SC SC - Dail Dinwiddie, 23, Columbia, 24 Sep 1992

[LawGal73]

I moved to Columbia in January of '92 and have lived here since. I know the area Dail was last seen but don't know how far up Green Street she could be seen before anyone lost track or simply stopped noticing. For reference to anyone who's not from here and has never been to that area, here are a few details:

1) Green Street is slightly uphill and runs perpendicular to Harden (Jungle Jims). She had to cross Harden and would have either been on the left where a small building sits (it's been a series of bars over the years) or right side where an apartment building sits.

2) There's a set of train tracks she would have had to cross over if she was headed up Green Street beyond those apartments. The tracks are literally feet past that small building on the left. That area is also pretty dark late at night.

3) Trains have always had a tendency to stop on the tracks to uncouple, which blocked Green Street for long periods of time. I'm aware that sometimes kids headed back to campus would crawl under the cars or over the couplings to get back to campus after a late night out drinking. Others walk out of the way to get around the tracks or just sit and wait until the train moves.

4) Five Points (and jungle jims in particular) would have been slammed busy the night of the concert. That was essentially the only area in town back then where everyone from their late teens to mid 20's congregated.

Out of all the theories over the years, two possibilities have always stuck out to me - that she may have walked out on her life and disappeared, or that she was trafficked.

I just can't buy that nobody else saw her on Green Street that night. It's the main street leading straight back onto the USC campus from Five Points.

I just really wish someone would come forward and give any little shred of info they may have after all of these years. This family deserves some answers.

 

[dotr]

I moved to Columbia in January of '92 and have lived here since. I know the area Dail was last seen but don't know how far up Green Street she could be seen before anyone lost track or simply stopped noticing. For reference to anyone who's not from here and has never been to that area, here are a few details:

1) Green Street is slightly uphill and runs perpendicular to Harden (Jungle Jims). She had to cross Harden and would have either been on the left where a small building sits (it's been a series of bars over the years) or right side where an apartment building sits.

2) There's a set of train tracks she would have had to cross over if she was headed up Green Street beyond those apartments. The tracks are literally feet past that small building on the left. That area is also pretty dark late at night.

3) Trains have always had a tendency to stop on the tracks to uncouple, which blocked Green Street for long periods of time. I'm aware that sometimes kids headed back to campus would crawl under the cars or over the couplings to get back to campus after a late night out drinking. Others walk out of the way to get around the tracks or just sit and wait until the train moves.

4) Five Points (and jungle jims in particular) would have been slammed busy the night of the concert. That was essentially the only area in town back then where everyone from their late teens to mid 20's congregated.

Out of all the theories over the years, two possibilities have always stuck out to me - that she may have walked out on her life and disappeared, or that she was trafficked.

I just can't buy that nobody else saw her on Green Street that night. It's the main street leading straight back onto the USC campus from Five Points.

I just really wish someone would come forward and give any little shred of info they may have after all of these years. This family deserves some answers.

Welcome to Ws LawGal73, thanks for the awesome and very informative first post here!
Those train tracks seem like a spooky and dangerous place for a shortcut!

 

[LawGal73]

Welcome to Ws LawGal73, thanks for the awesome and very informative first post here!
Those train tracks seem like a spooky and dangerous place for a shortcut.

They cross right over Green Street (basically the tracks are parallel to Harden but about 2 blocks up Green) so it's not so much a shortcut as it was the main route onto campus back then. There are also some old houses peppered along Green before reaching campus and a winding neighborhood back up behind the apartment building.

IF she was headed toward campus then taking Green makes sense. IF the train was stopped on the tracks and she wanted to get around it, she would have had to walk several blocks through the middle of Five Points to Blossom Street to walk under the train trellis.

Here's another potential problem. I believe I read that her parents lived in Shandon and that's where she was living. She wouldn't have taken Green to get there - it's basically the opposite direction. Walking straight down Harden toward Blossom would have made much more sense.

 

[dotr]

Wondering if this guy is still a person of interest in this case?
speculation, imo.

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/d/dinwiddie_dail.html

Reinaldo ``Ray'' Javier Rivera

http://old.chronicle.augusta.com/stories/111200/met_021-5865.000.shtml

The lawmen aren't giving up. The FBI already has entered details about the patterns in the killings into a database, allowing police across the country to compare notes.

