Mystery Solved: Volunteers Given Credit
If it weren't for a couple dozen tireless people who volunteered their time no one would have ever found the remains of a woman who disappeared 53 years ago.
The whereabouts of Kathleen Wrinkle tormented her family for decades. Friday those volunteers got a special "thank you" for finally unlocking the mystery. They include police officers, firefighters along with search and dive teams from west Polk, Bradley and Hamilton counties.
Many of you will recall our coverage of the search for Wrinkle that began two years ago in Polk County's Parksville Lake. Volunteers eventually found her remains.
Tennessee House of Representatives Speaker Kent Williams said "on behalf of the State of Tennessee I would like to offer our condolences to the family."
With that, Speaker Williams then gave the state's official thank you's to the people who never gave up on solving the mystery in the form of a proclamation authored by Representative Eric Watson. They helped find the remains of Wrinkle, who was 26-years-old when she left her room mate and niece, Evelyn Wrinkle-Cross, one morning to look for a new job.
"I wanted to skip school and go with her and she said no and she left before I got up," Cross said.
It was the early morning of February 22, 1956 when Wrinkle was traveling east on Highway 64 which at that time was along the banks of Parksville Lake. For some still unknown reason her car went off the embankment and into the water. Wrinkle could not get out of her 1951 Chevy Bel Air that sank to the bottom of the deep lake.
It seemed like she would be lost forever, without a trace.
But three years ago a cousin of Ms. Wrinkle in Texas used the internet in a desperate final effort to unlock the mystery.
"It all started from an e-mail," according to Cleveland Daily Banner reporter Greg Kaylor.
Kaylor got one of those e-mails. Before then, he never heard of Kathleen Wrinkle.
"When I saw it was a Cleveland case I got it opened up, started doing a little research and we started figuring some things out," Kaylor said.
Kaylor got his law enforcement contacts to begin a search in Parksville Lake in 2007. They found plenty of abandoned cars and other junk, but no Chevy Bel Air. A year later Volunteer State Water Rescue divers found Wrinkle's car and a few scant human remains that were identified as being hers.
"I just sat there and cried, it was all I could do," Cross said of her reaction to the phone call.
Volunteer State Water Rescue team members and brothers Shane and Shawn Ashley found the remains.
"Very special to be part of that, the finding and helping recover her remains, very special project," Shawn Ashley said.
During our chat with Cross after Friday's ceremony she shared a secret she kept through the years.
"And when she died I started leaving the light on, and when they found her I turned the light off," Cross said tearfully. "I had two husbands who thought I was afraid of the dark and I never told them why the light was on, but I wasn't afraid of the dark, it was just in case she came home."
Kathleen Wrinkle's remains were laid to rest near her parents this year -- 53 years after she disappeared.
