RALEIGH COUNTY, WV (LOOTPRESS) – More than six decades after a Maryland soldier vanished while hitchhiking home to southern West Virginia, the U.S. Army says it has developed new leads that could finally solve one of the region’s oldest mysteries.
In December 1963, Sgt. James Haynes, a 32-year-old U.S. Army soldier, left his post in Baltimore, Maryland, heading home to visit his parents in the Maben–Saulsville area of Wyoming County. Dressed in his uniform, Haynes was last seen by a woman who picked him up hitchhiking. She dropped him off in Oak Hill on December 7, 1963 — just 49 miles from his destination. He was never seen again.
Investigators believe Haynes may have encountered three local men at a tavern in Raleigh County later that day. An altercation reportedly broke out, and according to long-standing accounts, the men — identified as William Trump, James Cozort, and James Cox — pursued Haynes after he left, striking him with their vehicle…