It started with a car found floating in the river

Author: Raymond Tubb From 11Alive News

Published: 2:09 PM EST January 31, 2019

Updated: 2:17 PM EST January 31, 2019

HAWKINSVILLE, Ga. — The discovery of a car in the Ocmulgee River has turned into a missing persons case in Hawkinsville. 

Investigator Freddie Yates with the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office says on the evening of January 23, they got a call about a car in the river.

When they got to the Mile Branch boat ramp, Yates says officers found a silver 2000 Toyota Avalon sitting under water. The doors and trunk were popped open. 

The last person seen driving the car was Kevin Patterson of Adairsville — that’s in Bartow County up above Atlanta. 

His fiance’ Crystal Campbell says he was in Hawkinsville to visit his brother and the car belongs to her.

A surveillance video shows the car rolling into the water and someone walking up the bank and into the woods, but it’s not clear enough to identify the man.

Since that night, no one has heard from Patterson. Campbell says it’s unlike him to do that because he regularly checks in with his mom and their children. 

Campbell says she’s disappointed that there wasn’t a thorough search done of the river. 

She says she’s traveled down to Hawkinsville several times since the disappearance to walk the river bank. 

She says he did call her before he disappeared to say he loved her and the kids. He also said he wasn’t sure he was, “going to get through this.” 

She’s not sure what he meant by the calls, but she is sure that if he was okay, he would have called someone in his family by now.