The search for Gary Laron Jones continued Tuesday on Lake Oconee by multiple law enforcement and emergency rescue agencies.
Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said nine Georgia Department of Natural Resources boats, a DNR helicopter, one PCSD boat, a boat with the Forsyth County dive team, and Putnam County Fire Rescue boats were manned and searching the lake all day.
Sills said most of the boats were equipped with sonar.
Sills said the missing boater went out on Lake Oconee around 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 8. The woman he went out with, 49-year-old Joycelyn Nicole Wilson, was found dead and floating on Lake Oconee Sunday on Feb. 9. DNR game wardens recovered her body.
According to reports, Wilson had been a mathematics professor at Spelman College since 2007. Jones is a track-and-field coach at The Westminster Schools in Atlanta.
Jones and Wilson, both of Atlanta, were engaged and came to Lake Oconee to celebrate his 50th birthday. Sills said their boat contained a large chocolate chip cookie decorated with frosting, a few bananas, and some water.
The search has been ongoing since Feb. 8, when the couple’s 11-foot Sundolphin boat reportedly circled Lake Oconee unoccupied. Sills said he was out on the lake alone searching in his boat Sunday, Feb. 16, but due to the cold temperatures and winds, no other law enforcement searchers were out that day.
Jones’ friends and concerned local residents are circulating “Missing Person” posters around Lake Oconee with Jones’ picture.
In conversation with news reporters Monday, Sills said he didn’t think Jones would be found until his body came up in the lake, which he estimates would happen about 14-20 days after the boating incident.
“They are welcome to put out posters searching for a missing person,” Sills said. “But all the evidence that we have, physical evidence, witnesses, and things like that, indicate drowning. Therefore, searching the lake isthe proper use of our resources right now.”
Sills said he registered Jones as a missing person on the National Crime Information Center, and he will continue to be on NCIC as a missing person until his body is found.
Regarding people who think a boating accident happened, Sills said the boat has no damage and no evidence that it crashed into something, was hit by another boat, was swamped by water, or capsized.
The events as they happened
Sills explained the timeline of the events that he has confirmed using Flock cameras, security video cameras, hotel check-in reports, and witness statements:
Saturday, Feb. 8
When the couple arrived Saturday, they went straight to the Marathon Gas Station off Greensboro Road. There at Fish Tale Marina, Jones launched his boat into the water.
Meanwhile, Wilson drove the pickup truck with the attached boat trailer to The Lodge on Lake Oconee, where she parked the vehicle and checked them into the hotel. As she did this, Jones drove the boat from Fish Tale to The Lodge, helped Wilson load some items onto the ship, and they both went out on the lake.
That was approximately 3:30 p.m., and a few minutes after 5 p.m., a person called 911 and reported seeing the Sun Dolphin circling in the water with the engine running. The boat was unoccupied.
Sills said that, considering how much Jones and Wilson weigh, according to their driver's licenses, and adding the weight of the boat motor and gas tank, there were about 400 pounds on the small boat.
Considering the motor's horsepower, he said it would have taken them more than an hour and a half to reach the point where their boat was discovered.
“So whatever happened to them happened immediately,” Sills said.
The caller’s 911 call went to Greene County’s Emergency 911 Service, and the dispatcher notified the Georgia DNR dispatch center in Grovetown. Two DNR game wardens arrived to secure the boat and search for its occupants.
Sunday, Feb. 9
The following day, DNR called the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office and requested a deputy go to The Lodge to pick up the couple’s belongings.
Instead, Sills ordered the room locked and secured in case evidence was needed.
After learning from a friend about the missing couple, Lake Oconee residents Jeff and Kristy Everett took their boat out Sunday morning to assist DNR in their search. Before he searched, Jeff phoned a family member who worked at Wallace Dam to see if water had been released Saturday evening. When he learned that water had been released, the Everetts drove their boat toward the dam to search.
“Sure enough, I saw the body out there in the standing timber right close to Jumping Rock,” Everett told the Lake Oconee News.
Everett’s wife notified the DNR game wardens, and Jeff helped them pull Wilson’s body from the water. Putnam County Deputy Coroner Andre Williams said Wilson’s cause of death was undetermined and took the body to the GBI state crime lab in Decatur for an autopsy.
Sills said the autopsy revealed some air in Wilson’s lungs.
“However, that doesn’t mean she didn’t drown; that just explains why her body floated instead of sinking to the bottom,” he said.
Monday – Tuesday, Feb. 10-11
As word spread about the beloved high school track coach’s disappearance and unknown condition, many volunteers joined the search party. The sheriff expressed gratitude for all the assistance.
“Quite frankly, some of those bass fishermen have electronics that are far more sophisticated than we do,” he said.
One of the cadaver dogs brought in by what Sills described as “a reputable group,” alerted twice during the search last week in the same area where Wilson’s body was found. The next day, a cadaver dog was searching by land and had a hit on the shoreline of that area.
The sheriff said DNR put down “some sort of robot” to search the area but found nothing.
“The dog handler said it could have been some residual leftover from Wilson’s body there,” Sills said. “But it’s 80 feet deep there, and with the standing timber, the bottom of the lake looks like Mount St. Helens.”
The lake’s size, which Sills described as “too broad an area to try to drag,” and the standing timbers make dragging impossible.
“I’ve done this all my life, and lakes and rivers will give up a body when they want to,” he said.
Sills noted that other agencies are welcome to assist in the search.
Jones’ shoes found
At some point in the search (Sills said he wasn’t exactly sure when), Jones shoes were found by a civilian.
“They were not found together. They were about 15 yards apart in water up against the bank,” he described. “They had no mud on them at all, so they never touched the ground.”
Sills said that no mud was found on Jones’ shoes, which meant he had never climbed out of the water.
“I know our lake, and I know that if I climbed out of the water and stepped onto the shore anywhere, the shoes would have mud on them,” he said. “I know because I’ve done it hundreds of times myself.”
Sills said he was confident the shoes belonged to Jones because he found out from the game wardens that they sent a picture of the shoes to one of Jones’ brothers, Mike Jones, who identified the size 13 gray Nikes as ones that looked like what Gary wore.
“And also, I noticed he was wearing them in the security video at the Marathon,” Sills added.
Wednesday – Monday, Feb. 12-17
Sills announced late Wednesday evening that he had taken over the investigation with the assistance of the DNR. He said he had discussed the transition with DNR Deputy Commissioner Thomas Bernard and that it was now a “death investigation.”
“All unattended deaths, meaning those unattended by a physician, in the State of Georgia are required by law to be investigated pursuant to Title 45,” Sills said. “As I became more aware of the circumstances and events of [Wednesday], I determined that it’s time we step in and take over this investigation.”
He explained that he had to get search warrants to examine the inside of the boat, where Jones’ wallet was found. He is also searching their belongings for evidence that may aid in the search or explain what happened.
He noted that the cowl of the boat’s motor was removed, which suggests that Jones had been working on it.
“If he had the throttle wide open and all of a sudden it cranked, that thing’s going to turn, and both of them could’ve gone out of that boat just like that,” he said. “I know they can swim, but things happen to you in 48-degree water swimming, it just does. They had a long way to go on either side if they were out there in the middle like that.”