Answers Sought In 1994 Thanksgiving Disappearance

Destiny Crain wants answers.

The 20-year-old who lives in Independence wants to know why her father, William Scott Crain, who was last seen 20 years ago in Bowling Green, disappeared.

The last time anyone heard from Scott Crain, 22, was Thanksgiving Day in 1994.

"I just want to know what happened," Destiny Crain said. "I didn’t really know him because I was only eight months old (when he disappeared). I know we look just alike. We act just alike. That’s what everyone has told me – his brothers, my grandma. Everyone says that. We have the same body type, the same face," she said.

Scott Crain and Destiny’s mother, Melinda Spillman, were separated but planned on resolving their differences and getting back together before he disappeared. Spillman was living in Lexington at the time of Scott’s disappearance.

"He had called me on Thanksgiving Day, but I was next door getting ice," Spillman said. "Someone at that house answered the phone and talked to him. I didn’t hear back from him and thought he changed his mind. I didn’t call him. He didn’t call me. Two weeks went by, and I called his cousin’s house."

His cousin, who lived in Bowling Green at the time, thought Scott was with Spillman. Scott’s mother then traveled from South Carolina to Bowling Green to file a missing persons report with police. That’s as far as the investigation went.

"It’s still an open missing persons case," said Officer Ronnie Ward, spokesman at the Bowling Green Police Department.

Spillman and Scott Crain’s family presume he is dead. He has never contacted anyone in his family, and his body has never been found.

He was with two friends on the night of his disappearance and had been out drinking. Crain’s late mother, Linda Whitehead, told the Daily News in 1997 that one of those friends took her to a wooded area off Barren River Road and said that was the last place he saw Scott alive.

"We know he’s gone," Spillman said.

Scott’s sister, Kathy Crain, who lives in Detroit, said she knew when her brother didn’t return to Spillman and his then-infant daughter, Destiny, that he was dead.

"All he really cared about was working, being with Melinda and taking care of that baby," Kathy Crain said. "Nobody told me he was dead. I just knew it. He wasn’t the type to disappear. He was too happy that he was getting back together with her. That was not him. It was so out of character for him. I guess my mom (knew) too; she just didn’t want to believe."

Nothing will fill the void of Scott’s disappearance. He missed out on the births of his nieces and nephews and his daughter’s childhood. Kathy Crain hasn’t celebrated Thanksgiving in years.

"When he died, it just took my laughter away," she said. "I had a dream one night, and he came up to me and said, ‘They took my presence away.’ When I woke up I thought, ‘They did take his presence away.’ He was just fun and funny."

Kathy believes her brother was killed.

Scott, a 1980s hair band aficionado, enjoyed life and making others laugh. He played drums, was a huge fan of musician Axl Rose and loved it when people told him he bore a resemblance to the Guns N’ Roses frontman.

Destiny had a stepfather for much of her life, but has never stopped thinking about her father and what could have been.

"It’s hard not knowing what happened," she said.

Anyone with information about Scott Crain’s disappearance is urged to call BGPD at 270-393-4000.