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.
That’s a Pinto hatchback.
People oftem drive too fast on country roads.
My my my a Pinto.
How embarrassing...entombed in a Pinto for 45 years...
I drove a 74 Pinto in 1976..................
It’ll buff right out......................
Oddly enough at first glance it resembles a Porsche 928.
It looks like they made a big sun roof on the car. My sister’s first car was a 72 baby blue Pinto. I remember the gas pedal was skinny, like 2 inches wide. American cars started to go down hill around that time.
You need to check your prescription...lol
My mom talked my dad into buying a Pinto some lady was selling in their area.
It’s a bit of a fixer upper.
The last time I saw, he had it painted and engine rebuilt.
At least he was found, some people never are.
Rumor spreadin’ ‘round
In that Georgia town
About that stream outside La Grange
And you know what I’m talkin’ about
Why would the hood be missing?
9 comments on the Pinto, one on the dead kid. Classic.
Even worse if he had been rear-ended.
RIP. He was an attractive young man, and considering his choice of transportation, could not have had much of an ego.
The History Guy: Ford’s Pinto Disaster
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orM-EExql24
Not really a bad car.
That ambulance may have been a little late to the scene of the accident.
Mine died. Connecting rod bearing cap fell off in the oil pan going down the road.................
Eleven and counting.
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