Sgt. Wayne Bunton, Richmond County Sheriff's Department's lead investigator in the case, said his department will assist other agencies and hopes eventually to compile a DNA profile.
Mark Brewington, a criminal specialist with North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and part of a multi-agency task force looking into a string of unsolved prostitute deaths, said he's optimistic a crucial lead could be found in the Rivera case.
During his statement to police, Mr. Rivera claimed he once raped a woman in Fayetteville, Richmond County investigators said.
``I don't care if it's from 1963, we're going to do everything we can,'' Mr. Brewington said. ``Maybe we can clear some things up.

 

[LawGal73]

I read up on him last year and they've done news updates on Dail's disappearance in the last year but I think he's basically been put aside as unlikely. I also started thinking about this last night and I very distinctly remember hearing years ago that she was last seen walking up Devine Street. An article I read last night mentioned the bouncer stating he saw her walk down the block towards another bar. Back then, that almost certainly would have had to have been headed toward Devine.

If you're not familiar with the area, basically the 2 versions I've heard are:

1) She headed down the block toward another bar - that would very likely be coming out of the bar and turning left to walk down Harden, which is in the direction of Devine;

OR

2) She headed up Green - that would mean coming out of the bar and walking straight across the street and essentially right onto Green.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/opinions/kathleen-parker-dail-dinwiddie-missing-and-still-missed-20-years-later/2012/09/25/5f8afdac-073f-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_story.html

 

[dotr]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...6c7f20a83bf_story.html?utm_term=.40d4e785605f
By Kathleen Parker September 25, 2012

Back then, Dail was a doll — just 5 feet tall and not quite 100 pounds, a blithe spirit full of laughter. I could have tucked her under an arm without much strain. Apparently, someone else did.
She was like any other girl that night — a U2 concert-goer with a pack of friends who migrated afterward to a section of town, Five Points, where college students often congregate into the early morning hours. Just a few blocks from the University of South Carolina, Five Points is a friendly commercial intersection of restaurants, bars and boutiques. It is always daytime there, with nearly as much foot traffic at 2 a.m. as at 2 p.m.
Dail was last seen around 1:30 a.m. by a bouncer at one of the popular watering holes, Jungle Jim’s. She had become separated from her friends and asked the bouncer if he’d seen them. He remembered watching Dail walk down the sidewalk toward another bar in the next block.

I knew Dail well enough to know that she would not just fail to come home without notifying her parents. She was too considerate for that. She certainly would never let her 8-year-old charge be left alone on a street corner. Something had happened to her.

Someone reading this knows someone who knows something that could bring peace to the Dinwiddies. Perhaps, even you?

rbbm.

 

[LawGal73]

Like I said, I just find it nearly impossible that nobody saw a thing if she was taken against her will out in the open. Now they may not realize they saw something, which is a whole other issue because they don't know to say something. Had this been in the middle of downtown I'd buy it because that was a ghost town back then, but that section of Harden was lit. There was a gas station across the street, another on the corner she was walking toward, plus I'm guessing hundreds of people milling around the bars or walking home.

I've never heard whether she was seen in any other bar (maybe looking for her friends) but would be shocked if those weren't all checked by police multiple times. She'd have passed Elbow Room, Group Therapy and maybe a couple others. Then there was another bar about a block up Devine Street called Rockafellas. Unfortunately there's just no way to be certain which direction she went in once that bouncer lost site.

I've also never heard anything else about the group of 3 men they were interested in.

 

[thatredhead]

LawGal73, I agree with you. Knowing how popular Five Points is and how populated it can be, even at 2 am, I find it very difficult to believe that no one saw anything.

I lived in Columbia at the time Dail disappeared. I did not know her or her family. I was out with friends on the same streets around the same time of the weekend before she disappeared, but not on the night that she disappeared. There were always a lot of people around on foot and in cars.

I haven't heard anything about the three men in a long time. I wonder if they were interviewed and dismissed as persons of interest.

Dail's case has always haunted me. I was one of those who would go to Five Points at night, just not every night or every weekend. Her case changed how I and my friends went out. No one went anywhere alone. I keep praying that someday soon, she'll be found or they'll find out what happened to her.

 

[Swamp Fox Trot]

IIRC she tried to walk home through the neighborhood BEHIND Jungle Jim's, a BAD BAD neighborhood, which would have been a more direct route to her parent's.

This is why nobody would have seen here. It gets very isolated very quickly and I would NEVER walk through it any time of day or night. I know someone who was beaten within an inch of his life there.

Kathleen Parker & The State & the City of Columbia's hired PR people have bent over backwards to maintain the city's reputation as a safe place and I don't trust them at all.

 

[dotr]

LawGal73, I agree with you. Knowing how popular Five Points is and how populated it can be, even at 2 am, I find it very difficult to believe that no one saw anything.

