On his mother’s birthday, Douglas Cordell Barnes — who goes by Cordell — didn’t call. Debbie Barnes says she didn’t think much of it at the time; she just figured her son was busy with his surveying job in Cleveland, Georgia.
The next day, she called him. He didn’t answer. That was back in July. Debbie Barnes has not heard from her 36-year-old son since.
Cordell Barnes has now been missing for more than three weeks. Debbie and several family members traveled from Oklahoma to Northeast Georgia over the weekend to search for him. They got a few small leads but not what they hoped for. They’re returning home with as many unanswered questions as they came with.
‘Not like him’
Cordell was known to work long hours, and Debbie says his family in White County just thought he was busy. It wasn’t until they returned from an out-of-state trip that they realized something was wrong. Cordell’s family filed a missing persons report with the White County Sheriff’s Office on July 28, nine days after he was last seen at his Cleveland home.
Unbeknownst to them, during the in-between time on July 21, a Hart County deputy found Cordell Barnes’ abandoned gold Ford F-150 pickup near I-85. It was stuck in the mud alongside a road that leads to Lake Hartwell. There was nothing at that time to indicate the truck’s owner was missing.
Debbie says her son loved to fish. It was not unusual for him to head to the lake, but it was not like Cordell to go off without contacting anyone. When deputies impounded his truck, it still had his fishing and camping gear in it.
One of the last times Debbie Barnes spoke with her son, she says he was excited about attending his niece’s upcoming wedding in September. When the couple discussed delaying the nuptials due to finances, Barnes offered to pay for it. He told his mother he was considering buying a new vehicle to make the trip to Oklahoma for the wedding and possibly stay for a couple of weeks to visit.
Connecting the cases
On July 31, authorities reran the abandoned pickup truck’s registration. This time, the system flagged the owner as missing based on the report filed four counties away. Hart County alerted White County authorities, and the search for Cordell Barnes has been ongoing ever since.
The Hart County Sheriff’s Office says deputies have gone door to door and continue following up on leads in the case. Debbie says they’ve been “excellent” to work with.
“Anytime one of us [in the family] that has a lead or anything like that, they have immediately went and checked it out,” says Debbie Barnes.
On August 10, state and local authorities conducted ground and aerial searches in Hart County. The Georgia State Patrol helicopter flew “all day,” Debbie says, but the search came up empty.
This past weekend, the Barnes family joined more than 30 volunteers from the local community and Texas EQUUSearch team to look for Cordell. They concentrated their efforts near where his truck was found and on an area five miles south, off Highway 77. It was there a volunteer said dogs picked up on his scent, but apparently, nothing came of that lead. Debbie says searchers found a few items, “but they didn’t belong to Cordell.”
Searchers also sifted through empty leads on possible sightings.
“There was a couple spottings there, but they didn’t really pan out,” she says.
The search continues
While this weekend’s efforts did not result in finding her son, Debbie says she and her family did find a caring community.
“Everybody in Hart County, the people, have been tremendous, and they are still looking and still searching,” she tells Now Habersham. “I feel like I’ve made, we’ve made, the family has made some pretty good friends just in the last few days. They really care, so they are going to keep searching and looking for us while we have to go back home.”
The family is returning to Oklahoma for now, but Debbie Barnes says there will be another search for her son. In the meantime, they will continue to “follow the new leads and keep putting out info to look for him.”
