Angie Hamby case updated
Investigators vow to never forget
By JERRY LANKFORD
Record Editor
Tommy Rhodes remembers seeing posters of Angie Hamby when he was a boy.
“They were everywhere,” he said.
Rhodes, now a captain at the Wilkesboro Police Department, was 8 years old in 1982 when Hamby went missing.
Although his father, former North Wilkesboro Police Chief Randy Rhodes, was a career lawman, Rhodes said, “I never thought I would have anything to do with the case.”
Det. Capt. Rhodes is now in charge of the Angie Hamby case.
And, like the poster of the missing woman is an indelible image for him, he doesn’t want the case to ever be forgotten.
“We all just want closure for her family,” Rhodes said.
The investigation into what happened to Hamby has been a nearly three-decade enigma for law enforcement officials. Countless leads have been tracked, but to no avail.
Despite the passage of time and endless dead ends investigators have encountered, Rhodes said he plans to keep the case active.
Last week, the detective updated the old paper report originally filed after Hamby’s Oct. 29, 1982 disappearance. The information is now in the form of a computer file, which can be more easily accessed and shared by officers. He also went through various pieces of evidence taken from Hamby’s Mazda RX7, which was found in the parking lot of Glenn's restaurant in Wilkesboro.
“I spent most of the day on Friday itemizing these things and entering them in the computer,” Rhodes said.
The items included pieces of paper, a clear plastic raincoat, cigarette butts and Hamby’s pocketbook. Some of the items still had the dust from the decades-old fingerprinting done after the woman disappeared.
It has been almost 29 years since Hamby, vanished. She was 20 years old, a 1980 graduate of West Wilkes High School where she was a cheerleader. At the time of her disappearance she worked for First Union Bank and attended Wilkes Community College.
These days, leads are few and far between.
According to Angie’s mother, Shirley, her daughter had left her home on Pads Road around 9:30 a.m. to make a deposit at NCNB (at the location which is now North Wilkesboro Town Hall). She was also going to deliver a message to her sister, Cheryl, who worked down the street at Burke’s Jewelry (now the offices of The Record and Thursday Printing), and return home. She and her mother had both taken the day off from work to go shopping out of town.
On her way into Downtown North Wilkesboro, she was spotted by former Wilkesboro Police Chief Gary Parsons, who was a patrol sergeant at that time. Parsons knew Angie and her family because his mother lived nearby on Pads Road.
Around 10 a.m. that morning, a woman working in a Main Street, North Wilkesboro clothing store said she saw a woman that looked like Angie acting nervous like she didn’t want to be spotted by someone.
A woman working at the Glenn’s at the time told lawmen time that she saw Hamby sitting in her car with a man on the day she disappeared. That woman gave a description of the man she said Hamby was with and from there a composite drawing was made. Hamby’s silver colored car was found in the parking lot of Glenn’s Tastee Freez in Wilkesboro early on the morning of Oct. 30, 1982.
And, there the trail ends.
Rhodes is hopeful for new information.
“Usually, about the only time we get calls about the case is when there’s something in the paper about it,” Rhodes said.
Former SBI Agent Steve Cabe was considered the expert in regards to the investigation. Cabe was there from the beginning and had been among the first officers to arrive at Glenn’s when Hamby’s care was found. After he retired from the SBI, he then went to work for the Wilkes County Sheriff’s Department and was captain over the investigation division.
“He always said he wanted to see this one solved during his lifetime,” Rhodes said.
But, it was not to be. Cabe died in October, 2010.
“If I had questions about this case, I would go to him,” Rhodes said. “He told me he would never let this case go. He wanted this case to be solved. He wanted to do this for Angie’s mom and dad.”
Perhaps advancements in technology and forensic science will finally break the case. Information has been entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NAMUS). That system cross references various identifying elements such as DNA, dental records and fingerprints.
Rhodes says he feels that someone out there knows what happened to Hamby.
“It could be that whoever is responsible for her disappearance is no longer alive because it was so long ago,” Rhodes said. “But still, someone may know what happened.”
Like Cabe, Rhodes says he would like to close the case for the sake of Hamby’s family.
“They need closure,” he said. “They need their little girl back.”
http://www.therecordofwilkes.com/newsa.asp?edition_number=598&pg=F
Here you can access links to previous articles on Angie Hamby.
http://www.therecordofwilkes.com/searchresults.asp
I am a local in this area. This case has haunted this small town for nearly 30 years. I'm so glad to see that she is listed here. There's nothing I'd love more than for this case to be solved. No one has forgotten Angie. We never will.
