. After 45 years of his disappearance, the Troup County police in Georgia have identified the body remains of the student who went missing in January 1976 when he was aged 22.
The remains were obtained from Clinkscales' sunken 1974 Ford Pinto which was found in December 2021 in a creek. On Sunday, February 20, a match of the remains with the student was announced by Georgia's Troup County Coroner's Office, finally solving the mystery behind five decades of Clinkscales disappearance. However, the finding comes a month after the death of Clinkscales' mother, reported the Daily Mail.
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Was there foul play in Clinkscales' death?
Despite the remains of Clinkscales being identified after 45 years of his disappearance, it still remains unclear whether his journey to Auburn Auburn, Alabama from LaGrange, Georgia involved foul play or if it was accidental. For decades, investigators questioned several suspects and drained lakes to locate evidence but gave no relevant evidence. James Woodruff, the Troup County Sheriff stated that he wished the identification of remains of Clinkscales happened while his parents were still alive.
Clinkscales' disappearance in 1976
Clinkscales was reported missing on 27 January 1976. He left his workplace Moose Club situated in his hometown of La Grange, Georgia to his college at Auburn University in Alabama. However, he never arrived and his parents found it suspicious when their son did not contact them that Sunday and topped the headlines after the parents announced rewards for those who provide information to them about him. Clinkscales' parents announced a reward of $1,000 in February 1976 and they also suspected foul play by March. Three years later, the reward became $25,000 at the time.
The disappearance remained a mystery as investigators made no progress over the decades and the case grew complicated in the course of time. Clinkscales' parents were once told by a psychic that their son was kidnapped and his body was buried in Texas, adding that his car was repainted. In another incident in 1981, the family was told by a man that he has lost his memory in a car accident and believed he was Clinkscales.
After around 15 years, the investigators found the body following a 24-hour dig. Authorities questioned two men, Jimmy Earl Jones and Ray Hyde about their involvement in the disappearance. However, in 1996, Hyde denied the involvement and stated that he never knew the disappeared person. After his death in 2001, Clinkscales' parents were contacted by a man who revealed to them that he saw Hyde covering the Auburn student's body in a concrete-covered barrel and dropping it into a pond to dispose of, according to the news outlet.
In 2005, Jones who was arrested was not charged with murder but was sentenced to two counts of him making statements that were false. According to Jones' claim, Hyde shot Clinkscales and he helped the alleged murderer in moving the body and had no further involvement after the incident.
Who identified Clinkscales' body?
In 2007 and 2021, Clinkscales' father and mother died respectively. Clinkscales' mother who died a month after his death, not knowing what happened to her son, previously told "it was like the earth opened... and he vanished." Sheriff Woodruff said before the identification that "Just the fact that we have hopefully found him in the car brings me a sigh of relief."