The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts.
All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages.
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I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski.
And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski.
And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases.
Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing.
I'm your host, Ali, and it will just be me coming to you this week.
Eli is feeling under the weather and a little sick at the moment, so he is taking the time
to rest, which I always encourage for him because I love him and he's my husband.
So he's resting, but I'm here recording the podcast.
Of course, wanted to bring you a new episode.
We are on a missing person case this week.
And this case is a little bit different than cases we usually cover.
And I think that will kind of be made clear, but we'll talk about it more at the end as
we usually do.
But yeah, we are on episode 118.
Today we are talking about the missing person case of James Anthony Amp Reynolds.
And this takes place in May of 1999 in Opp, Alabama.
But first, a little bit about James Anthony Reynolds.
James is 28 years old in 1999.
He is known by family and friends as Amp, a nickname given to him as a child by an uncle.
At this point in 1999, he lives in Webb, Alabama.
He is very close with his family.
He lives with them and his parents say that he is in constant communication with them.
And now a timeline of events.
Friday, May 7, 1999.
It's unclear if there were plans ahead of time to hang out or if plans developed naturally.
But here is what we know.
Six friends ultimately get together for a night out.
Tamara Monique Ward, who is 25 years old.
Angela Roberts Young, who is 26.
Eula Josette Lee, who is 27.
Lamar Stackhouse, who is 26 years old.
And then Valerie Jones McCoy, who is 26.
And then of course, Amp Reynolds.
The night starts out with Tamara, Angela, Eula , and Valerie getting together at Eula’s
apartment that evening.
The four friends often hung out together and tonight seemed no different.
All of the girls were young mothers, so this was a chance for them to get out and have
a girls night.
At around 11pm, the girls decided to head over to Lamar's house.
It appears that part of the fun that night was Lamar showing off his brand new souped
up 1986 Chevrolet Caprice with an upgraded stereo system.
The car was burgundy in color and had gold rims.
Lamar had just gotten the car a few days before.
Amp eventually joins them shortly after the girls arrive.
While the night appears to be gearing up, Eula’s mother Josephine Farley says that
Eula calls her boyfriend around 11pm to say that she would be home soon.
But the night continues and at around 11.45, Tamara calls her babysitter to say that she
would pick her baby up in the morning.
The babysitter said that it was no problem at all.
Eventually, all six hop in Lamar's new car and head to the hideaway club in nearby
Opp, Alabama.
The group arrives at the club just shortly after 1am on what is now Saturday, May 8.
By all accounts, the group was having a great time at the club.
Witnesses reported that they were drinking, laughing, and dancing the night away.
The hideaway club closes around 3am.
The security guard at the club, who goes by the name Mr., starts moving people towards
the door as 3am creeps closer.
Once the club is officially closed, in the parking lot, Mr. notices Lamar, who was very
intoxicated and rubbing the engine of his brand new car.
Mr. says, quote, I said, you better let someone else drive that car, end quote.
It's believed that Tamara took over driving, but this has never been fully confirmed.
Standing just outside of the car were two guys from the club that had been chatting
up two of the girls.
They saw the group pile into the car and all leave the parking lot.
Several witnesses reported that the group left around 3.15am and headed out on Highway
331.
It was presumed that the group was headed back to Enterprise, Alabama, where they had
all met, but no one knows for sure where the group was ultimately headed.
The last time any of the six are seen is as they were pulling out of the parking lot of
the club at around 3.15am.
The group's disappearance is noticed immediately by loved ones.
When folks fail to return home, especially to their children, which was out of the ordinary
and out of character for all of them to just not show up, families start to raise the alarm.
Amp specifically was very communicative with his family.
Even though he was nearly 30 years old, he always told his parents when he was going
to be out of the house all night long so that way they wouldn't worry.
The fact that he hadn't told them was strange.
Three days after they all vanished, by May 11th, all six of them had been reported missing
to police.
Police get to work trying to trace the adults, and because they all lived in different parts
of Alabama, several different police agencies are ultimately involved in the search for
them.
