What Happened To Randy Sellers?
Randy Lee Sellers was born on September 6th, 1962. He was born to Wanda and John Cotton. Randy had a younger brother, Tyran Renard, that was born in 1967. He was considered to have been from the Visalia/Morning view area of Kentucky.
Randy was in Alternative school at the time, and according to anecdotal evidence, he was considered one of the ‘bad boys’ in his area. “Randy was in and out of trouble most of his teen years and the local cops were quite familiar with him.”.
On August 15th, 1980, Randy was at the Kenton County Fair in Independence, Kentucky, when he was arrested for disorderly conduct and public intoxication. Allegedly, he got into a fistfight with someone at the fair, and the cops were called. The police believe that Randy was under the influence of drugs at the time, and even struck one of the cops after he was put in the squad car.
As the story goes, Randy was dropped off by the police about one mile from his family’s home in Visalia. Some reports say that Randy provided unclear directions to the house, and others claim that the officers dropped in him at the location as a favor to Randy. Either way, Randy never returned home and was never heard from again.
A man named Jack Isles, an alleged friend of Randy’s, stated that he was at the fair on the night of Randy’s disappearance. In an article, he stated that he regretted not having offered Randy a ride home that night. “I wish I could have told him to come on home. Let him go with me. I wish he was here, God-honest truth with you.”.
At first, it was believed that Randy had drowned, with his footprints near the Licking River which hugs the Visalia area. The footprints matched a set of hiking boots owned by one of his relatives, and there were marks that someone may have slipped and fallen into the water. When authorities searched the river to find nothing, they then believed that the footprints were left by people searching for Randy.
Many people believe that a man named Donald LeRoy Evans murdered Randy. Evans was a drifter that was eventually sentenced to death for the murder of a child in Mississippi; he claimed that he picked Randy up along Route 177, the main road in the Visalia area. Allegedly he took Randy to Kincaid Lake State Park and shared a beer with him. Then he supposedly shot Randy in the head with a .45 and buried his body, on that night in 1980. Evans also claimed to be responsible for other unsolved cases, including the death of Kimberly Dawn McClaskey. Evans was rather notorious for having preyed on people in rest areas and parks.
One of the reasons why Evans was considered a possibility is because he actually confessed to the murder in Mississippi and led authorities to the body of the girl. He also confessed to a murder in Florida of a prostitute that was found in a hotel room. He told authorities details that led to a set of his prints. So at least twice over, he confessed to murders that were proven to be tied to him.
Authorities searched Kincaid Lake State Park for Randy’s body in 1994, 14 years after his disappearance, but nothing was found. Evans was never charged in the case, and police were not even sure if he was involved. His claims though, were considered credible. Another one of the main reasons people believed that Evans may have been responsible, was because he drew a crude yet accurate map of the park.
When they went to search for Randy’s body, there was nothing there. Evans initially stated he buried Randy 3 feet deep in the ground with some sheet metal that he found. Then later, he changed his story to having sort of just covering Randy’s body with some forest brush.
There have been multiple searches in order to find Randy or even his body, yet none have turned up anything. In 2018, there was a search in March at the Kincaid park where a rescue team’s dogs picked up the alleged scent of a decaying body. Apparently, the area the scent was found matched the area that Donald Evans claimed to have buried Randy’s body. There was the belief that the map Evans drew was potentially misinterpreted at first, when they searched for Randy in the 90’s. In the recent past, some people believed that reading the map in a different way (or upside down) could reveal more information and potentially find Randy (which to me, doesn’t prove that the map was accurate in the first place). It is unknown what came of that search, if there was any dead body at all. In my personal opinion, I do not see how a body can still be decaying 38 years after the fact. Interestingly, the case was still considered open, as of 2018.
Randy’s mother believes that her son hitched a ride with Evans to the park, in hopes of seeing her since she was staying there with a friend at the time. As recently as 2019, Wanda Cotton has been reported stating that she believes that Evans killed her son. Wanda said in 2019, “I believe in my heart, that Randy was killed by Donald LeRoy Evans.”. She believes that Randy’s body is somewhere in the park, with a marker to remember him, and another woman who was killed.
Randy’s physical appearance is described as having been 5’9”, 149 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes. Randy had a birthmark on the crown of his head, a scar above his left eye, and a surgical scar on his right knee. He had a scar on his left elbow, from an old fracture. There was a tattoo of the letter ‘R’ on his right forearm, though other sources state that it was on a forearm. He may have had a crown on tooth, and wore a beard on his chin at the time of his disappearance. He was last seen wearing a black shirt, blue jeans, and work shoes.
