What Were His Coworkers Hiding? | The Disappearance of Chris Thompkins

In 2002, then 20 year old Christopher Carlton Thompkins went to to work with a four man survey team in Ellerslie, a small community outside of Columbus, Georgia. From 8:10am that morning, nobody can say for certain what happened to Chris. Conflicting stories, unreliable witnesses, and senseless clues made for a case that puzzled everyone involved. Welcome back to The Lore Lodge...

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0:00 - Intro
1:20 - RAID: Shadow Legends Ad
3:18 - Regional Background
7:43 - The Disappearance
11:38 - Investigations
19:26 - Theories

[razorsharp]

Ive always found this one interesting since i drive by the spot he disappeared every day for work. Ive always had a feeling his coworkers did something. Just suprised they havnt found the body yet.

[kpenrose]

The "odd behaviour" brought to mind a similar case, Daniel Robinson, a Geologist who went missing in the desert. They found his car, but his Dad is still searching for him. a truely odd disappearance.

[oneamong]

This is heartbreaking. He obviously didn't just leave. He was a small man and I think an easy target for someone. I agree the co-workers are the likely culprits in his disappearance. Would love someone to take a deep dive into this case.

[PLYR_n-]

The change from his pocket makes me think he was being carried. If someone is being carried it makes sense that items would fall out of their pocket.

[Sgt.Dornan]

As someone who wears Dickies for work I feel personally attacked

[nda]

I appreciate how you don’t dramatize the situation, and treat it with respect. 🔥 ❤
keep up the good work

[roses]

It's nice to see a shift in most of the Missing 411/Strange Occurrences content creators to actually do a lot of personal research into topics and don't exaggerate stuff as much anymore. I remember first hearing this story framed as like "They were climbing up a mountain path in a column and they would pull on the rope to tell the person behind them to move up. They pulled on Chris' rope and *gasp* he was gone. They found a bunch of his belongings on the ground nearby line he was flipped upside down. Did Bigfoot grab him?? spooky". Feels a lot more like it was foul play when you simply add important context (looking at you Paulides).

[brutusthebear]

While I can't speak for Columbus, the Civil War museums in Georgia tend to be fairly good.

[cabalarcana]

I'd like to know more about where they found the second boot. Can't help but wonder if the property was connected to one of the coworkers, or maybe to one of the local cops.

[MR.B_]

If the coworkers had looked for him, they would have found the boot and the money. I think they lied.

[Lesbiwolf]

To be fair with the workers finding him acting strange vs the fam saying he was not acting strange, how many times has there been cases where the family swears black and blue someone was fine, happy and loving life yet the person committed suicide due to crippling depression and believing they had no other option than to end it. I think sometimes family will, especially with parents, ignore red flags in their kin under the guise that hey if they were going through some shit they would say something cos we are family.

[GattisonPrime]

I just gotta stop the vid real quick and say: I LOVE how thorough Aiden is, and I love all this random, extra information. This channel is dope!

[annaschwirian]

I find the similarities between this case and Daniel Robinson concerning.they both...
- worked in the outdoors
- Had coworkers saying they were acting weird
- Had one group look for them and find nothing where the second group found something big.
- left random things behind
- Had police who didn't handle the cases well
- we african American
Would love to here your opinion on the two cases together

[LordMephilis]

As someone who... Not gonna say I like these cases, but I do have a fascination with unsolved cases. I find that it is not uncommon for local police to not try very hard on missing persons and cone up with stupid explanations. While others go truly above and beyond. Some police stations seems to just not take missing persons cases seriously, regardless of who it is that is missing.

[Libbathegreat]

This reminds me in many respects of Rasheem Carter (a 25-year-old Black man) who went missing in Taylorsville, MS, in October last year. He was a welder and apparently got crossed up with his employer at a worksite. Rasheem tried *twice* to get help from Taylorsville police, and they blew him off both times by their own admission. Then he called his mother one night claiming he was being chased by a bunch of white men in trucks. That was the last she heard from him.

His mother called the Taylorsville police and they didn't really do anything to try to find him. They talked to his co-workers and boss and they all just said he'd been "acting weird" in the days before the disappearance.

Body was found skeletonized and dismembered (probably by animals) in a wooded area a month later (Nov. 2022).

The story is only getting weirder now because the family hired a private investigator who last month came out with the stunning (and so far totally unsubstantiated) claim that when Rasheem was found, his severed penis was in stuffed in his mouth. This "investigator" hasn't been named, there's no indication at all of where this "information" came from, and no evidence presented. It makes no sense if it's true Rasheem was literally just bones when he was found, which is very possible if you've been left dead in the woods for a month.

The PI also has latched onto local scuttlebutt that Rasheem was fed to someone's pigs. So did the pigs put his penis in his mouth?/s

As bizarre and contradictory as these claims are, I honestly don't know what to believe. That part of Mississippi is known for its "sundown towns". It's two counties over from a town (Brookhaven) where a father and son shot at a Black FedEx driver last year. Also, the Taylorsville police chief seems pretty cozy with the local white power set. Whatever you believe happened, there's no question that local law enforcement failed Rasheem miserably and is continuing to fail his family.

There's plenty more weirdness about this case I could add, but this comment is plenty long enough. I'd encourage anyone to read more about it for themselves.

[katmack]

I've looked into this case extensively, and either his coworkers are big fat liars, or this is one of the strangest cases I have EVER come across!!

[yomanink]

My big issue with the theory that the coworkers did something and hid the body is why would they leave the boots? Just to throw off the trail?

[CharlesHeaton-ocuu]

Just because the museum is in the south, is it inaccurate? You win the D-Bag award.

[johnz]

It’s the simplest explanation 99% of the time. Coworker killed him over an argument, could very well have been racist remarks being made. Boss helped cover it up, because he didn’t want to lose his company. No signs of a struggle, because he was probably hit over the head with something very suddenly. They moved his body to a different location before calling someone. (that’s why the bloodhound couldn’t pick up his scent) Probably moved it a third and final time later on, and at night. They placed his belongings to make it appear like a strange disappearance. Due to the lack of details of the so-called disappearance - the crew wouldn’t have to add too many details to the story. All they would have to collectively say was that he vanished. Not hard too hard to keep that story straight. And like every other missing person case - bad police work is the reason this case is more mysterious than it actually is. Coworkers added that he was acting “strange” was to draw attention away from themselves. He was murdered by a coworker, and it was covered up. No bigfoot, no aliens, no sacred burial grounds, no elves or fairies. Plain and simple murder with abysmal police work.

[MKUltra]

I feel like so many of these “missing 411” cases are actually deaths caused by the missing person’s companions.