by JENN WOOD
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For two decades, Gail Soles has lived with the same unanswered question: what happened to her daughter, Crystal Gail Soles?
Now, after years of vigils, dead ends, public pleas and fading leads, a newly discovered wallet believed to be tied to the missing South Carolina woman has given investigators their first tangible piece of evidence in years — while simultaneously opening a fresh set of questions for a family that has waited decades to receive answers.
Crystal Soles was 28 years old when she disappeared from Andrews, S.C. on January 24, 2005. She was last seen at Shaw’s Corner Store near Jones Avenue and Main Street after stopping for food and using a nearby phone to call her father for a ride home. According to family accounts repeated over the years, her father was ill and unable to pick her up – so Crystal began walking home.
She never arrived.
More than twenty years later, her case remains unsolved.
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THE LAST MORNING ANYONE SAW CRYSTAL
Crystal Soles was described as standing 5-foot-5, weighing approximately 135 pounds, with blonde hair, blue eyes and double-pierced ears. Family members say she often wore numerous rings and a watch on her left wrist. Her nickname was “Frog.”
Though Soles had struggled with substance abuse and was known at times to leave home for short periods, her mother insists she always made contact — especially because of her young son.
That distinction became central almost immediately.
“When she said she was gonna do something, most of the times she (did) it,” Gail Soles said in recent television coverage. “She did tell her daddy she was on her way home.”
Crystal Soles was formally reported missing on February 5, 2005, but her family says concern began much earlier because her silence was out of character.
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YEARS OF SEARCHES — AND YEARS OF WAITING
Over the years, Crystal’s disappearance became one of South Carolina’s most persistent unsolved missing-person cases.
Her family organized vigils, posted flyers, joined searches through wooded areas and partnered with the CUE Center for Missing Persons to keep public attention on the case. In early 2006, more than 150 people gathered in Andrews for a candlelight vigil marking the one-year anniversary of her disappearance.
A billboard was erected in Andrews. Her profile appeared on missing-person playing cards distributed through correctional facilities.
All the while, Gail Soles kept pushing…
“When I get up in the morning and when I go to bed, that’s the first thing I think about,” she later said in a CUE profile dedicated to Crystal’s case.
That persistence carried her through multiple moments when the family believed a breakthrough might finally come.
In 2011, remains discovered near Jones Avenue and Main Street in Andrews — near where Crystal was last seen — prompted a new search involving law enforcement and volunteers. Gail Soles publicly acknowledged she hoped the discovery might finally bring closure, though she also feared what that closure might involve.
The remains did not belong to Crystal, however.
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CASE LINKED TO BRITTANEE DREXEL
As another high-profile disappearance gripped coastal South Carolina, Crystal’s case again returned to public attention.
After Brittanee Drexel vanished from Myrtle Beach in 2009, similarities in geography and investigative overlap led to repeated public speculation that the two cases could be connected.
The families of both victims became close. Both mothers appeared together publicly during awareness campaigns, and both daughters were featured in statewide missing-person outreach efforts.
In 2012, when investigators searched locations tied to Raymond Moody during the Drexel investigation, Crystal’s case resurfaced again in regional reporting. At the time, law enforcement acknowledged information was being shared between agencies but stopped short of confirming any formal connection.
“You check every angle,” a Myrtle Beach police spokesman said at the time. “Everything’s a possibility until you rule it out.”
No charges were ever filed connecting Moody to Crystal’s disappearance… although a decade after the searches targeting Moody, he was eventually charged in connection with Drexel’s murder.
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THE WALLET THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
The newest development in Soles’ case came last year — though it only became public recently.
According to Andrews police chief Chris Cockrell, a resident turned over a black wallet after it reportedly fell from an old couch while furniture was being moved from a property in Williamsburg County. Inside were items bearing Crystal Soles’ name.
“That was our first real lead,” Cockrell said.
The wallet has since been submitted to S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) for forensic testing, including DNA analysis.
For Gail Soles, the discovery immediately revived hope — but also suspicion.
Family members have publicly questioned how identification inside the wallet could remain legible after twenty years if exposed to weather, openly asking whether the item may have been protected from the elements or surfaced more recently through some other chain of events.
Additionally, they haven’t been told the exact location where the wallet was discovered – an omission which has become a point of frustration.
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TWENTY YEARS LATER, THE CENTRAL QUESTION REMAINS
Crystal Soles’ son was five years old when she vanished. Today, he is an adult. Her mother is now 71.
Despite two decades of searches, public campaigns and intermittent leads, the central fact remains unchanged: no confirmed trace of Crystal herself has ever been found.
Only now, after twenty years, the surfacing of a wallet has revived speculation and interest in the case — and with it, the possibility that one of South Carolina’s longest-running unsolved disappearances could finally be approaching a long-awaited resolution.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
As a private investigator turned journalist, Jenn Wood brings a unique skill set to FITSNews as its research director. Known for her meticulous sourcing and victim-centered approach, she helps shape the newsroom’s most complex investigative stories while producing the FITSFiles and Cheer Incorporated podcasts. Jenn lives in South Carolina with her family, where her work continues to spotlight truth, accountability, and justice.
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1 comment
This is why it’s important to donate your dna to DNA Justice and allow access to family trees. Help bring missing home