Wednesday March 17, 1982
Volunteers from sixteen different rescue units helped in the searches. Wagram Fire and Rescue , Scotland County Rescue and Chadbourn Fire and Rescue were among the members present. They searched within fifteen to twenty square miles of the accident scene. Family and friends made up the rest of the volunteers. In all I recall over one hundred folks on the ground completing the search.
They searched on horseback , on foot and with dogs from the North Carolina Department of Corrections . On the Lumber River they searched in boats with a bodycator. Two helicopters were circling the area as well. One from the Army National Guard out of Raleigh and another from Ft. Bragg.
Volunteers from the search team canvassed the area around Wagram trying to decide if anyone had seen or heard anything. They located a witness who reported seeing Edwin Tuesday, March 16 south of 401 headed on foot toward Laurinburg. The witness was from a small roadside store outside of Wagram. She said he stopped in for a drink? Dad took several drivers licenses from other guys with Edwin’s and showed it to the witness who picked out Edwin as being the person she saw in the store. She also stated he was wearing a white shirt, blue jeans and running shoes. Now this fact of clothing I have doubted was right for a long time. Edwin very seldom wore blue jeans and it was a cold March so he would have worn corduroys. Those were his favorites. White shirt?? I felt sounded odd as well. And if you are like me I can hardly tell you what I was wearing yesterday much less what someone I saw was wearing. But she could have been right.
The sighting of Edwin after the accident sure turned the search in different directions. Everyone begin to suspect Edwin had amnesia as a result of the accident. He had perhaps hit his head and become disoriented and actually walked right past his home and out-of-town. But could this witness be wrong about the day she saw Edwin? Could he had been in her store on Monday instead of Tuesday? Or could she had seen someone who looked like Edwin. Questions at every turn. Dad did have a family physician who knew the witness talk to her and he decided she had seen Edwin.
Hope returns that he is alive. But where? Next post shocking find in the river.
Hope for Edwin 
Grace, after reading through the blogs of March 15, 16 and 17 a couple of points are beginning to haunt me. I was a senior at Scotland High School in Laurinburg, NC (about 10 miles south of Wagram) on the 16th of March. When I returned home from school on the 16th, I stopped as usual at our family’s canoe livery in Wagram and my dad immediately came out to tell me Edwin’s car had been found wrecked at the entrance to Chalk Bank’s and he was missing. We rode out to the site and there was a great deal of activity. Here are several points that are sticking in my mind:
– Edwin’s car had left the road at a high rate of speed. There was a mound of dirt which was just to the left of the old road bed that served as the entrance to Chalk Banks. (The entrance to Chalk Banks is to the left of Hwy. 401, as the roads bends right, like the shape of “Y” intersection.) Edwin had missed the entrance and hit the mound of dirt which appeared to have sent the car airborne for at least forty feet. It looked like the car came down at full acceleration and careened through a stand of pines trees which were generally eight to ten inches in diameter and larger, finally coming to a stop out of sight the highway, 50 to 70 yards into the pine stand, head on into a large pine tree. When I first saw the scene I remember being awed by the number of trees the car had knocked down before coming to a halt. As I recall (and this was before the days of airbags) the steering wheel was bent from the impact.
There was a bustle of activity on the site. Highway Patrol, Scotland County Sheriff’s department, rescue squad and Wagram Fire Department volunteers were all trying to make sense of the scene. Here are two things that haunt me:
1) Robert Farmer who lived about a quarter of a mile from the crash site, who also used the same road which served as the entrance to Chalk Banks to reach his home, said he was walking home on the night of the 15th (after 11pm) and saw car lights in the pines and could hear people talking.
2) There was a stranger at the scene as well. He was riding a bicycle, had reddish long hair and freckles and was very interested in the crash site. I remember asking my cousin Daniel, who this person was and he said he was just a hitchhiker type who had been passing through and had been hanging around to see if he could help. As a search party assembled that afternoon to fan and comb the woods around the scene, the hitchhiker as I will refer to him here, helped in the search. Until Grace mentioned the description provided by the storeowner, I had not given much thought to it, but I remember him in cheap running shoes, blue jeans that looked too small and a t-shirt with some kind of blue jean type jacket. What makes me remember his dress was the fact it was an overcast, cool March day and thinking he must have been cold.
That evening the search parties came in with no clues to Edwin’s whereabouts.
Cousin Jeff thank you for your comments. So many family volunteered in the search and we can never thank you enough. The cabin our families jointly owned and your expert knowledge of the area were key during the search.
I am shocked to hear of your remembrance of the steering wheel. I don’t remember hearing the condition of the wheel. You said where you would put your fingers at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel it was bent in and in your opinion the car was going at a fast speed.
I feel after your comments about the vagrant or hitchhiker hanging around the witness could have really seen this guy. You said he was a little shorter than Edwin and hair was longer and he had freckles. You recall him having similar clothes. I would bet this man is who the witness saw in her store.
( Reply to be continued on next comment)
I think this new development by Jeff’s remembrance is really huge and ‘solves’ the apparent sighting of Edwin the next morning at the store. It doesn’t make any sense to me that Edwin would show up the next morning at a local store for a drink as if nothing had happened.
I imagine that he would have called your folks to inform them at the first opportunity, as well as to make arrangements about the wrecked car and about his work.
Plus, your own questioning about the reported clothing is validated, Grace, as you said he rarely wore blue jeans, etc. It would be very easy for the store clerk to identify this other similar looking guy as Edwin, but we are indebted to her for the clothing description which now meshes with Jeff’s memory of the stranger.
And am I being too suspicious about the stranger who seemed so interested? I realize it is human nature to be drawn to drama and excitement, but something hit me as I read Jeff’s remarks. It truly may be nothing, and there may be no way to know who that stranger was even if it were. For example, could Edwin have missed his turn because there was a cyclist showing up suddenly in his headlights? I don’t know… just some thoughts that may be worth little.
I am excited at the progress you are making though via this blog! Praying for the answers to finally come.