Body submerged in busy lake found to be missing Georgia woman

MARYSVILLE, Calif. (AP) Every summer, Ellis Lake is used by paddle boaters, fishermen and even racers in an annual speedboat contest.

But authorities now say that for more than two decades, the shallow lake also served as a makeshift tomb for a Georgia woman who disappeared in 1981.

Skeletal remains found submerged in the lake last year have been identified as those of Mary Jane Gooding, of Columbus, Ga., who left two children behind when she vanished Oct. 10, 1981.

Mary Darlene Eldred, who was 13 when her mother vanished and is now 35, said police recently came to the North Carolina community college where she studies criminal justice to tell her that her mother's remains had been identified.

``I'd gone to school that morning,'' said Eldred, of Burlington, N.C. ``They came to my class and called me outside.''

Gooding's skeletal remains were found last October in a car submerged in the lake, although water damage to the bones caused a long delay in identifying them through DNA tests, according to Yuba County Sheriff Virginia Black.

Although her fate was a mystery for years, Gooding's remains were never far from being found.

The lake, which rarely gets more than about seven feet deep, is a busy site for summer recreation in this small country town 40 miles north of Sacramento.

The car with Gooding's remains was near a spot where people can rent paddle boats, and the lake also hosts fishing contests and the annual speedboat race. The town's Fourth of July fireworks show is held at the lake every summer.

Yet no one ever noticed the light blue Thunderbird only a few feet down. Authorities found the car only because they were retrieving a stolen vehicle from the same lake.

It's unclear how Gooding's car ended up in the lake.

Her son, who was 12 when she disappeared and is now 34, said he and his mother had been traveling for years.

``We were on the road together for years, my mother and me,'' said Darrell Forbis, who also lives in Burlington, N.C. ``She said she was running from drug people, people trying to kill her. When she didn't come back, I didn't know but maybe they'd got her.''

Left alone in a motel room just a block from the lake when his mother disappeared, Forbis later grew up in a foster home in a nearby town, and eventually joined the Army. He is now married and has a 2-year-old son, and works as an electrician.

Eldred was already living in foster care in Texas when Gooding disappeared, but Forbis remembered his days in Marysville with his mother just before she vanished.

``I walked by that lake every day to school,'' he said. ``I know that lake.''

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)