I lived in Columbia at the time Dail disappeared. I did not know her or her family. I was out with friends on the same streets around the same time of the weekend before she disappeared, but not on the night that she disappeared. There were always a lot of people around on foot and in cars.

I haven't heard anything about the three men in a long time. I wonder if they were interviewed and dismissed as persons of interest.

Dail's case has always haunted me. I was one of those who would go to Five Points at night, just not every night or every weekend. Her case changed how I and my friends went out. No one went anywhere alone. I keep praying that someday soon, she'll be found or they'll find out what happened to her.

Welcome to Ws thatredhead, glad you stayed safe!

 

[LawGal73]

I know exactly what you mean about changing your routine when going out. Even today, though I rarely go out to a bar, I always leave at the same time as a friend headed in the same direction and always keep my keys and phone in my hands just to be safe. Back then, everyone started the buddy system and walked to 1 car and the other person was dropped off at hers. I've never heard if they interviewed anyone who lived in the frat houses near the tennis courts, and it's very possible she walked toward Blossom Street after leaving jungle jims.

 

[LawGal73]

I've never heard anything about her walking back into that neighborhood and yeah, it's a risky area. In 25 years I've driven through it twice - in daylight - and have been stared down by people sitting outside their homes. Even the park behind it is really sketchy at night. Friends and I used to take our dogs there to play years ago but we stopped because we kept finding broken glass, used needles and condoms. Honestly I'd find it hard to believe even if it was a more direct route that she'd have ventured into that neighborhood alone in foot at 2 am.

 

[LawGal73]

IIRC she tried to walk home through the neighborhood BEHIND Jungle Jim's, a BAD BAD neighborhood, which would have been a more direct route to her parent's.

This is why nobody would have seen here. It gets very isolated very quickly and I would NEVER walk through it any time of day or night. I know someone who was beaten within an inch of his life there.

Kathleen Parker & The State & the City of Columbia's hired PR people have bent over backwards to maintain the city's reputation as a safe place and I don't trust them at all.

P.S. - I agree. Any of us who still live here know the reputation is different from the reality when it comes to safety. Heck, we have one of the highest DV rates in the country. About 15 years ago I visited 2 friends at their precinct in June. They were homocide detectives in one of the worst areas of the Bronx. They only had 7 murders for the year up till then. That's nothing compared to here.

 

[eeyorelrn]

Having spent the vast majority of my early to mid 20's 'living' in 5 Points on the weekends (mainly Group Therapy and Knock Knocks/The Flip Side) I have to disagree with people seeing something, especially at around 1:30 in the morning. My concern with it is, if someone did see something, would they be functionally able to process and comprehend what they were seeing. Would there be enough people on the street at that time that AREN'T clouded by alcohol. There were some bars that closed at 2am, as that is when liquor sales ended; there were others that stayed open. While there is a massive amount of foot traffic in 5 Points, I question the cognitive ability of those present who had been drinking.

 

[SeaSpur]

I wanted to chime in a few things, as someone who also attended the University but quite a few years later. I actually even lived in the neighborhood behind (east) of Jungle Jim's that people refer to as scary and while it was in the late 90s/early 200s- it wasn't so terrible depending on where you are from...yet it got worse much worse a little further northeast that you ventured.

At any rate, a few thoughts:

- I don't think trafficking has anything to do with her case. Unfortunately, it comes up way more often in disappearances than it is warranted.

- As the most recent poster mentioned, she wouldn't have been "noticed" walking around 5 Points unless a friend made contact. On a busy night, the streets are crowded with people moving from bar to bar. Most are pretty intoxicated at 1am and even those who weren't, a girl walking alone wouldn't stand out. Plus the area was *extra* crowded with out of town folks from the U2 concert.

- To add to the above, I don't believe she was "snatched up" at all. She either met with someone she knew and was given a ride that didn't go where she wanted *or* she took a last minute ride from someone she somewhat knew (I won't say trusted, because at 2-3am after drinking/parting you do things you wouldn't normally do). No one could "snatch" someone up without a scene being caused in 5 Points. It's a very dense area.

- I think her attempting to walk home is also out of the question. Too far at that hour, she was known as shy/responsible, and walking up Harden to Gervais into Forest Acres is a real hike through an iffy area.

- While no friend or family member wants a dark cloud projected onto their missing one, you have to wonder if drugs played a slight part in this. People go places with people they barely know to get high or buy some drugs. Once you do it quite a few times, it doesn't seem as scary of a situation...but we know it can turn bad and often does.

