A student who hadn’t been seen in 47 years was found in a car at the bottom of a canal.
Kyle Clinkscales was a student at Auburn University when he went missing. He was 22 years old and had not been seen since the night of January 27, 1976.
He worked at a bar in his hometown of LaGrange, Georgia, US, before driving his Ford Pinto 35 miles back to college.
Since he went missing almost 50 years ago, no one knows what happened to him.
We finally have some answers.
Authorities initially searched for Clinkscales for years. They searched lakes to try to find his body and his car, but they never did. This left experts confused.
His mother said that the moment she found out he had gone missing, it was “like the earth opened up… and he was gone.”
His parents, John and Louise, had said before that they once got a call from someone saying that their son had been killed and that his body had been dumped.
But a person walking by in Cusseta, Alabama, saw a white Ford Pinto in a creek and called the police right away.
When the police got to the scene, they found human bones in the car, along with a wallet, an ID, and credit cards.
The remains were taken, and DNA testing proved that they had found Clinkscales’ body.
A post from the Troup County Sheriff’s Office on Facebook says:
On February 19, 2023, the Troup County Sheriff’s Office was notified by the Troup County Coroner’s Office that those remains were positively identified as that of Kyle Clinkscales.
The statement reads:
The Coroner’s Office received this information from the GBI at which time they released it.
Upon further discussion with the GBI, this analysis was completed by an FBI lab at the request of the GBI.
At this time an official report has not been completed or released by the GBI as it relates to a manner of death. We certainly appreciate the work of the FBI and the continued work of the GBI in this case.
The official cause of his death has not yet been found.
His family and friends will be able to put his death to rest once they know how he died.
A friend of Clinkscales, Lauren Griffen, said:
Everybody was always wondering if he was going to show up somewhere.
His personality was just charming. He was a sweet guy. Most of the time he was very quiet. But he was very kind to everyone.
Unfortunately, both of his parents passed away in 2009, so they never found out where their son was.
