Jimmy Don Robinson was 21 years old when he vanished from Elmore City, Oklahoma, after telling his family he planned to drop off an unidentified man who had been waiting in his car while Robinson went inside. Fifty years later, investigators still haven't found Robinson; the Toyota Celica he was driving was found abandoned on Shields Boulevard in Oklahoma City a few weeks later.
Robinson stopped by his parents' Elmore City home around midnight on October 1, 1976, to do a load of laundry, according to The Charley Project. He told his mother that the unidentified man had waited in his car while Robinson went inside and that he planned to drop him off afterward; Robinson said he would be back in about 30 minutes. He asked her to move his laundry into the dryer so he'd have clean clothes for work the next day. He never returned. As reported by News 9, Robinson's sister, Lois Lynn, who was 17 at the time, says her family's hearts remain broken.
Robinson had been driving a dark green and white 1974 Toyota Celica loaned to him by the Del City dealership where he had recently started working as a salesperson. Per The Charley Project, the car was found abandoned weeks later on Shields Boulevard in Oklahoma City — but Robinson himself was never located. He was the oldest of six children, had served in the U.S. Army for about a year after joining in 1974, and was living in a rented room in Moore while working in Del City at the time he disappeared.
Decades of Dead Ends
Garvin County Sheriff Jim Mullett has kept Robinson's case file close over the years, personally reviewing decades of reports, witness statements and evidence, News 9's report notes. Investigators have searched ponds, lakes and areas around Moore following tips over the years, but those search efforts have yielded no results. Mullett has said he may have missed something in his long review of the file, and acknowledged he holds personal theories about what may have happened — though he has stressed those theories aren't backed by facts or evidence.
The sheriff's office is now rebuilding the case from the ground up. According to the station's report, Garvin County has asked both Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation cold case investigators and the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office to review the evidence. Mullett, who was appointed sheriff in 2019 before winning election in 2020 and 2024 and previously served as undersheriff starting in 2009, told News 9 he hopes a fresh review and renewed attention will prompt someone with information to finally come forward. He said he believes somebody out there knows something.
A Statewide Push on Cold Cases
That outreach comes amid a broader statewide effort to crack open old files. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond created a dedicated statewide Cold Case Unit in March 2025, backed by a $500,000 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance, according to Luther Register News. The unit was built to help local sheriff's offices investigate and prosecute open violent crimes, drawing on cases with existing DNA evidence.
The backlog is substantial. As of this month, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation maintained 463 open cold cases, per KOSU. In Robinson's case, Garvin County has asked OSBI to review the file.
Physical Evidence and a Lingering Mystery
Robinson remains listed in the national missing persons database, and investigators have DNA on file for comparison should an unidentified person ever be found, News 9 reports. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System lists Robinson under case number MP20932. The Charley Project describes him as 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-7 inches tall, with a JD tattoo on his outer right forearm and a Native American figure paired with the word Virgo on his bicep. The Charley Project lists his eyes as gray/hazel.
Robinson had dropped out of high school during his junior year to marry his girlfriend, divorcing two years later, per The Charley Project. The question of who the unidentified passenger was — and whether that person had any connection to the wrecked Celica turning up weeks later on the other side of Oklahoma City — remains one of the case's enduring unknowns.
A Small Town With an Unlikely Claim to Fame
Elmore City is a rural Garvin County town of just 738 people spread across 0.4 square miles, located about 58 miles south of Oklahoma City, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures. It was incorporated in 1898 in what was then Pickens County, Chickasaw Nation. The town is better known nationally for a different reason: it enforced a ban on public dancing for decades. In 1979–1980, high school students campaigned for a prom, which the town allowed after the mayor determined a school function was not a public event — the true story that inspired the 1984 movie Footloose.
For Robinson's family, the case has never been a cultural footnote. The case remains unresolved after more than 50 years. Robinson's family has created a Facebook page where people can send messages and information, and they are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to his recovery. Anyone with information is also asked to contact the Garvin County Sheriff's Office by phone or letter.
