Anonymous letter may hold key in Cornwell investigation

GBI agents are looking into the origins of a silver Nissan Xterra belonging to the late James Scott Carringer, who has emerged as a potential suspect in the disappearance of Kristi Cornwell, missing since Aug. 11.

Authorities already know that Carringer, who committed suicide in April, got rid of the brush guard on his silver Nissan Xterra soon after Cornwell disappeared while strolling near her Blairsville home. A car matching that description was spotted in the area that night, prompting a Ranger, N.C., woman to alert investigators that she was nearly abducted nine days earlier by a man driving a silver Nissan Xterra with a brush guard.

Meanwhile, the sheriff’s office in Cherokee County, N.C., received an anonymous letter from a woman who wrote that her grandson was working in the area at the time of the botched abduction in Ranger. She said her grandson drove a Nissan Xterra with a brush guard and Florida plates.

"We are looking at that but haven’t found anything yet," GBI spokesman John Bankhead told the AJC on Wednesday.

Carringer had family from North Carolina and lived there at various times. Relatives did not return calls seeking comment and a close friend of the family declined an interview request, saying only, "This is not the Scott I knew."

But Carringer had been in trouble before. He was arrested in 2000 in North Carolina for assault to inflict serious injury but pleaded the felony charge down to a misdemeanor.

The Towns County man was apparently estranged from his wife and teenage children at the time of his suicide, which came two days after he allegedly kidnapped and raped a 19-year-old relative. Atlanta police got a call just before sunrise on April 6 that a suspicious vehicle was parked behind a Buckhead Mellow Mushroom.

When officers approached the black Nissan Xterra, they found Carringer, wanted for the relative's abduction. He told police he was suicidal and had a gun and explosives inside his truck.

There were no explosives, but Carringer did have a gun, which he turned on himself following a three-hour standoff with police.  One week later, more sordid allegations about Carringer's final days emerged.

According to police in Alabama, Carringer spent Easter Sunday in Montgomery, where he allegedly attempted to snatch a 10-year-old girl participating in an egg hunt with her brother and other children outside Hunter Station Baptist Church. After striking up a conversation with the girl's brother, Carringer grabbed the 10-year-old, who could be seen on the church's video surveillance footage jumping from the back seat of the SUV as it backed out of the parking lot. Carringer's wife told investigators that he would often disappear from home for days at a time.

Still, those who knew Carringer said they were shocked to learn he might be connected to such brazen crimes.

"I was shocked, absolutely shocked," Young Harris roofer Italy Marsh told the AJC. Marsh worked as a subcontractor on two homes Carringer built and knows the family well. Authorities say Carringer, who also worked as a house appraiser, was unemployed at the time of his death. "He was very straightforward, very business-like," Marsh said.