Lamar did have a cell phone at this time, which was kind of rare for 1999, but he hadn't
used it since the day before they all went missing.
Police start looking every route that the friends could have taken when they left the
club to see if they had gone off the road at any point.
But they can't find anything.
No evidence of them or the burgundy car.
The police ask the public for help, quote, we have flown or driven every route possible
in South Alabama.
All we know is they left the club shortly after 3am and then disappeared.
They have not been heard from since and there are no new leads, end quote.
All of the families of the vanish stress that this is out of character for all of them.
All of them had responsibilities and they have never abandoned them before.
And there is no reason for any of them to start now.
On Thursday, June 3, the group has been missing for almost a month at 27 days and the police
launched a search of what was most likely the route that the group would have taken
that night.
Police bring cadaver dogs in to search.
They also bring in a team of divers to search the many rivers and creeks that cross Highway
134 from Opp to Enterprise, which is where the group was believed to be headed.
Searchers let the cadaver dogs go through first and then searchers follow behind to
double check areas that the dogs were interested in and the divers begin to search waterways.
Investigators strongly believe that a car accident is most likely the cause of the disappearance,
quote, the most plausible theory would be an accident.
We've got a lot of water, a lot of greenery, some embankments.
It could have happened in such a unique way that we haven't found them yet, end quote.
Throughout the month of June, police continue to search the roads for any sign of the group.
Police say that every waterway has been searched that intersects with Highway 134 from Opp to
Enterprise.
As July rolls around and it approaches two months that the six have been missing, the
employees of the missing begin to organize their own searches and try to gather information
on their own.
They start by going door to door near the club and asking folks if they had seen anything.
At the hideaway club, flyers hang all around the outside.
The club owner, Edward Anderson, says, quote, we also have flyers up on the inside thinking
that might help somebody who saw them to call the police department.
I would like to know what happened to them myself.
It's very strange, end quote.
Amps father, who has the same name, so James Reynolds Senior, is hopeful that more resources
will be brought in to search for them.
He says, quote, because at this point we are at a dead end.
We're hoping this will turn up some sort of lead.
If not, I'm hoping the state will send their helicopter down.
We already have enough volunteers from the Coffey County Sheriff's Department to go
them to go in extended area search because we don't believe the car ever made it back
to Enterprise.
Whatever happened, happened within a 20 mile radius, end quote.
The families are baffled that there has been no sign and no one has come forward with information
saying that they saw them.
Angela's mother says, quote, we're talking about six people here.
Even if they went somewhere, six people are not going to agree to something like that.
If they had an accident, we should have found the car.
And if someone is holding them for whatever reason, we want them released.
They all came down here just to party.
After that, it's a mystery, end quote.
Despite the family's plea for help, still no leads come forward.
In August of 1999, so it's been about three months now that the six have been missing,
while there is no evidence of foul play, there is also no evidence ruling out foul
play, according to police.
The governor of Alabama establishes a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest
in the event a crime has taken place in the disappearance of these six people.
This reward does generate a lot of interest in the case and publicity, and that does get
a new tip.
A truck driver believes that he saw the group the night they went missing, about three hours
after they left the club.
So that would have been around 6 15 a.m.
The truck driver told police he may have seen the car head west towards Andalusia.
Police begin to focus on the roads and waterways in this direction, hoping for a sign of the
group.
By the end of August, police make the call to bring divers back out to search.
The summer of 1999 had been very dry, and the water levels were a lot lower than they
were during May and June when police first started to search.
Police focus on different waterways based off of the tip from the trucker.
Police do end up finding two cars in their search, but neither one of them is the one
that they're looking for.
In September of 1999, the governor increases the reward for information from $10,000 to
$20,000.
It's also around this time that the NAACP also publicly asks for the FBI to get involved
in the case.
The president says, quote, An investigation by the FBI is certainly warranted because
of the circumstances surrounding this case and Alabama's history of civil rights violations,
end quote.
The pressure begins to build on police to provide answers in this case.
And the decision is made to research the waterways that they searched in the beginning, trying
to use the lower water levels to their advantage.
