CA CA - Gail D. Skelton, 26, Galt/Stockton, 26 September 1980

[rats]

This girl is not in any MP sites or anything, but member J Rubio and I spoke before they made an account, and has been in contact with family, who say that there was a missing person's report.

What is known:

Gail Deann Skelton disappeared 26 September 1980. She was 26 years old. According to J Rubio, her car was never found - I will let them do most of the talking for this case.

Gail has not appeared on any missing persons sites that I can see, however, a family member lists her as "missing, presumed dead" on Ancestry.com, and there is a headstone for her that states the day she went missing in the Galt, California cemetery. Gardener1850 found a listing for her on find a grave, and has been diligently looking ever since.

According to the family tree as well as Ancestry.com records, Gail was married twice - one with the surname Brewer in 1973, div. 1974, and once in April 1980 (the year she went missing), to someone with the surname Garcia. HOWEVER. J Rubio states that there was also a fiancé, who I will refer to as P. P died under "strange" circumstances in June 1980, and Gail disappeared in September. How she has a fiancé when she was also married to someone is unknown - again, JR should do the talking here as they are intimately familiar with the case.

folieadeuxnola, I would really appreciate it if you could post the pictures you found of her from Galt High School on this thread.

Her find a grave profile is here: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/162650577/gail-d.-skelton

Gail has been suggested to Walker County Jane Doe and Arroyo Grande Jane Doe's threads.

I have emailed the Galt Police Department to see if there is a missing person's case that is still active, how to reactivate it, et cetera. Both of Gail's parents are dead, as is a sister, but according to family tree sites there are two brothers that are still living. I will also contact Dustin Driscoll to see about adding her to NamUs, probably, it depends on how the conversation with Galt PD goes.

 

[folieadeuxnola]

Gail Deann Skelton
Birth - Jan 28 1954 - Kern, California, USA

Senior 1972 - Galt HS, Sacramento County, California


Junior 1971 - Galt HS, Sacramento County, California


Sophomore 1970 - Galt HS, Sacramento County, California


Freshman 1969 - West HS, Bakersfield, Kern County, California

 

[Gardener1850]

Thank you so much for starting her thread. I feel hopeful we will at least be able to get her into NAMUS.

 

[Gardener1850]

J Rubio, if you come back, can you tell us if there were any newspaper articles published about Gail's disappearance or about her fiance's unusual death? Thank you for joining us.

 

[J Rubio]

Oh yes. I have transcribed them. Her disappearance was very strange, but I am still working on both cases. I have been researching and digging for answers for years. I am waiting to hear back from the Coroner's office for more in depth details on her fiance's death, once I go over all that I am going to be posting a blog about it. I will post a link here if you'd like. Let's just say I don't believe Gail's fiance' really drowned accidentally....

 

[J Rubio]

MOTHER’S DAILY EFFORT FAILS TO FIND MISSING DAUGHTER
By Mike Stuckey (Lodi News Sentinel, January 29, 1981)

“On Wednesday, Norma Skelton made the drive from Galt to Lodi to buy a birthday cake for her daughter Gail. “She would have been 27 years old or she is 27 years old today,” Mrs. Skelton said during a brief visit to the News-Sentinel.

Mrs. Skelton does not know what to believe because she has not seen her daughter for more than three months. Gail Skelton vanished on September 26 from a party at Herman and Helen’s Marina on Empire Tract, some 14 miles southwest of Lodi at the western end of Eight Mile Road. Substantial clues to 5 foot 2 inch, 115 pound woman’s whereabouts have yet to be found.

Sheriff’s detectives have scoured the area from which the young woman disappeared and they have talked to numerous potential witnesses. They have found no trace of the woman or the 1978 blue two-door Toyota she owned when she turned up missing.

“We don’t know,” says sheriff’s detective commander Dave Derksen. “We have no idea” what happened to Gail Skelton.

The closest that detective have come to a break in the case developed recently. With the help of a hypnotist, detectives produced a composite drawing of a man who may be connected in some way to the disappearance of Gail Skelton.

“We’ve got a composite drawing of the last person to have seen her,” Derksen says. He pauses. “Supposedly,” he is careful to add.

