Mystery Deepens as Search for Atlanta Teacher Intensifies After Fiancée’s Body, Boat, and His Shoes Are Discovered in Lake Oconee

An Atlanta private school teacher remains missing more than a week after his fiancée, a Spelman College instructor, was found dead in Lake Oconee — intensifying the mystery as police continue the search for his remains and investigate the possibility of foul play.

Hoping to clear his name, Gary Jones’ family released a statement on Sunday, vowing they “will not to rest until he is found.” 

Their plea comes eight days after Jones, a faculty member and varsity track-and-field coach at Westminster, a private Christian school in Atlanta, vanished along with his fiancée, Joycelyn Wilson, while boating on Lake Oconee.

Wilson’s body was pulled from the lake on Feb. 9, but search crews have yet to locate Jones, whose shoes were found a day later, floating in the water near the shoreline with the laces untied.

The case has only grown more perplexing, with Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills saying his office is treating the investigation as more than a routine drowning.

“There are some peculiarities about all of it, which I’m not going to elaborate on at this time,” Sills said, according to Channel 2 Action News in Atlanta, adding that the homicide division was involved, which is standard in unexplained deaths. “There are other matters here we are investigating,” Sills told the station last 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.”

The couple’s empty boat was found on Feb. 8, drifting on the east Georgia lake, a few miles north of Wallace Dam. The next day, Wilson’s body turned up. She was 49.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation performed an autopsy, but the results remain undisclosed.

Sills suggested the discovery of Jones’ shoes in the water heightened suspicion among investigators.

“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.

Crews in patrol boats have been searching the lake with cadaver dogs, but so far have turned up no sign of Gary Jones.

“Where he is, we don’t know,” Sills said. 

The Department of National Resources handed the case over to the Putnam County Sheriff last Wednesday, with the search heading into its ninth day on Monday.

Sills acknowledged the difficulty in searching for a body of water the size of Lake Oconee.

“People have got to understand that this is such a wide expanse of water there that efforts to locate, just randomly locate it are impossible,” he said, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Jones and Wilson attended Clark Atlanta University together and got engaged recently after rekindling their romance years later, according to a childhood friend of Wilson’s who spoke with CBS affiliate WANF.

Meanwhile, the family of Gary Jones did not indicate whether they believed Jones had perished alongside Wilson, despite the ongoing search for his body. In a statement released Sunday, relatives said they hoped for Jones to be found, expressing gratitude for the outpouring of support from the community over the past week.

“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,” the statement said, according to Channel 2. “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.”

The mystery began Feb. 8 when Jones and Wilson checked into The Lodge on Lake Oconee, with plans to celebrate Jones’ 50th birthday.

The next day, Jones and Wilson set out from the hotel for a day trip, boarding a small fishing boat for what seemed like a peaceful afternoon on the water. 

The boat was launched from Fish Tale Marina at a ramp off Ga. 44, just across the Lick Creek branch from the Lodge, where Jones and Wilson had spent the previous night.

Witnesses recalled seeing them together on the Sun Dolphin Pro 120, but two hours later, the boat reappeared — this time with no one on board. 

With no one at the controls, the boat drifted and circled in the water for some time until it ran out of gas. With two flotation devices still inside, detectives were left with more questions than answers.

Sills said the couple traveled about seven miles in the 12-foot boat before other boaters discovered it adrift in the middle of Lake Oconee’s river channel.

Sills noted that those who alerted authorities about the drifting boat mentioned several children playing on a nearby dock. However, no one had reported hearing any screams or cries for help from the watercraft.

Sills added that the boat had later struck a dock. The next day, civilians discovered Wilson’s body about half a mile away.

Dive teams returned to Lake Oconee on Saturday morning to continue searching for Jones’ body, while officials said rain and wintry conditions have been the biggest obstacle in search efforts.

“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, a team leader with the nonprofit Emergency Dive Response Team, explained.

A search team from the Cajun Navy was said to be on its way to assist investigators at the lake beginning on Tuesday, while several civilian boats have helped aid the effort to find Jones.

Wilson’s body was located approximately half a mile from where the boat was found on Saturday night, while Jones’ shoes were found on the opposite side of the lake from Wilson’s body, according to reports.

Inside the boat, authorities discovered life jackets, snacks, and even an uneaten slice of birthday cake.

Investigators revealed they were using sonar equipment to scan the water and shoreline and noted that they recently acquired phone records for both Wilson and Jones.

Wilson, known affectionately as Joy, embodied the warmth of her name and was devoted to her career as an educator, according to longtime friend Natasha Harrison, who recalled how she would grade papers during choir rehearsal at Zion Hill Baptist Church, where Wilson notably failed to show last Sunday. 

Church members were stunned to find out she was dead.

“She really loved her students,” Harrison told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “She really loved what she did.”

Friends and family of Jones also recalled his dedication to students.

Courtlyn Cook, a 2011 Westminster graduate, remembered Jones as one of her favorite teachers and coaches. Last week, she joined the search efforts at the lake, hoping to help bring him home. “He had extremely high expectations,” she said, according to the newspaper. “He wanted people to aim high.”