On April 28, 1973, 64-year-old taxi operator Isley McCullough and his 12-year-old grandson Delvacchio Lanier were last seen in Gadsden County, Florida at about 3:00 p.m. They were in McCullough’s 1973 Chevrolet taxi along with two unidentified African American men in their early twenties. Three hours later the taxi was found abandoned behind the Old Bethel AME Church on High Bridge Road with signs of a violent struggle: human blood smears inside and a spent bullet lodged in the front seat. The money box, which should have held about $450, was empty in the trunk.

Two days later some of Delvacchio’s belongings — an undershirt, a small wooden club, and a ball-peen hammer — were discovered neatly piled under a tree on the old Belyeu property near a bridge next to the future site of Niagara Wires. A witness later reported seeing two Caucasian men near where the car was found, but that sighting was never confirmed. Authorities have long treated the disappearances as homicides and investigators considered possible links to local moonshine activity, noting a still raid the day before and unconfirmed reports of an argument and a death threat against McCullough.

The case has been hampered over the decades by the deaths of potential witnesses and the loss of evidence, and both men remain missing and unsolved. Does anyone have information about McCullough, Lanier, the 1973 Chevrolet taxi, or the old Belyeu property that could help clarify what happened?