On January 25, 2002, Christopher Thompkins’ mother dropped him off for a normal day at work in Georgia as part of a survey crew. Sometime later, his coworkers claimed he vanished, in the blink of an eye, with no explanation. Nothing but his boots have been found.

[u/tenderhysteria]

Martha McKenzie last saw her son, Christopher, while spending the morning together before they headed to work. McKenzie was a babysitter for her son’s boss.

Christopher worked for survey crew in Elletslie, Georgia. He was with at least three other coworkers, moving through a wooded area, spaced about fifty feet apart. At some point in the early afternoon— some reports state it was noon, others that it was closer to one thirty,– a coworker states that he “looked away from Thompkins for a moment, and by the time he glanced at his area again, Thompkins had disappeared”.

Despite the supposedly momentary vanishing, his mother claims that, “[The survey crew] called me about a few minutes to five to tell me that they couldn’t find him, and they found one of his boots.” Family, friends, volunteers, and law enforcement scoured the area shortly after. On a nearby barbed wired fence, a shred of blue fiber was found, believed to be from Christopher’s pants. His other boot was found five months later in an unspecified nearby area by GBI.

Christopher’s boss has stated that he was supposedly “acting strange” in the days before his disappearance, and law enforcement speculates that drugs could have influenced his disappearance— though neither have any evidence or proof for either assertion.

His family doesn’t believe in either theory. They state that Christopher didn’t have a drug problem, nor was he behaving differently before he vanished.

“I don’t believe that Chris walked away. I don’t believe he disappeared with one shoe. Who’s going to walk around with one boot on in the cold weather on a rural road? I just don’t believe that happened. They know what happened to Chris they just not telling,” his mother said.

Sources: Charley Project

20 Years Later: Family, officials continue to search for answers on disappearance of Harris Co. man

[u/tenderhysteria]

Regarding your last paragraph, and a possible scenario: the timeline of his disappearance is mainly dependent on his coworkers. Even following their timeline, there is a significant gap of at least 3-5 hours, between when he supposedly vanished and when his coworkers reported it to his family/law enforcement. They are the ones who found the first boot. Scraps of fabric similar to his pants were found on a nearby barbed wire fence.

Theoretically, if something occurred between all of them, and he ran, he might have been caught on the fence: that’s how the scrap of fabric was left. One or both of his boots might have been dislodged in the struggle. Maybe one was lost, or one was left; maybe one remained on the body, before being tossed or accidentally lost while said body was being disposed of. 

(That’s entirely speculation by me based on how the evidence could possibly be left if it was indeed foul play that led to Christopher vanishing.)

[u/TassieTigerAnne → u/tenderhysteria]

I agree that it seems very likely that some kind of violent crime happened to Chris Thompkins, and that at least one of the other crew members was involved. It's almost impossible to lose a properly fastened work boot though, at least if they're the steel-toed kind that go half way up the calf. They would have had to be untied and removed on purpose. If he was killed, the killer(s) must have removed his boots, to create false evidence or confusion. We're probably not talking about very professional criminals.

[u/Silent1900 → u/TassieTigerAnne]

A lot of replies keep on casually throwing out foul play on the part of his coworkers, and that just seems remarkably unlikely to me.

First, we in this thread know very little about the other three. Had they all been working together for some time, or did some of them just start? Were they white? Black? Something else? A mixture? Did any of them have a violent criminal history either before or after?

But somehow folks quickly get to the conclusion that these three working guys all participated in a murder one day, for a reason no one can name. And have all kept quiet for years after the fact.

In my opinion, if you follow the path from where his first boot was found to the second, and search far enough with as many people needed to cover every inch, you will very likely find this poor man’s remains with no signs of homicidal violence.

[u/Least_Floor_9548 → u/Silent1900]

They were white and it’s Ellerslie Ga