With this new plan in mind, on Wednesday, September 29th, police get to work searching
the P River that runs under Ballard's Bridge, a bridge that the group would have crossed
if they took the most direct path home.
Ballard's Bridge in 1999 is a dangerous spot to drive.
The bridge is narrow, only 22 feet wide, so there is little to no room for error when
you pass a car going the opposite way.
For reference, the code in 1999 said that any new bridge built would have had to have
been at least 40 feet, so almost double the size of the bridge.
Police begin to search the P River.
The water is only nine feet deep at this point.
Earlier in the summer, it would have been around 17 to 18 feet.
Within 20 minutes of searching, police find the car.
The car was found at the bottom of the river, upside down, about 50 feet from the bridge.
It takes investigators about three hours for them to pull the car from the river.
When they do, they find the hood of the car was smashed and the roof was dented and caved
in toward the front seat.
The windshield and two windows were missing from the car.
It's still very early in the investigation on how the car ended up in the river.
Police do not know if the car ran off the highway before plunging into the river or
if the car was driven down a dirt road that leads to the riverbank under the bridge and
then driven into the water.
Authorities do know for certain that the car did not run off the bridge.
There had been no damage to the guardrails on either side of the bridge.
Family had started to gather at the bridge to watch investigators as news spread that
a car had been found.
As those watching realize it's the missing car, emotions are high.
It's the answer that people had expected, but that nobody wanted.
Lamar's father is heartbroken to see his son's car pulled from the river.
He had stood near the banks of the river just a few days after the six went missing and
pointed out tire tracks to the police.
Police told him the area had already been searched.
He says, quote, I stood right there over that spot and I told police that the tire tracks
were like four feet from the water.
Four months later, they went to the same spot where the tracks were and found them, end
quote.
When the car is fully pulled from the water, police do see bodies in the car, most of them
in the back seat.
But due to the level of decomposition, they don't attempt to pull any bodies out at the
scene.
They seal the car up and send it to the Alabama Department of Forensic Science to begin the
process of IDing the victims and completing the autopsies.
Police do believe that all six are in the car and it's reported at that time that they
all had been found.
Divers will return to the river several more times to search where the vehicle had been
found for additional evidence.
They do find additional skeletal remains that are brought up and taken to the lab.
In the days following, crowds gather as people watch the divers work and offer theories to
how the car could end up there.
A friend of the group told a reporter, quote, the whole town is saying these folks were
dead before they got there, end quote.
By October 1st, so it's approaching five months since they had all vanished, and police
are working with the theory that the driver of the car had failed to negotiate a turn
right before the bridge and ran off of the highway down a steep embankment and into the
river, killing everyone inside.
Inside the vehicle, police find a watch that had been stopped at 3 39, approximately 24
minutes after they were last seen leaving the club.
Sergeant Walter Bowers says, quote, considering the time the victims were last seen in opp,
this would have given them approximately 20 minutes to drive from the club to where the
crash happened.
At this point, everything we have found is consistent with that of a traffic crash.
We still have some questions that are unanswered.
At this point, we are not sure exactly where the car went off the roadway, but we are believing
this is indeed a traffic accident based on what we have gathered at the scene.
The investigation has not been completed and we will piece together what we have to get
a complete picture of what happened from the time they left the club up until the crash
itself, end quote.
Families of Valerie and Eula's loved ones questioned the crash theory.
They started looking for the missing group at 4 30 a.m. when they failed to return from
the club.
Valerie's husband says, quote, when Valerie wasn't home at the time, I knew something
was wrong.
We were at that bridge where they found them.
We checked the guardrails, looked for tire tracks and checked to see if there were any
broken tree limbs leading to the river.
We didn't see anything, end quote.
On the evening of Monday, October 25th, almost a month after the car was found, the autopsy
and ID process had finished.
Investigators have never officially released a cause of death.
They do, however, say that there were no gunshot wounds, no stab wounds and no broken bones
on the victims.
Investigators call the families in one by one to confirm that they were able to ID their
loved ones and release the bodies to them for burial.
The last one called in was Amps father.
It's here that they reveal that there was no sign that Amp was in the car.
