An 82-year-old man has been missing from the Gray Court area of Laurens County since Friday morning, and investigators say the last trace of him came hours later and nearly 50 miles away, when an automated camera caught his truck crossing into Spartanburg. James Wilson Parsons was reported missing from Cow Trail in Gray Court at approximately 10:45 a.m. Friday, and deputies are now asking the public for help finding him.
Parsons is described as six feet one inch tall and about 185 pounds, and he was last seen wearing khaki pants and a red and white shirt, according to FOX Carolina. He is believed to be driving a 1991 gray Dodge truck bearing South Carolina tag number QSM947. The station reports that the Laurens County Sheriff's Office has formally asked for the public's help locating him.
Truck Tracked Northeast Into Spartanburg County
The clearest lead so far came from technology, not a witness. The gray Dodge was flagged by a Flock Safety automated license plate reader camera at 2:45 p.m. Friday at the intersection of Cross Keys Road and Blackstock Road in Spartanburg, according to officials cited by the same report. That reading places the truck well outside Laurens County and suggests Parsons may have driven a significant distance from where he was last seen that morning.
One possible route between the two points runs along South Carolina Highway 92, which connects Gray Court in northern Laurens County northeastward toward Enoree and into Spartanburg County, per Wikipedia. The highway spans roughly 16.5 miles across the two counties and offers a direct rural corridor between the disappearance site and the spot where cameras later caught the truck. It remains unclear whether Parsons actually drove that road, since the plate reader only recorded the vehicle, not the driver.
How License Plate Cameras Aid the Search
The Flock Safety hit reflects a broader surveillance network that Laurens County deputies have built out in recent years. As of September 2025, the Laurens County Sheriff's Office operated 10 stationary Flock Safety cameras placed along key travel corridors specifically to help track stolen vehicles and missing persons, according to Who's On The Move. The camera network cross-references state and national crime databases in real time, giving deputies a head start when a vehicle crosses into another jurisdiction, as documented separately by the Atlas of Surveillance.
Beyond local camera networks, South Carolina has a statewide system built for cases exactly like this one. The Endangered Person Notification System, established under S.C. Code § 23-3-330, allows law enforcement agencies to issue public advisories and electronic highway message board alerts for missing adults believed to suffer from Alzheimer's, dementia, or other cognitive impairments, according to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Statewide alerts of this kind, along with Amber and Blue Alerts, are coordinated through SLED's Missing Person Information Center, which the South Carolina Legislature notes is staffed by two special agents overseeing all such notifications across the state.
Why Wandering Cases Demand Urgency
Medical research underscores why law enforcement treats cases involving older adults with such urgency. Six in 10 individuals living with dementia will wander at least once during their illness, often becoming disoriented and unable to find their way back to safety, according to the Alzheimer's Association. That statistic carries particular weight in Laurens County, where residents 65 and older made up 19.2 percent of the population in 2023, per the Upstate SC Alliance. The county's overall population was estimated at 71,848 in 2025, according to USAFacts, while Gray Court itself is a small incorporated town with a median individual income of $32,800 in 2023, per Data Commons.
Anyone with information about Parsons' whereabouts is asked to contact Laurens County dispatch at 864-984-2523. As of Friday afternoon, the truck's camera-captured location in Spartanburg remained the last confirmed trace of Parsons, and it is not publicly known whether additional camera reads or sightings have come in since.
