This a very strange and interesting case........(keeping in consideration that this was 1977, LE worked differently and also the media reporting can be off sometimes). Thanks BTW to the one who put all the paper clippings into Namus.
Text from Kingsport Times, TN, 1977-05-08
Identity sought
CLEVELAND, Tenn. (UPI)
A composite sculpture of a boy whose body was found in a weighted garbage bag in a Polk County lake Thursday was made Saturday and pictures will be distributed nationwide in an effort to identify the youngster. Chattanooga Police Department identification officer Robert Moles made the sculpture at Blount Memorial Hospital in Maryville where the body of the child was taken. It took Moles 61/2 hours to produce the bust from which pictures will be made. District Attorney General Richard Fisher of Cleveland asked for the sculpture. The boy, believed to be between 4 and 5 years o age, was found in Parksville Lake in eastern Polk County Thursday by State Highway Department employees, the body was encased in a garbage bag that had been wired with a 40-pound weight. Fisher said there are no reports of a missing boy in the Southeast Tennessee area. Fisher said at the present time authorities are checking a number of telephone tips. The child's body was taken to the Maryville hospital where an autopsy was to be performed. Fisher said the child was three feet, seven inches tall and weighed about 40-50 pounds. He was wearing blue jeans and a white shirt with a geometric pattern on it. He said the child died somewhere between April 15 and May 1. One clue Fisher noted was that the boy had apparently had a tooth pulled four or five weeks ago, possibly by a dentist. He said the child also had another tooth which was decayed.
Text from the Courier News Arkansas, 6-3-1977
Body of Missing Texas Man Found in Motel in HARRISON, Ark. (AP) - The body of a Texas man missing since late March has been found in a motel room near Harrison, according to Sheriff Loy Green of Boone County. Now, Green says authorities are trying to find out what happened to the man's wife and her 5-year-old son. Green said the body of James Ronald Skidmore, 38, was found by the motel manager on Wednesday. The coroner ruled that the man died from a drug overdose. Fingerprints were sent to Texas for positive identification. Skidmore's 28-year-old wife, Carol, and her son, Lynn Mahaffey, are missing. Green said. They were last seen when all three flew from their Sealy, Tex., home to Rossville, Ga., and spent the night with Skidmore's parents. That was March 29. Authorities are trying to determine if the body of a 5-year-old boy found in a lake at Chattanooga, Tenn., is that of Mrs. Skidmore's son. Green said. Mrs. Skidmore has family in the Chattanooga area. Authorities said that Skidmore was an ex-convict and was on parole.
Text from Valley Morning Star, TX, 1977-06-08
Bodies Not Linked To Missing Family (By The Associated Press)
Authorities investigating the disappearance of a Texas family said Tuesday that the discovery of a woman's body near Houston and a child's body near Chattanooga, Tenn., is probably not related to the case. James and Carol Skidmore of Sealy, Tex, vanished March 29 along with Mrs. Skidmore’s 5- year old son, Lynn. Skidmore’s body was found last week in a motel near Harrison, Ark. and the coroner ruled that he died from an overdose of drugs. With the discovery of the bodies of the woman and the young boy, authorities thought they might be able to call off the search for the Skidmores and turn their attention to finding out how and why they died. However, Chief Deputy Sheriff B.T. Noviskie of Austin County, Tex. said Tuesday that a long-time friend of Mrs. Skidmore looked at the body of the woman found in Lake Livingston and said it definitely was not the body of Mrs. Skidmore. Meanwhile, at Cleveland, Tenn., the
district attorney general, Richard Fisher, said dental records indicated that the body of the young boy found in a lake near Chattanooga was not the body of Mrs. Skidmore's son. Fisher said, however, that he had asked for footprints of the missing boy so he could make a positive identification. '
Tm not too sure that it will be the body of the son because the description doesn't fit," said Sheriff Loy Green of Boone County, Ark,, who is investigating Skidmore's death. The Skidmores were last seen alive when they left the home of Skidmore's father at Rossville, Ga,, on March 29, "It is a mystery to us at this time why he came in this direction;* said Green, "If he had ever been in this part of the country before, we have no word of it" Green said. He talked with Skidmore's former wife, Glenda, and "she said James Skidmore indicated in a letter she received last Friday that he was taking his own life because things weren't working out, Green said.
And then suddenly......
Text from Kingsport News, 6-15-1977
Boy's body identified CLEVELAND — A 5-year-old boy found dead in Parksville Lake May 5 has been identified as a Texas child whose mother is still missing. District , Attorney General Richard
Fisher announced Monday that the dead child had been identified as Lynn Dale Mahaffey. Fisher said the child was the stepson of James Skidmore, a man found dead of a drug overdose June 1 in a Harrison, Arkansas, motel room. Fisher indicated Parksville Lake would be searched again for the child's mother, Carol Sue Skidmore. Authorities had used divers several weeks ago in an attempt to locate another body. The family was last seen together March 29 at Rossville, Ga., just south of the Tennessee border near Chattanooga, where they visited relatives. The child had been dead several weeks when found wrapped in a plastic bag that had been weighted with a 40-pound rock.
Fisher said that a mold made of the child's head and his footprints at birth had been examined by the FBI in Washington and a comparison convinced authorities that it was the body of the Mahaffey youth. <????, how to compare footprints with a body left for several week in water, ????> The attorney general said that 50 leads had been followed up vigorously by law enforcement officers in trying to identify the child, buried May 22 in an unmarked grave at Benton.
I have my doubts about the identification made, this young boy being Lynn, maybe he is somebody completely different. Where is Carol? Lots to check out. 
