Kyle Clinkscales, 22, Discovered After 47 Years

Kyle Clinkscales was last seen in Georgia in 1976, and his parents never stopped looking for him. They became crusaders for people who were missing.

Before Mr. Clinkscales's parents died, the police made a shocking discovery in December 2021: a rusty 1974 Ford Pinto sticking out of a creek, a driver's license belonging to Mr. Clinkscales inside the car, and about 50 pieces of bones stuck in the mud.

According to the Troup County Sheriff's Office:

On December 7, 2021, a car belonging to missing person 22 year old, Kyle Wade Clinkscales who disappeared on the night of January 27, 1976, was recovered from a creek in Chambers County, Alabama.

The 1974 Ford Pinto was transported to the Troup County Sheriff’s Office and was processed by Investigators with the Troup County Sheriff’s Office and Agents with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Personal belongings of Kyle Clinkscales along with skeletal remains were recovered and those remains were sent to the GBI Crime Lab for further examination.

Kyle Clinkscales, who was 22 years old, was last seen alive on January 27, 1976, at the bar where he worked in his hometown of LaGrange, Georgia. He was going to drive his white 1974 Ford Pinto the 35 miles back to school in Alabama, but he never got there.

His mother, Louise Clinkscales, once told a local newspaper, "It was like the earth opened, and he was gone."

Authorities drained lakes in their search for Clinkscales and his Pinto after he was reported missing. Investigators on the case didn't get the clue they needed until December 7, 2021, when someone saw the Pinto in a creek in Cusseta, Alabama, and told authorities.

Inside Clinkscales' car, police found a wallet, an ID, credit cards, and bones. They gave the bones to the Georgia State Bureau of Investigation so that DNA testing could be done on them. Recently, the local sheriff's office said that the bones belonged to Clinkscales.

Even though that was confirmed, the sheriff's office said that the cause and way of Clinkscales' death have not been found.

Also, the local sheriff has said that the condition of Clinkscales' body could make it hard for investigators to figure out if he was killed or if he just drove off the road by accident.

Due to the age of the remains, Erin Hackley, the coroner for Troup County, Georgia, said it could take months for investigators to find a cause of death, if they can find one at all.

Clinkscales' parents have talked in public about a mysterious caller who told them he thought their son had been killed and that his body had been dumped.

Two people who were accused of being there when Clinkscales was killed by a third person—who may have heard something bad about the killer—went to prison for a few years for hindering the investigation into the student’s death.  But no one was ever charged with .

Residents of LaGrange, which is about 70 miles southwest of Atlanta, have been wondering for about 47 years what happened to a young man who was crazy about sports and went to Auburn University in Alabama.

John, Clinkscales' father, and Louise, his mother, both died before they could hear the recent news on their son. John Clinkscales died in 2007 after having a heart attack. And Louise died in 2021, about eleven months before Clinkscales' Pinto and what were later thought to be his remains were found.

References and Further Reading:

Remains of Student Identified 47 Years After He Went Missing, Cause of Death Is Still a Mystery

Mystery of missing Auburn University student who disappeared in 1976 is finally solved as authorities identify his remains five decades later a month after his mother died not knowing what happened to her son