For 45 years, no one could say for certain what happened to Kyle Clinkscales.
The 22-year-old Auburn University student vanished on a cold January night in 1976 after leaving his bartending job in LaGrange to make the 35-mile drive back to campus. He never made it.
Nearly 30 years later, investigators made two arrests after a tipster came forward with information about Clinkscales’ killing. The man suspected of murder, Ray Hyde, had died years earlier. Another man, Jimmy Earl Jones, was later convicted of making false statements to police.
Despite multiple searches, Clinkscales’ body and his white ’74 Ford Pinto were never found.
On Tuesday morning, investigators pulled a rusted Pinto from the bottom of an Alabama creek. What appeared to be human remains and Clinkscales’ ID were found inside.
“For 45 years, we have looked for this young man and his car,” Troup County Sheriff James Woodruff told reporters during a Wednesday morning news conference. “We drained lakes. We looked here and looked there, and it always turned out nothing. Then out of the blue, we got the car, his ID and hopefully his remains.”
Credit: Troup County Sheriff's Office
Credit: Troup County Sheriff's Office
The last major break in the case came in March 2005, when John and Louise Clinkscales received a phone call from a man who said he saw their son’s remains, covered with concrete in a barrel, dumped into a pond that belonged to Hyde, a salvage yard owner and convicted car thief. The informant, who was never identified by authorities, was 7 years old in 1976 and waited 29 years to speak of it again.
Troup County investigators speculated that Hyde, who died in July 2001, killed Clinkscales because he feared the student may have learned of Hyde’s role in hiding stolen cars, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported. Six months after Clinkscales’ disappearance, Hyde was arrested on numerous auto theft charges and was later sent to prison.
“We drained lakes. We looked here and looked there, and it always turned out nothing. Then out of the blue, we got the car, his ID and hopefully his remains."
“The rumors were, you know how a bartender hears things? The rumor was he overheard something,” former Troup County Sheriff Donny Turner told the AJC at the time.
Hyde owned a 50-acre salvage yard, and investigators speculate that Clinkscales’ Pinto was initially buried there. Authorities dug up the yard in 1996 and 2003, and in 2005 they drained the pond. The barrel of concrete and the missing Pinto were never found.
In the months that followed, Jones and a woman, Jeanne Pawlak “Jenny” Johnson, were arrested on charges of concealing a death, giving false statements and obstruction. Only Jones served time in prison and was released in 2013 after five years, online records show. No information was available about Johnson’s case.
John and Louise Clinkscales kept the search alive for their only child for decades until their deaths, spending thousands on their own detective work and establishing an organization to help other families searching for loved ones. John, who published a memoir detailing Kyle’s disappearance, died in 2007. Louise died Jan. 19 at a LaGrange hospice facility.
On Tuesday morning, deputies with the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama were notified of a car submerged in an unnamed creek under County Road 83, a remote area about 3 miles from I-85 and midway between LaGrange and Auburn University.
A Troup County decal on the car’s tag prompted a call to the Troup County Sheriff’s Office, which was able to confirm the connection to the Clinkscales case. Authorities said the car’s hatchback could be seen above the water.
Once the car was towed to LaGrange, investigators searched it and found Clinkscales’ wallet, which had his ID inside. They also found several credit cards and bones that were stuck in thick mud, Woodruff said.
The vehicle continues to be processed by special agents with the GBI. The state agency was expected to make a final determination on the contents of the vehicle.
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