James Michael Key was 31 years old when he was reported missing from Hodgenville, Kentucky, in December 2015. Public missing-person listings identify him as a White/Caucasian male with brown hair and green eyes, about 5 feet to 5 feet 1 inch tall, and weighing approximately 145 pounds. His NamUs case number is MP36733, and NamUs lists the date of last contact as December 12, 2015.
These brief identifying details are important because, in a case where the publicly available record is limited, they remain the clearest way to keep James’s name and description recognizable to anyone who may have information.
The available public timeline centers on December 12, 2015. According to an online case summary that cites NamUs as its source, James was last heard from at approximately 5:15 p.m. that day. The same summary lists a later “last known location of contact” at approximately 7:15 p.m. at the LaRue County Fire House, 209 Water Street, in Hodgenville, Kentucky. It also notes that James had made a Facebook post earlier that morning, at approximately 2:16 a.m. These details suggest that his final known day included several points of contact or activity, but the public record does not provide a fuller explanation of where he intended to go, who he may have been with, or what circumstances led to the loss of contact.
Four days later, on December 16, 2015, James’s 2000 Dodge Durango SUV was reportedly found on Wayne Ennis Road. The vehicle was described as being parked in the middle of the Rolling Fork River on a gravel bar, a detail that gave the case a stark and troubling physical location but did not publicly answer what happened to James himself. The discovery of a missing person’s vehicle often becomes a major point in an investigation, especially when it is found away from the person and in an unusual place, but the public summaries available online do not state whether the vehicle produced evidence, whether searches of the surrounding river area found anything, or whether investigators identified a confirmed direction of travel after the vehicle was located.
Public listings for the Hodgenville area continued to identify James Key as missing and connected him to case number MP36733. Those listings repeat the same core facts: he was last seen in Hodgenville on December 12, 2015, he was 31 years old at the time, and his physical description included brown hair, green eyes, a height of about 5 feet to 5 feet 1 inch, and a weight of about 145 pounds. The repetition of these details across missing-person databases reflects how much the case still depends on recognition, memory, and any information from people who may have seen James, his Dodge Durango, or activity around Wayne Ennis Road and the Rolling Fork River during that period.
James Key’s case is a painful example of how a person can seemingly move through an ordinary day and then leave behind only fragments: a last contact, a known location, an early-morning social media post, and a vehicle found days later in a place that raised more questions than it answered. The public information does not provide a clear reason for his disappearance, a confirmed route, or a publicly stated resolution. What remains is the story of a 31-year-old man from Hodgenville whose absence began on December 12, 2015, whose Dodge Durango was found on a gravel bar in the Rolling Fork River on December 16, and whose case is preserved in NamUs and missing-person listings under MP36733; in overview, the case begins with James’s last known contacts in Hodgenville, moves to the unsettling discovery of his vehicle several days later, and remains defined by the unanswered question of what happened to him after he was last known to be in LaRue County.Last Seen: Dec 12, 2015