The information for the composite drawing came from an employee at the marina. The employee, a young woman who came to work as Miss Skelton was supposed to be leaving, told investigators that she subject of the drawing was a patron at the bar.

“They said they saw him around there earlier,” Derksen said. While detectives had been aware of this information for some time, “we got a better detailed composite of him by using a hypnotist.”

But the composite drawing—of a white man, 25-30 years old, with dark hair, over 6 feet tall and thin build – hasn’t been much help to detectives who are working the case, Derksen said. “We can’t identify him.”

The mystery of the case is heightened by the fact that Miss Skelton’s fiancée, 30 year old Pat Malone, disappeared June 19 from a boat on the Delta. Malone’s body was recovered from the water near where his boat had been discovered, 11 miles west of Lodi, after an eight day search.

Malone had a high level of alcohol in his system at the time of his death, according to the coroner’s report, and authorities theorize that his drowning was an accident. ****

There is no reason to connect the cases, investigators say, but they admit that the two incidents are surrounded by “a lot of strangeness,” in the words of Detective Nancy Sumers.

Perhaps the most tireless investigator in the case has been Mrs. Skelton herself. Mrs. Skelton has spent days searching the Delta by boat and by car since her daughter disappeared. She has looked over the roads and levees in the area. She has taped bamboo poles together and poked them into the water near the bridge from King Island to Empire Tract. Mrs. Skelton and detectives believe that Gail’s car may have gone out of control and plunged into the water somewhere.

Mrs. Skelton also has spent a great deal of time talking to her daughter’s friends, business associates, anybody who may be able to produce a new lead. She has done some of her own looking into the new facet of the case, that the man in the composite drawing may have had something to do with Gail’s disappearance.

“This guy came into the marina and was sitting at the bar harassing her or wanting her to go places and she refused,” Mrs. Skelton says. She claims that the hypnotist’s entry into the case has brought out another detail. The young woman interviewed by the hypnotist reported that Gail, “had a few drinks but she was not sloppy drunk as had earlier been reported,” says Mrs. Skelton.

With new details in hand, Mrs. Skelton says, “I’ve been running the rivers and I’ve called everybody and showed everybody this (composite) picture. Nobody seems to know him. Nobody wants to talk,” She adds with frustration.

Stress on the Skelton family – Gail’s mother, her father, her two brothers and a sister—has increased with every week that the young woman’s fate remains uncertain, Mrs. Skelton says.

Gail “was getting over” Malone’s death when she vanished, according to Mrs. Skelton, and the family does not believe the woman disappeared of her own accord. She had some problems to work out, Mrs. Skelton says, but “no more than normal or anybody else….nothing pressing financially.”

“She didn’t have to answer to anybody. She didn’t have half the problems married people have…this is all wrong for her to go off and not let anybody know.”

Gail’s passion was the Delta. She and Malone, who lived together on a houseboat, “were on that water all the time,” Mrs. Skelton recalls.

Malone and Gail, ardent foes of the Peripheral Canal, were involved in the development of a project known as “Irish Isles,” in the Stockton Deep Water Channel, described by Mrs. Skelton as a tourist attraction of sorts.

Malone’s pride in his Irish heritage became a part of the couple’s wedding plans--- they were to be married on St. Patrick’s Day of this year. “Their future was really going to be fantastic,” says Mrs. Skelton.

But now the future for Mrs. Skelton has become a series of uncertain days. Although she is troubled by heart problems, she continues to keep in touch with sheriff’s detectives, newspapers, almost anyone who might help her find Gail.

“I want my daughter,” she says. “I want to know what’s happened to her even if she’s in the bottom of the river.”

Persons who believe they may have information on the young woman’s whereabouts should call sheriff’s detectives in Stockton at 944-2141. “---------------

 

[Gardener1850]

Oh yes. I have transcribed them. Her disappearance was very strange, but I am still working on both cases. I have been researching and digging for answers for years. I am waiting to hear back from the Coroner's office for more in depth details on her fiance's death, once I go over all that I am going to be posting a blog about it. I will post a link here if you'd like. Let's just say I don't believe Gail's fiance' really drowned accidentally....

