TROUP COUNTY, Ga. — For nearly 50 years, no one has figured out what happened to Auburn University Student Kyle Clinkscales. He vanished on a drive from LaGrange to Auburn, and investigators have never figured out how he died.
“We just we just want Kyle, you know, to be at peace. And it will help the family, you know, to be at peace, to know what happened,” said Claudia Robinson, Clinkscales’ cousin.
According to Troup County Sheriff’s Office Chief Investigator Kelli Ellington, in early 1976, Clinkscales left a bartending job in his hometown of LaGrange to return to Auburn and authorities listed him a missing person until DNA confirmed skeletal remains were his after his car was discovered in a Chambers County, Alabama creek in 2021, but sadly, the enduring mystery of what happened to Clinkscales remains as murky as the waters of that Alabama creek even after a Georgia Bureau of Investigation autopsy was completed.
“I would love to give answers to what happened to not only his family but also the community,” Ellington said.
A GBI Division of Forensic Sciences report has listed Clinkscales’ cause and manner of death as undetermined.
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“I was really hoping to find out what happened to him,” Robinson said.
For expertise understanding the reports Winne obtained he turned to Gwinnett County Medical Examiner Dr. Carol Terry and forwarded records to her.
“The cause of death cannot be determined because of the deterioration of the remains,” Terry said.
A document says, “The coroner stated that there were several holes located in the skull.”
“Is it possible those holes in the skull were bullet wounds and they just couldn’t tell? Or do we know that?” Winne asked Terry.
“It’s possible, but I think it’s very unlikely because of the way in which these holes were described, that the people who have expertise in looking at them, specifically the anthropologist, mention that there’s no beveling of the bone. That’s something that you would look at,” Terry said.
A document says, “Given the paucity of the facial bones, perimortem trauma cannot be excluded.”
Terry said that means trauma before death can’t be ruled out.
“You’re dealing with a lot of bones that are very small, delicate, and somewhat thin. So, it’s not surprising that these bones would break down,” Terry said.
Terry said because the bones were apparently underwater so long and so many are missing it’s not surprising the autopsy found no evidence of any wounds, of foul play, in any of the bones.
But the GBI went the extra mile by having a forensic anthropologist look at them and confirm the holes in the skull developed after death.
“One side of it is that he was murdered on the night that he left work, on the night that he went missing. Others believe that he left his job that night intoxicated and had a drunk driving accident,” Ellington said.
“Although it was a cold case, law enforcement did not forget Kyle,” Robinson said.
Ellington said some of those who believe Clinkscales was murdered suggest someone placed his car in the creek years after his death.
She said the case is closed unless new evidence develops.
She said one man went to prison in connection with the Clinkscales case in the 2000s but that was for false statements, and he died recently.
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