LAKE OCONEE, Ga. — The family of Gary Jones, a missing teacher and track and field coach, say they will not rest until he is found.
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In a heartfelt message released Sunday, his loved ones expressed their unwavering faith and support, letting others know they will not give up.
A family spokesperson shared the following statement with Channel 2 Action News:
“The Jones family would like to say thank you to all those in support of our beloved Gary. We thank you for all the well wishes the prayers, and most importantly your efforts in helping us find Gary. This has been a horrendous experience for our family but we will not rest until he is found. We are following all developing leads in the events surrounding his disappearance. However, our most important focus now are the multi-faceted search efforts in water and on land. We would like to thank all the family, friends, volunteers, fishermen, officials and anyone else who are joining in the search efforts. We have unwavering faith in God that Gary will be found and that more details will be brought to light. While we are enduring this difficult process we ask everyone to respect the family’s privacy. Again, we sincerely thank you.”
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It’s been more than a week since Jones was last seen. Jones and his fiancée, Joycelyn Wilson, vanished last weekend while boating on Lake Oconee.
Jones is a faculty member and varsity track-and-field coach at Westminster, a private Christian school in Atlanta.
Wilson, a Spelman College instructor, was recovered from the lake last Sunday, but crews have still not been able to find Jones’ body.
Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills says this is more than just a drowning investigation.
“There are some peculiarities about all of it, which I’m not going to elaborate on at this time,” Sheriff Sills told Channel 2′s Bryan Mims.
He added that the homicide division is investigating, which is standard practice for unexplained deaths.
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Mims joined dive teams at Lake Oconee on Saturday morning where they continued searching for the beloved teacher and track coach.
They say the chilly conditions are playing the largest role in slowing down the search.
“The biggest thing that we’re dealing with at this lake is the weather, and what I mean by that is the temperature and the rain and having to work in these conditions. The water temperature on the surface is 53 degrees. Down at the bottom, it’s 42 degrees,” Richard Pickering, team leader with the nonprofit Emergency Dive Response Team, explained.
Earlier this week, crews found Jones’ shoes in the lake, but have still not been able to recover his body.
“There are other matters here we are investigating,” Sills said on Friday. “I’m not prepared to say this is a murder investigation yet, I’m not there. We’re doing other things that are more than we would do, if we had an outright drowning and a body came up.”
Sills added that Jones’ shoes raised some questions.
“The shoes were not laced or tied up tight. There’s no evidence on the shoes they reached the shore. There’s no red mud on the shoes, there’s no debris on the shoes,” he said.
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