Wow, this sounds like such a mystery I am surprised her case is not already online in a missing person's database. I'll look forward to reading more when you get the blog up.

ETA: I posted at the same time as you were posting the article above. Thank you for the very detailed newspaper article. That news article gives a lot of valuable info!

Especially her physical description-- 5'2" and 115 lbs.

 

[rats]

Thank you J!!! The newspaper article gave me a surge of hope that investigators cared about the case. Also please do link the blog entry here -- I read some of your more recent ones that you linked and found them to be quite interesting.

 

[J Rubio]

That is just one of many newspaper articles I have on her and her fiance's story. I will definitely keep you posted on the blog when it's up. Thanks for reaching out to me in the first place. I am glad to see that so many are concerned with Gail's story. --

 

[shadowdancer]

I think she is in a body of water somewhere, still inside her car.

 

[J Rubio]

(on another note if you notice the asterisk**** in the article, that was my typo, I forgot to remove it prior to posting. That was my little flag to go back and note in my blog that Malone's body was in the water for so many days there was no way for them to determine his blood alcohol level accurately. I will get into the science of this in my blog but basically, it had been too many days and his body had been in decomp for too long. So I found that statement in the newspaper very strange.)

 

[shadowdancer]

That is just one of many newspaper articles I have on her and her fiance's story. I will definitely keep you posted on the blog when it's up. Thanks for reaching out to me in the first place. I am glad to see that so many are concerned with Gail's story. --

I'd love to read the other articles you have. Its fascinating stuff.

Is Gail's mother still alive?

 

[J Rubio]

Shadowdancer - that is very possible, and her mother seemed to think so. I worry that when Gov. Moonbeam (oops I mean Jerry Brown) goes through with the horrific tunnels and he ruins the Delta to steal all the water and give to SoCal that many bodies will be found when the Delta drains....hold on to your hats when that day comes, because it will be a lot I am sure.

 

[Gardener1850]

Is this the same investigator mentioned in the article-- David Derksen: https://www.sjgov.org/da/staff?id=25939

Maybe he would be the one to contact for her missing persons case number for NAMUS?

 

[J Rubio]

Shadowdancer- No, Norma passed away several years back in 2013. On another note, when Gail's sister died in 2004 her obit said she was survived by her siblings which included Gail. Interesting huh?

 

[J Rubio]

That might be the same guy. --

 

[rats]

Is this the same investigator mentioned in the article-- David Derksen: https://www.sjgov.org/da/staff?id=25939

Maybe he would be the one to contact for her missing persons case number for NAMUS?

I reached out to the Stockton Police Department on Facebook (as well as still having the email out to the Galt Police Department). Fingers crossed?

 

[J Rubio]

They are the same ones who wrote me back and asked if I knew anything about it, after I asked them if she was still considered a missing person. I want to know who was using Gail's info and renting a house between 1995-2004 in Stockton if she is still "missing"?

 

[folieadeuxnola]

Shadowdancer - that is very possible, and her mother seemed to think so. I worry that when Gov. Moonbeam (oops I mean Jerry Brown) goes through with the horrific tunnels and he ruins the Delta to steal all the water and give to SoCal that many bodies will be found when the Delta drains....hold on to your hats when that day comes, because it will be a lot I am sure.

Loved the post :loveyou::scared::loveyou::scared:

 

[shadowdancer]

Shadowdancer - that is very possible, and her mother seemed to think so. I worry that when Gov. Moonbeam (oops I mean Jerry Brown) goes through with the horrific tunnels and he ruins the Delta to steal all the water and give to SoCal that many bodies will be found when the Delta drains....hold on to your hats when that day comes, because it will be a lot I am sure.

Well, it would give resolution to a lot of families, as well as causing some sleepless nights for lots of killers...

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Shadowdancer- No, Norma passed away several years back in 2013. On another note, when Gail's sister died in 2004 her obit said she was survived by her siblings which included Gail. Interesting huh?

That is interesting, perhaps reflecting a difference in opinion about Gail's fate? Or maybe the sister just preferred to think of Gail as still alive, unless proven otherwise.