Still a Mystery: A year after Wilkes County man disappers with little trace, his mother believes he must be dead

The day he disappeared, Jeff Combs left three pork chops frying on the stove.

On the kitchen table, he left a hastily scribbled note. It said that someone had broken into the house, stealing his scooter and more. He was going to track them down, he said.

"If I'm not home by dark come looking for me," Combs wrote.

His mother, Lucy Combs, found that note one year ago today.

Jeff Combs, who was 41 when he disappeared, had a rough life. In the space of a year, he was shot in the neck by his father, and he later wounded an uncle and his mother with a sword, an incident that landed him in prison for 10 years.

But Lucy Combs loved her son, and she said that he always called her "Mother Dear."

She said that he had a kind heart for the downtrodden, especially the homeless, which is why she thinks that he was cooking for some homeless friends on the day he disappeared. She also thinks that they are the ones who killed him.

Wilkes County sheriff's officials say they can't assume that Combs is dead, and they are continuing to follow leads in what they consider a suspicious missing-person case.

After a year of searching, though, Lucy Combs says she believes that her son is dead.

"I hope I can find him and get him buried," she said. "That would mean a lot."

A turbulent life

Long before he disappeared, Jeff Combs had already had a brush with death. On a Saturday night in June 1998, his father shot him in the neck.

According to a report by the Wilkes County Sheriff's Office, Jerry F. Combs Sr. was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury for shooting his son in the neck with a .38-caliber handgun during an argument on a Saturday night.

But Jeff wouldn't cooperate with police, and the charges were dropped, Lucy Combs said.

Father and son had a volatile relationship, she said. Jerry Combs was an alcoholic who didn't work, she said, and he beat her, Jeff and another son, Jerry Jr.

Despite all that, Jeff loved his dad and wanted to see him, Lucy Combs said. So on May 20, 1999, Jeff's birthday, he went next door to his father's house. But his father didn't answer the knocks.

Jeff started drinking heavily and taking pills.

When Lucy Combs got home from work, she found Jerry Combs dead in his bed. He had had a heart attack.

When Jeff's uncle arrived, a fight broke out, according to sheriff's deputies.

Jeff Combs picked up a sword. He cut his uncle several times, including on the head, upper body and arms, authorities said. Lucy Combs said she was hurt when she tried to break up the fight.

His mother didn't want him prosecuted. But Combs pleaded no contest to assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury. He was sentenced to 10 years, four months in prison. He already had a long record for charges that included assaulting a police officer. In prison, he racked up 24 infractions, for such things as substance possession and threatening the staff.

A prized possession

Jeff Combs was released from prison on Feb. 20, 2008, and lived in the house that had belonged to his grandparents. His mother's mobile home was just behind it, and his father's old house was next door.

He was trying to cope with life after prison. Court records show that he never missed an appointment with his parole officer.

In June 2008, he had a stroke and moved in with his mother. Doctors had already told them that he didn't have long to live because of liver disease. After the stroke, he had no use of his left arm and could use only three fingers on his right hand.

That was just enough for him to operate his scooter, which his mother said was his pride and joy.

On Oct. 21, 2008, he rode his scooter to the Village Market on N.C. 18, she said, and some homeless people asked if he had a place they could stay.

He made two trips on his scooter, ferrying the man and woman to his house. Lucy Combs said that the next morning, she saw the man urinating off the front porch of the house.

She told the two to leave and not to come back. They left.

That night, she went to work at her second-shift job on the processing line at the Tyson chicken-processing plant in Wilkesboro, and then worked a shift at the nursing home where she does the laundry. She got home at 11:30 a.m. Oct. 23. That's when she found the chops in the pan.

She found the note and went looking for her son.

Following any leads

She rode around all that day and into the night looking for him. At some point, he came back home. When she came back from work the next morning, she found his wet, torn clothes on the floor. He had picked up a camouflage jacket, and left.

She filed a missing-person report. She worked, but spent her off hours searching the trails that run through nearby woods. She walked roads, using a crowbar to pry open manhole covers.

She found out where the homeless people lived, in tents beside the Reddies River, and confronted them. She says they told her that Jeff had gotten into a car with two women. She didn't believe that.

Later that week, on Halloween, sheriff's deputies brought Jeff's scooter and the camouflage jacket for her to identify. They had found them beside the Reddies River, near the tents.

Sheriff's Capt. Steve Cabe said that the people in the camp were interviewed and helped develop some leads.

"I'm not sure they were ever considered suspects, (but) folks who were as far as we know witnesses by virtue of the fact they were in the area," Cabe said.

He said that there is still an active investigation that tracks all leads.

Lucy Combs has written or called the U.S. Marshals Service, the State Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, and government officials. She has written three letters to President Obama.

"I can't get no help every which way I look," she said.

She said that authorities aren't doing as much as they should because of her son's background.

Authorities say that's not true. They've used dogs to search. They've conducted digs. They found and probed an abandoned well. The SBI has assisted the sheriff's office.

"We've expended many, many man-hours on this investigation," Cabe said. "At times there have been three and four detectives working the case. We have done an extensive amount of work."

Combs still works two jobs, but she can't rest.

"What gets me is I don't know how he died, what he went through," she said. "I wake up at night like I can hear him calling me."

mmitchell@wsjournal.com


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Anyone with any information about Jeff Combs can call the Wilkes County Sheriff's Office at 903-7600.