Naman Shrestha
ABC’s ‘Wild Crime: Eleven Skulls’ delves deep into the chilling 2012 murder case of Samantha Koenig, who was abducted at gunpoint from her workplace by serial killer Israel Keyes. When the detectives took him into custody, he admitted to killing her and provided them with the burial site. Things took a darker turn when the police connected him to other disappearances across the nation, including that of Jimmy Tidwell, just a month prior to his arrest.
Jimmy Tidwell Was Reported Missing When He Failed to Show Up at Work For Days
James “Jimmy” Lamar Tidwell Jr. was born on June 22, 1953, and raised alongside his sister, Lynn Akin, with whom he grew closer with time. Once he completed his education, Jimmy managed to get a job at an electrical company in Longview, Texas, where he worked for about a decade or so. On the personal front, he was married to Carol Tidwell, with whom he used to live in a cabin that they were building in Mount Enterprise in Rusk County, Texas. When he was not busy being a professional electrician, he used to carve wood in his free time.
With so many things to look forward to, Jimmy suddenly went missing. After finishing his night shift at 5:30 am on February 15, 2012, he returned home to his wife. His boss had asked him to come to work again that same afternoon to work overtime. When he failed to show up, his boss called his house only to find out that he had been sleeping, and his wife refused to wake him up. Over the next few days, Jimmy did not go to work, something highly uncharacteristic of him. Upon noticing his unannounced absence, his boss asked the police to conduct a welfare check on February 20.
When even the police couldn’t get to him in a couple of tries, his boss then reported Jimmy missing on February 28. Immediately, a thorough search was launched by the authorities, and the following day, they came across his abandoned white 1979 Ford F100 pickup truck several miles away from his house, at the intersection of FM 95 and State Highway 315. After the inspection of the vehicle, the detectives recovered his eyeglasses but could not locate his mobile phone, wallet, and keys. According to the investigators, there did not even seem to be any sign of struggle.
Jimmy Tidwell Was Seemingly a Victim of a Serial Killer
Following the discovery of the abandoned vehicle, various units of authorities joined forces and carried out an extensive search of the area in March 2012. Despite their best efforts, the sweep resulted in nothing significant and evidential. The investigators even interviewed Jimmy’s friends, family members, co-workers, and other acquaintances, which, too, resulted mostly in dead ends. According to Jimmy’s wife, Carol Tidwell, she had gone to stay with her family in the city of Nacogdoches as the cabin where they were staying was under construction. She claimed to have last seen him on February 24. However, the detectives noticed a few inconsistencies in her statements, which made them consider her a person of interest.
Within a few weeks, the investigators connected his disappearance to Israel Keyes, a serial killer who was arrested in Texas for the murder of Samantha Koenig in March 2012 in Anchorage, Alaska. Upon tracing his steps around the time of Jimmy’s disappearance, the police realized that a bank robbery had taken place in Azle on February 16, and the robber was Israel, who was spotted wearing a white hat similar to one that the missing man possessed. The surveillance footage also showed that Israel wore a dark-haired wig during the robbery, which resembled Jimmy’s hair. When the detectives questioned him about the wig, he claimed that it was human hair and said, “You don’t have to buy real hair to get real hair.”
Jimmy Tidwell’s Sister Kept Up Her Relentless Search For Her Brother
Unfortunately, before the investigators could retrieve more information about his possible connection to Jimmy’s disappearance, Israel Keyes took his own life in his jail cell on December 2, 2012. However, his passing did not stop Jimmy’s family, especially his sister, Lynn Aikin, from searching for his missing brother. In 2014, the original reward for substantial information on the case, which was $3,000, was increased to $5,000 in order to get more people to actively search for Jimmy. Four years later, the original reward money was doubled to $6,000, hoping that someone would come forward with any kind of information regarding the whereabouts of the electrician.
Lynn told KLTV, “It’s an unsolved mystery. It’s not like he’s sick, or he passed away, and we buried him, and we move forward. This is like he literally vanished.” She refused to believe that he simply walked away after working hard for several years to earn the money and invest it into the cabin. She added, “It is very hard to function not knowing what happened. This is the only biological brother that I had, I loved him dearly, my parents would want me to pursue what happened to their child.”
Jimmy Tidwell’s Family Remains Hopeful As They Look For Answers
In 2020, Lynn was vocal about her suspicions about Carol as she told KETK, “Her stories just kept scrambling. I did not see Jimmy that Friday, but I had called and talked to him. A few minutes later, Carol said she did not talk to Jimmy on that Friday, but that she went by and saw him feed the chickens.” She added, “I can’t prove it. We don’t have a body, we don’t have a crime scene, but that’s what I feel in my heart and I have a right to say. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but the facts still remain. He’s still missing.” As of 2020, Lynn was still looking for closure and some answers regarding the disappearance of the man who was always there for her. She claimed, “Life goes on. But, you never stop looking. You never stop asking. You never stop wondering. It never goes away.” To this day, Jimmy Tidwell remains a missing man.
Read More: Samantha Koenig: How Did She Die? Who Killed Her?
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