Why did Virginia "Ginni" Wood disappear during a Spring break road trip?

Ginni Wood set out on a solo road trip during spring break to meet up with her best friend Kelly, in Brownsville, Texas. She called family and friends several times before dropping out of contact completely and has never been heard from again. It is believed she may have travelled into the interior of Mexico with friends.

Virginia “Ginni” Wood had just turned 19 and was in her freshman year at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Initially, being away from home had been tough for Ginny as she was fairly shy and reserved, and making new friends didn’t come easily to her. However, after struggling through a couple of lonely months she succeeded in making a group of new friends and was flourishing in her academic life.

In early March 2007, classes were about to finish for spring break and Ginni told her mother Tammy that she was planning to go on a road trip down to the border town of Brownsville Texas to visit her best friend Kelly Gaskin. Tammy was surprised but didn’t fret too much because Ginni was an excellent driver, and often drove the six-hour journey from Boone back to her hometown Chocowinity in North Carolina. This would be a much bigger trip at over 1400 miles, passing through several Southern States and around the gulf of Mexico but Tammy felt that her daughter was level-headed enough to meet the challenge.

Ginni and Kelly had been best friends throughout high school and Kelly had leaned on Ginni when she was having problems at home, even moving in with Ginni and her family for six months. The girls could be described as polar opposites in many ways — Kelly was wilder and more adventurous whereas Ginni was reserved and a little lacking in self-confidence. Nevertheless, they had an airtight bond and would spend hours squirreled away in Ginny's room watching tacky horror films and listening to music. As was common for teenagers in their little hometown, they adopted the goth culture and loved the music, makeup, and style of dress that went along with it.

In their final year at school, Kelly had gone somewhat off the rails since becoming involved with a local boy with a wild reputation called Ervin Williams. She had become involved in heavy partying, drinking, and taking drugs, which contributed to her failing the final year of high school. Conversely, academics came easy to Ginni and she did exceptionally well and progressed on to an accountancy degree at Appalachia State University. However, the friends remained in touch, and when Kelly and her boyfriend Ervin Williams suddenly upped sticks and moved out of state, Ginni promised to visit her best friend as soon as possible.

Timeline of events around the disappearance

Thursday 9th March: Ginni set off from Boone early Thursday morning. She was well prepared for the trip and brought her passport, social security documents, and a borrowed credit card from her mother Tammy. She filled her black Nissan Sentra with provisions and headed out on the road. Traveling south and driving through much of the night she reached Brownsville on Friday. Around noon that day, she briefly called her mother to say she had arrived safely.

Saturday 10th March: Tammy called Ginny to find out how her trip was going but Ginny told her she was in the middle of watching a film and would call back later. Tammy stayed up late that night waiting for the call but none came. That conversation would be the last Tammy would have with her daughter. She continued calling her daughter over the next few days, leaving messages for her to call back, but the phone would go to voicemail until eventually, the message service was full.

Ginni calls a friend on campus and tells her that she, Kelly and Ervin were planning to go to Cancun, Mexico for good.

Ginny’s phone would ping off a tower near the Brownsville/ Mexican border around the time of making this call.

Tues 14th March: A Credit card given to Ginny by her mom is used in Matamoros at a grocery store to withdraw $24 in change.

Tue 20th March: Tammy calls Kelly’s mother Denise who tells her she had no idea that Ginni was visiting with Kelly. When Denise last spoke to Kelly she told her that she and Ervin were working at a hotel in Matamoros, near the Mexican border. Kelly had said it was run down, didn’t have proper amenities, and was in a sketchy area and she wasn’t happy there. When Denise relayed this information to Tammy, her worst fears about the severity of the situation were realized, and she knew that both of their children were likely in deep trouble in a dangerous area of Mexico.

Denise tried to contact her daughter Kelly over and over, calling all the contact phone numbers she had given her but they were just ringing out.

Wed 21st March: Tammy files a missing person report with Beaufort County Sheriff’s Dept

The police start checking credit card and phone records. They found that Ginni used her cell phone at the border of Brownsville and Mexico on the day she spoke to Tammy, and there was evidence of her cell phone transmitting near a tower in the general area of Monterrey or one of the nearby cities. They did find that the credit card borrowed from Ginni’s mother Tammy, was used in Matamoros in a convenience store to withdraw $24 in cash. After this, all activity stopped.

The truth about Kelly and Ervin

The police inform Tammy that Kelly and Ervin may have had reason to flee to Mexico as they were both trying to escape the law. Although Kelly was only breaking a probation order for possession of marijuana, Ervin's charges were much more serious. He had been due to attend a pre-trial hearing on Jan 8th concerning several charges relating to a conflict he and his father had with a local drug dealer. Ervin had pointed a gun at the man, and his house had been set on fire. Between them, Ervin and his father faced arson, burglary, assault, and drug possession charges.

In a tragic turn of events, Ervin's father committed suicide days before going to trial, and unable to face the trial alone, Ervin decided to go on the run and Kelly made the decision to go with him. They told friends they were going to find jobs at the border town of Brownsville, Texas.

Kelly called her mother Denise on January 18th and told her she and Ervin were in Matamoros working in a hotel but said she wasn’t happy as the place was run down and impoverished. Denise was naturally alarmed and offered to send money for her bus fare home but Kelly said she was going to stick it out. This was the last call that mother and daughter would share.

The Brownsville police search for Ginni, Kelly and Ervin

The Brownsville police contacted the US consulate office to check hospitals and prisons for Ginni, Kelly and Irvine. They also checked phone records, and they ran both Ginni’s and Ervin’s car’s vehicle ID numbers and registrations through Brownsville police and border patrol records, but there was no trace of the vehicles.

The police acknowledged that once the trio had travelled into Mexico anything could have happened and it would be extremely difficult to find evidence of them, as it was out of the jurisdiction of the United States. There was also a strong possibility that Kelly and Ervin may not have wanted to be found given the charges Ervin faced.

Further developments

Tammy decided to hire the help of an investigator Gilbert Arolozola who was a Mexican national and had some experience working missing person cases at the border. He travelled down to Matamoros with his brother and they walked the streets putting up missing posters of the girls and trying to talk to locals. He visited the Fontana Inn in Matamoros as he received a tip that Kelly was working there as a maid and Irvine as a maintenance man. The people he spoke to there said they had never laid eyes on Kelly or Ervin before. He stayed at the Inn for a few days but never saw the pair.

Around two months after Ginni vanished, Gilbert and Tammi flew to Cancun as Ginni had told friends that she was heading there. As with Matamoros, nobody had any information.

In July 2007 people began to contact the sheriffs in Beaufort county to report seeing Ervin Williams driving around town in a white pick-up truck with Texas plates. There were several witnesses who claimed to have seen him at a convenience store near his family home, but when the police checked the CCTV from the store, Ervin or his vehicle were not in evidence.

Mexico’s Missing

There are over 100,000 missing persons in Mexico currently in 2022 and this is thought to be a significant underestimate as many people don’t trust the Mexican authorities and decline from reporting their loved ones missing. Many of these disappearances are related to the rise in organized crime, and it is unlikely most of these victims will ever be found.

www.reuters.com

There is little evidence in this case and the victims appear to have left no trace behind. There are many questions left unanswered. In particular, I wonder why neither Ginni’s nor Ervin's car was identified going through the border crossing as phone records located them at the Brownsville and Matamoros border on the evening of the 10th.

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Sources:

The Charlie Project Virginia Lynne wood

Disappeared: The road not taken on Apple Podcasts