They could not find any evidence of him.
The family is shattered.
They were in the process of making funeral arrangements and now all of that was on hold
and they were back in limbo.
His father says, quote, if they all left together, they should be together.
I just want to know what happened.
My son was strong, so maybe he got out, tried to save his friends and got swept down the
river.
He was the kind of person who would fight for his friends, end quote.
Police send divers back into the river to try to find any sign of Amp or his remains.
They're also looking for a tire and a rim that was not on the car but was not recovered
from the river either.
Nothing is found.
As Amp's friends are all laid to rest, the case goes cold.
At the one year anniversary of the friends missing, so this would be May of 2000, there
was still no real answers in the cause of the crash.
Families of the other victims say that they got a crash report but it didn't say anything.
It only mentioned that the car was only going about five miles per hour when it entered
the water.
There is still no real progress in finding Amp.
The Alabama Bureau of Investigation searched the river eight more times after the rest
of the bodies were found, but they didn't end up recovering any sign of Amp.
They did find the missing windshield of the car that was buried about eight feet deep
in mud.
By July of 2000, so this would be just over a year since Amp vanished, the search is officially
called off for him.
Police believe that his body is somewhere in the river or that it could have possibly
been attacked by alligators.
Police also readily admit that they do not know how the crash occurred and that they
may never know.
In May of 2001, so two years since Amp vanished, and a friend of his family's is a Navy reserve
with a unit that specializes in detecting underwater mines.
The friend thought that he and his unit could search the river for a sign of Amp.
The ABI agrees to let the unit search the area, and within 10 minutes of being in the
water, the team finds a black jacket embedded in the bottom of the river.
The team works to bring the jacket up.
They say they have a difficult time because the river bottom is hard sand.
It would have been easier for items to sink if it was soft sand, they say.
The ABI has the jacket sent for testing.
However, just looking at it, no one could visually ID it as Amp's, and no one is sure
exactly what he was wearing the night he vanished.
But to date, there has been no updates about this jacket.
But I believe that had they been able to confirm that this jacket belonged to Amp, he wouldn't
be listed as a missing person.
But that is really all we know about the disappearance of James Anthony Amp Reynolds.
So if you know anything about Amp's disappearance in May of 1999, or his whereabouts today,
please call Sergeant Simon Benson at 251-578-1315.
So that is the case of James Anthony Amp Reynolds.
And this is a case, like I mentioned at the top, that is a little bit different than ones
we've covered in the past, and one that I kind of wrestled with if it's one I should
cover here.
Because it does seem like there is an answer to this case, that Amp's body got lost in
the river somehow, whether it just got washed away, or if there was animal interference,
that that's ultimately what happened to him.
But then there are just some things about his story and the story of the other five
as well that just left a lot of questions for me.
And you know, ultimately, Amp's family would still like closure and would still like to
be able to put him to rest.
And I'm sure the rest of the families would also like answers in exactly what happened
in this crash.
The police have said that they may never know, and it seems like it's not a case that they
are actively working or trying to get answers in.
But I wonder if with advances in technology that we have, if this might be something they
can look at again and look to see how this crash could have occurred.
Why, this case just like really surprised me in a lot of ways.
It was really surprising to hear about six missing people.
Vanishing without a trace, that nobody would see anything.
But then, you know, when they find the car in the river, I can kind of, you know, rationalize
it like, okay, it was, you know, 3am in the morning, a little bit after, country roads,
not a lot of people out at that time.
So I guess it is possible that a car could go off the road and nobody would see or hear
anything.
But then just more questions started to kind of creep into my head.
Like, what they seem to know about the crash, or what they theorize, I guess, about the
crash.
I don't understand how the car, for one, ends up flipped on the bottom of the river.
Like police say it was upside down when they found it.
So maybe like if the river current is strong enough, it could, you know, flip it as it
was sinking.
Like, maybe that's possible.
But if the car only entered at five miles per hour, that doesn't seem like it's going
to like, have the oomph, you know, the momentum behind it to kind of flip on its own accord.
So I just like, how did it get upside down?