- Above thought leads me into the comments I've seen scattered across the internet regarding a drug informant being involved in her disappearance. Some have commented with almost certainty that he was involved in her disappearance and even that of Paula Merchant. I also read a comment on an article about Dail from someone who said they were in a group therapy session with a girl that privately told her she was taken against her will and raped. That guy mentioned Dail Dinwiddie during the process. Apparently he was never charged with anything.

- Why don't we hear about this friend she attended the concert with who "went home early to study". The concert was on a Wednesday night, so studying would make sense...but who does that after attending a U2 concert where you likely drank/partied a bit? I'd like to know more about him.

- Lastly, am I the only one who thinks it is odd that someone in jail gave police a tip in exchange for early release that he knew the 3 guys who murdered her and drove a car into a pond with her body in it outside of Columbia? Police went to search and FOUND the car yet Dail wasn't there. They dismissed his claims but it is odd he was correct about the car being submerged and would somehow through Dail's name into the story.

I'd like to know a lot more that the police haven't revealed. To me, in cases like this where things have gone cold for so long and very little tips coming in...it seems you'd have little to lose in letting more information out.

It might spark someone's memory of a friend who got in very late but seemed tired and nervous or maybe a roommate that skipped school the next few days and was overly obsessed with her disappearance. I hope one day this case and her family can have some sort of closure. Even an anonymous letter sent to them with where she is located would give this family more than the perpetrator could imagine.

 

[Vresia]

Dinwiddie’s parents want your help 25 years after she disappeared from Five Points
The State
September 19, 2017
http://www.thestate.com/news/local/article174125646.html

 

[dotr]

[h=6]http://www.wbtv.com/story/18298946/where-is-dail-dinwiddie-revisiting-a-20-year-old-case[URL="http://WISTV.images.worldnow.com/images/18298946_BG1.jpg"] .

[/h]
[/URL]

You would find it tucked away in the corner of Columbia Police Investigator Mark Vinson's office: The battered black filing cabinet packed with almost 20 years of documents, clippings and reports.

All generated by the massive, and to this day, unproductive probe into the disappearance of Dail Dinwiddie.

"We're still working on it," said Vinson. "If leads come in, we're still willing to look into them. If someone, if we have people that come forward to say they saw something that night and they just decided to come forward 15 years later, we're still willing to listen to what they have to say."

In September of 1992, the Irish rock band U2 brought its "Zoo TV" tour to Williams-Brice Stadium.
Among tens of thousands there was the petite 23-year-old art history graduate who'd recently moved back to Columbia to live at home and continue her schoolwork at USC. After the concert, Dail and her friends went to a Five Points bar called Jungle Jim's.
A couple of hours later, she separated from the group and was gone. She is still gone.
And yet, after nearly two decades of anguish, uncertainty and disappointment, Dan and Jean Dinwiddie have not given up.

"Just hoping that this will be the time when someone will hear this and remember something and maybe can give us some information," said Jean. "And we have to find Dail. I still have hope."

"We love her very much," sad Dan. "We prayed to have her. We reared her. Nurtured her. And to give up now is just not--that's not fair. That's not right

.

rbbm.

 

[Falling Down]

I've never heard anything about her walking back into that neighborhood and yeah, it's a risky area. In 25 years I've driven through it twice - in daylight - and have been stared down by people sitting outside their homes. Even the park behind it is really sketchy at night. Friends and I used to take our dogs there to play years ago but we stopped because we kept finding broken glass, used needles and condoms. Honestly I'd find it hard to believe even if it was a more direct route that she'd have ventured into that neighborhood alone in foot at 2 am.

x2

I spent quite a bit of time in Five Points from late-'07 and into 2010. I'm a pretty good sized male, and often times parked my vehicle up Greene by the park, but even with my size and situational awareness I was always on alert heading back to my vehicle. Sketchy at night, especially between there and Gervais, which I would sometimes drive through as a shortcut back to Forest Acres.

It\s like an open air drug market in that area, most hours of the day and night.

 

[0101ABA]

Missing 25 years, Columbia resident Dail Dinwiddie's family and friends hold on to hope

For the last quarter century, Columbia couple Dan and Jean Dinwiddie have been waiting for answers and holding on to hope.

Sunday marks the 25th anniversary of their daughter Dail's disappearance from the Five Points entertainment district after attending a U2 concert with friends.

"After 25 years, our family and friends still hope and pray each day that someone will come forward with information that will lead us to Dail," said a statement from the husband and wife, and their son, Drew.

 

[kfschneider]

Bumping this thread...I’ve recently become very interested in this case; I’m a senior at USC and have grown attached to Columbia. But this case sticks out; there’s just so much that doesn’t make sense.