Wednesday, January 10, 2001
(From the Abilene Reporter-News files
of July 14, 1984)
Ex-ACU employee missing: Ransacked car
found; foul play suspected
By MARK DOLL
Staff Writer
TUXEDO -- Lawmen searched without success
all day Friday for a former Abilene Christian University staff
member whose car was found ransacked about 3.5 miles north of
here on FM 1661.
Wesley Barrett "Barre" Cox, a
31-year-old San Antonio youth minister, is feared to be the victim
of foul play.
Cox was last seen driving east out of Rotan
on state Highway 92 at about 3:45 a.m. Thursday by Rotan police
officer Floyd Bankston.
Cox, who had been doing summer work at Texas
Tech University toward his doctoral degree, had left Lubbock late
Wednesday night en route to Abilene. He had planned to stay in
Abilene with friends before driving to San Antonio Thursday, Jones
County Serhiff Mike Middleton said.
Cox's car was found abandoned by a Jones
County resident at about 7:30 p.m. Thursday north of this tiny
community, about 10 miles west of Stamford.
The sheriff's office notified Cox's family
after running a license-plate check on his car, he said.
Texas Ranger Sid Merchant, Along with the
sheriff, his four deputies, and several other law officials began
searching for the missing man in the northern half of the rural
county from U.S. 83 to the Haskell county line.
Cox's father, Wesley Barrett Cox Sr., of
Amarillo, and the missing man's older brother George, as well
as area residents, assisted the lawmen until the search was called
off for the day at about 8 p.m.
They will continue to comb the area Saturday
starting at 8 a.m.
Cox's friends from ACU and his San Antonio
church, MacArthur Park Church of Christ, are expected to volunteer
in the manhunt, Middleton said.
Cox's car was dismantled and checked for
fingerprints Friday night by Glen Lawrence, an investigator called
in from the Abilene Police Department.
Numerous fingerprints were found throughout
the car, Middleton said late Friday night.
The car was found with the front and rear
windshields broken out and the keys inside the locked trunk. Cox's
wallet was nearby with its remains scattered about, Middleton
explained.
About $100 in cash that Cox was believed
to have been carrying was missing.
A moped that was being carried on the trunk
was missing, but the clothes that Cox packed for the trip were
intact in the back seat, the sheriff said.
Bankston, the Rotan police officer who last
saw the San Antonio man, had helped Cox early Thursday morning
when his car ran out of gas about two miles outside of Rotan on
state Highway 92.
Cox had walked to the Fisher County town
to get some gas, and the police officer drove him back out to
his stranded car.
Middleton said Cox then returned to Rotan
to fill his car up at Allsup's convenience store and was last
seen by Bankston driving east on Highway 92 toward Hamlin.
The sheriff said he doesn't know what happened
after Cox left Rotan. "I wouldn't even attempt to guess --
I suspect foul play."
But the detailed inspection of the car later
Friday night revealed the car had been driven less than 100 miles
after leaving Rotan.
"I know how far that car could have
gone," Middleton said (by calculating the amount of fuel
missing from the tank).
The car was found roughly 35 miles east
of where Cox filled up in Rotan.
To get to Abilene, the minister would have
needed to turn south on U.S. 83 at Hamlin.
To get to where the car was found by the
shortest route, one would continue east on Highway 92 toward Stamford
about 10 miles, then north on FM 1661. This tiny community is
just north of that intersection, and the car was found 2.5 miles
north of here close to the Haskell county line.
Cox, an admissions counselor and summester
director at ACU during the 1982-83 school year, had been working
on his doctoral studies at Texas Tech University.
Cox telephoned his wife about 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday and told her he would be leaving for Abilene after attending
church and packing some clothes.
Friends in Abilene said Cox had been in
Lubbock two or three weeks and had left Lubbock about 10:30 p.m.
Wednesday to return home in San Antonio.
He and his wife, Beth, also a former ACU
staff member, have lived in San Antonio since the fall of 1983.
They have a 7-month-old daughter.
Middleton described the black-haired man
with blue eyes as being very bright and very friendly.
Cox was last seen wearing a white T-shirt
and blue jeans. He is 6 feet, 1 inch tall and weighs 205 pounds.
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Copyright ©2001, Abilene
Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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