Was the river that strong?
Maybe.
But then it sounds like family of the six were at that bridge and kind of looked for
signs that evening, you know, within hours of what time the crash is theorized based
off of the watch that was found, you know, in the car.
And they're saying they didn't see any broken limbs.
They didn't see tire tracks.
They didn't, they didn't see any signs that a crash had occurred.
So that was like interesting to me.
And then, you know, the fact that that area had been searched and like police had felt
pretty confidently that they had searched that area and it had been cleared.
So there's just like some elements where I'm like, I don't know if that fits or this fits
or if it all did just like work out in a very strange way where it did just really the car
just like kind of disappeared into the river.
It's very, it just, it leaves me with a lot of questions of how this car ended up there.
Like, yes, they had been out at the club.
Yes, it was late.
Like, yes, all of them had been reported to be drinking.
I do believe toxology reports were taken, but those results were never released to the
public as far as I could find.
So we don't know, you know, were they all, you know, over legal limits and drunk or,
you know, was somebody truly sober enough to drive.
So, you know, it's, there's a lot of questions in this case, which is ultimately why I decided
to bring it to Cold and Missing.
I think for missing people, there doesn't always have to be a criminal element in the
case that sometimes folks go missing just because of horrible circumstances and they
deserve to be covered and talked about just as much as, you know, if they're, if somebody
disappears under suspicious circumstances.
So ultimately I made the decision to bring it to the podcast and to you all.
So yeah, I, I hope that this case can ultimately get answers.
You know, maybe I don't know if there's any evidence left in this case that could be tested
again, you know, with advances in DNA.
Maybe now they could find traces of AMP and give his family the answers that they're looking
for.
It just, it seems strange to me.
And also the fact that none of them had broken bones, like they kind of specifically mentioned
like no broken bones.
And to me, six people, well, five people dying in a car crash, potentially six.
To me, it seems like broken bones would play an element in the crash at some point, but
then again, if they entered the water at five miles per hour, would it have been a strong
enough impact?
And if not, how did they die?
Just raises questions.
And then it also appears that a lot of rumors circulated quickly in this case, which when
police are unable to provide answers, it leaves a lot of room open for the rumor mill and
for people to try to make sense of it on their own and maybe state things as fact that maybe
aren't, but just lots of questions in this case.
And I really hope we can get answers for six families.
That's so many people that's affected.
And a lot of them were young parents, so their children had to grow up without them and that's
unfair and they deserve to know what took their parents away from them.
They deserve answers in this case too, if they want them.
So I really hope that maybe somebody can look at this case again with newer technology,
smarter technology and really provide some answers.
Do like crash reconstruction.
Like I know these things are available and I don't know much about car crash or like
physics to be frank, but hopefully we can find Amp and bring him home so that way he
can be put to rest.
But again, if you know anything about the disappearance of James Anthony Amp Reynolds
in May of 1999 or his whereabouts today, please call Sergeant Simon Benson at 251-578-1315.
Even though Eli is sick, he was still able to make the graphics for us this week.
So if you head to our Instagram at Cold and Missing, you'll see pictures not only of Amp,
but you'll also see pictures of all six who went missing that night with him.
And then also a picture of the car being pulled from the river.
So all of that will be on our Instagram at Cold and Missing.
Also if you could take some time today to rate and review us if you haven't, I would
appreciate it so much.
Also just as like a nerdy woo woo thing on Apple Podcast, we're like one review away
from 77 reviews, written reviews, or no, just general reviews, just general reviews, 77.
So if you have Apple Podcast and you haven't reviewed us yet, if you could, I think it
would be so cool just to see 77.
It's like an angel number thing and it's very woo woo, but you could totally make that happen.
So you can rate and review us there.
You could do it on Spotify, wherever your podcast player is.
And you can also do it on our website at www.coldandmissing.com.
We also have our official transcripts on there.
So if you or a loved one is hard of hearing, you could follow along with the podcast there.
But that is all I have for you.
Thank you so much for listening to Cold and Missing.
I'm your host, Allie.
Have a good week and stay safe, y'all.