The decades-old mystery surrounding the disappearance of 26-year-old Carol Sue Skidmore has finally been resolved thanks to advancements in forensic DNA technology and the perseverance of the Bay County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case and Crime Scene Units. The case, which remained unsolved for nearly 45 years, began when skeletal remains were discovered in 1980 in a shallow grave by hunters west of Highway 231, north of Fountain, Florida.
At the time, investigators suspected the remains might belong to JoAnn Benner, another missing woman whose disappearance had raised suspicions of foul play. However, the remains did not match Benner due to the absence of injuries she was known to have sustained. Despite examination by the FSU Anthropology Lab, the woman’s identity remained a mystery for decades.
Years later, the BCSO Cold Case Unit—a team composed of retired and active investigators—revisited the case. With technology unavailable in 1980, the team coordinated with the Crime Scene Unit and obtained a tooth from the skeletal remains for DNA analysis. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement developed a DNA profile and submitted it to CODIS where it matched two individuals in Texas who had submitted DNA in connection with their missing sister. Further kinship analysis conducted by the Center for Human Identification confirmed the remains as those of Carol Sue Skidmore, who vanished in 1977.
Carol’s disappearance began in March 1977 when she, her husband James Ronald Skidmore, and her young son Lynn Dale Mahaffey left their Sealy, Texas home to visit James’s parents in Rossville, Georgia, hoping to mend their troubled marriage. Carol’s last known communication came on April 9, when she spoke to her parents, expressing uncertainty about their return. Then, on May 5, 1977, the body of a young boy was discovered in Parksville Lake, Tennessee. He had been murdered, his remains wrapped in plastic and weighted with a rock. Identification by the FBI in June confirmed the victim as Carol’s son, Lynn Dale Mahaffey.
The tragic timeline continued when, on June 1, 1977, James Skidmore was found dead from a drug overdose in a Harrison, Arkansas motel. A suicide note was found at the scene in which James confessed that “things weren’t working out,” but he did not reveal what had happened to Carol. For decades, Carol remained a missing person until the recent DNA breakthrough.
Investigators now believe that James Skidmore murdered both his wife and son—burying Carol in a shallow grave in Bay County, Florida, and dumping Lynn’s body in a Tennessee lake—before taking his own life. While the precise motives and circumstances may never be fully understood, the discovery has brought long-awaited closure to Carol’s surviving family. One sibling had passed away, but her brother expressed deep gratitude to finally know her fate.
Sheriff Tommy Ford praised the Cold Case and Crime Scene Units for their relentless pursuit of truth, stating, “We will never stop seeking justice for victims of crime, no matter how much time may have passed.” Their work continues, now employing ancestral DNA techniques to identify several other sets of unidentified human remains in Bay County. Meanwhile, the JoAnn Benner case—initially linked to the unidentified 1980 remains—has seen progress and has been submitted to the State Attorney’s Office for review and possible prosecution.
Last Seen: Apr 9, 1977
