On Tuesday (July 21) Investigators with the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office and North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations along with the assistance of the North Catawba Fire and Rescue conducted a vehicle recovery operation at the Lake Rhodhiss Boat Access on Waterworks Road.
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“He had gone out for the evening and never came home, there was no trace of him after that”, Det. Sgt.
Kolbe told Channel 9 the phone call she received from her cousin who works for the Sheriff’s Office is one she’ll never forget.
“Circumstantially, everything points to it being Mr. Shook, but we can’t conclusively say that yet”, he said Thursday. “Of course, from 1972 that’s easier said than done”. The roof of the green vehicle had caved in and the interior was swamped with mud, but the remains, along with identification cards, appear to belong to the long-missing man.
The Charlotte Observer (http://bit.ly/1SDct56) reported Wednesday that the search for Shook was resumed after his daughter approached Sheriff Alan Jones and investigators last month with a newspaper article about her missing father and asked them to search again. They believe the remains are those of Amos Shook, who was in his 40s and retired from the Air Force when he vanished in the 70s.
The vehicle was discovered by advanced sonar technology approximately 30 feet below the surface of Lake Rhodiss, which has a maximum depth of around 65 feet.
Hartley said it would take some time for the coroner’s office to positively identify the remains as Shook’s and determine how he died.
“My parents were separated so it was just the two of us living together”, Kolbe said.
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“We were able to find skeletal remains, which led us to believe they belong to the man missing for 43 years”. “I’m very happy, 43 years later, to be able to give the family some closure”.