The reason I bring this up now, is that there is an interesting John Doe that seems to match that description. On doenetwork there is John Doe 419UMOK. He was found on April 9th, 1995 in Crowder, Oklahoma next to a Jane Doe. The Jane Doe was estimated to have been 18-30 years old, 5’6”, with long light brown almost blonde looking hair. Jane wore black denim size 10 pants, blue underwear, a red pullover shirt, white socks, and a white bra. She had 2 rings on her left hand, one of a yellow metal band, and other of a single white stone. John was estimated to have been 20-30 years old, 5’7”,with brown/light blond hair, with a light brown mustache. He wore a green denim pair of pants (31/34) black and white checkered briefs, a t-shirt, and a leather jacket. He had a ring on his left hand, a yellow metal band, with 14k and TW inscribed on the inside. He also wore a watch that was still working at the time their bodies were found, though it was an hour behind the current. Most interestingly, is that this doe had a tattoo of the letter ‘R’ on his upper left forearm. He also had a tattoo of a cross on his upper left arm. Both bodies were found decomposing under a tree near Lake Eufala, and seemed to have been dragged about 50 feet from a dirt road. Though it may seem far fetched that this doe may have been Randy, the tattoo was a detail that I could not omit.
There are some interesting things that I have come across with Randy’s case, whether it be from online errors, to just random things. The first thing, is that on Randy’s page for the doe network site, he is listed as female, all other sites correctly list him as male. For some reason, the main photo used to show Randy’s most recent appearance when he disappeared, has black markings that make it look like he was wearing a black shirt. The full version of the photo is included on the namus profile for him, and it shows that he was shirtless. I know that this means nothing, but I can’t understand why someone would “photoshop” a fake shirt on a picture of him?
Through reading about this case, I have not came across a lot of information on Randy’s background. There is the info that he was in alternative school, and the anecdotal that he was a bit of a bad boy. There is a personal story on a post on websleuths were someone said that Randy was pretty familiar with the cops, so the idea that they didn’t know where his house was at was asinine. I haven’t even heard anything about the night of the fair, and I am curious what the fight that Randy had was about. Was it just a drunken brawl? Was there a reason that he got into the fight other than being drunk? Who was the person that he got into a fight with? Was it an adult or another teen? Was it perhaps someone related to a cop or a big official? How long had Randy been in alternative school for, and what the reason why he was there exactly? Did he have a hard time with his family? Did he ever talk about running away possibly?
I think that it is important too, to look at a map of the area as a whole. The Visalia area is not that far from Ohio.
There a few does from that area that may be plausibly close to being Randy.
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/1712/details?nav
https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/6715?nav
There have been two facial progressions of Randy, one in 2006, and another in 2011. I will be completely honest, I think both are terrible. The first one from 2006 is honestly terrible and does not look like him at all. The second on from 2011 is closer, but it does not seem too accurate. This honestly reminds me of the Reet Jurvetson case where the drawings of her when she was Jane Doe were completely different from how she really looked. Personally, I think that Randy looked almost exactly like his father, down to the nose and hairline. I don’t understand why they did not go with a progression based off of that.
Unfortunately, on December 10th, 1990, Randy’s younger brother Tyran committed suicide. He is buried at Mother of God Cemetery in Kenton Vale, Kentucky.
There is still uncertainty as to what happened to Randy. Many people, like his mother, believed that he was murdered by Donald Evans. Despite looking for the body 14 years later, there has not been any evidence that Randy was buried in the park. Though at the same time too, a 14 year gap of looking for a body that may have been buried in a shallow grave leaves more than enough time for nature to naturally scatter the pieces. Others believe that Randy may have been killed by the police, potentially just tired of a ‘juvenile delinquent’. Rumors have said that police killed Randy, and buried the body on property of a policeman.
Randy’s parents, John and Wanda, are still alive today (as of 2020), and are still looking for answers as to what happened to their son. In 2019, it was revealed that John had been diagnosed with cancer. The parents expressed their worry that after they eventually pass away, who would remember Randy. Fortunately, research teams and the press have shown that people are still thinking about Randy, even to this day.
[SOURCES]
http://charleyproject.org/case/randy-lee-sellers
http://www.pollyklaas.org/missing/kids/randy-sellers.html
https://billiongraves.com/grave/Randy-L-Sellers/25146466
https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/5174/details
https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/5170?nav
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/136164576/_
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/14dmky.html
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/1712/details?nav
https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/ky-randy-sellers-17-visalia-16-aug-1980.31947/
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