Kathleen Ruth Smiley was known to her family and friends as “Kathy.” Smiley was just 16 years old when she was abducted off I-85 in Georgia in 1974. Kathy was born in Florida in 1957, and after several years living in Hong Kong, due to her father’s job, the family relocated to the Atlanta area in northern DeKalb County. Being the daughter of a corporate executive meant that Kathy and her immediate family would be required to move a lot.
Kathy entered Lakeside High School to graduate with the class of 1975, but chose to take additional courses during the summer of 1973 so that she could complete her studies soon, with hopes to graduate a year earlier.
During the weekend of April 20, 1974, Kathy’s father returned to the area to take Kathy and her younger sister to Lake Lanier for a day of swimming. Her father was living in Minnesota at the time, due to his job. The mother was tired of frequently moving and had opted to stay in the Atlanta area.
On Sunday, 21, 1974, plans were set to have Kathy bring her younger sister to a Denny’s Restaurant to meet their father for breakfast, before setting out to Lake Lanier. The pair arrived several minutes before their father came to the restaurant. The family had breakfast, and before finishing, Kathy informed her father that she would need to get fuel in her red 1972 VW Beetle. Mr. Smiley agreed to take the younger sister, since the nearest gas station was in a different direction. Shortly after leaving the restaurant, Kathy was going to grab gas and head home to grab her bathing suit.
At the time, Kathy had only been driving for an estimated 10 months, and the roads around Atlanta, especially in 1974, proved to be tricky, even for the most experienced driver. Several of the access roads were notorious as hangouts for local vagrants, hitchhikers, and individuals who wanted to elude law enforcement. And that spring morning in 1974 was no exception, as Kathy pulled down an access road towards the I-285 exchange.
Pinkney Thomas Mitchell, aged 25 at the time, and his crime-ridden sidekick, Wallace Charles Lanford, aged 21, were both wanted in the state of North Carolina. Mitchell had escaped from a work center, and Lanford was mistakenly released a few weeks before, when a judge mistook his record for another convict. The duo had been in Atlanta, keeping a low profile, partying at local strip clubs, until they went broke and were in desperate need of their next drug fix. They had also wanted to get back to North Carolina, where they knew people who could supply them with drugs and money, when they saw Kathy’s disabled vehicle on the road.
A clerk at the Shell Gas Station had observed the red VW Beetle with two people leaning on it. Mitchell walked to the gas station with $5.00 to purchase a whole can of gasoline. The clerk, at first, was hesitant to release the can since it was the last one, but did. A few minutes later, the red Beetle pulled into the gas station, with Kathy behind the wheel. Langford sat in the passenger seat. And Mitchell was in the back. Mitchell got out and returned the can to the attendant, and asked if he could use the restroom. As Mitchell walked around the side, he spotted a clothesline rope lying on the ground. He quickly picked it up, wrapped it up, and slid it into his pocket.
The gas station employees at the Shallowford Road Shell Station were the last people to see Kathy Smiley alive that day. Kathy had no plans to ever go to North Carolina, and somewhere between Shallowbrook Road and the Lake Lanier-Buford highway split, the fugitives took control of Kathy and her vehicle.
Kathy Smiley’s body was found tied to a tree near the abandoned Old Lincoln Academy in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. Her red car was discovered just seventy-five feet from the tree and was engulfed in flames.
Mitchell and Lanford received life sentences; both have since died in a state prison.
Written By: John G. Clark Jr.