Tommy Calhoun is not a household name in the Atmore area, but he may know more about one of the town’s biggest mysteries than anyone else connected to it. Calhoun has been heading up the decade-long case of the disappearance of Melinda Wall McGhee on and off since 2004, even working leads for free as part of what he says has been a non-stop effort to locate the missing wife and mother of two.
Calhoun, who returned to the case in an official capacity in 2012 after nearly three years with state attorney general’s office, said the duration of the investigation does not make it a “cold case.”
“We have employed a strategy that you normally would employ in a cold case,” he said. “We are going back and looking over everything again.”
Escambia County Sheriff Grover Smith said Calhoun is the expert on the subject and worked tireless to locate McGhee even during his time in Montgomery.
“He worked from the state level in that capacity as long as he was there,” Smith said. “He always stayed in touch with what was going on.”
Calhoun is the person with the best chance of ending what has now reached a decade of sorrow, confusion and unrest for family members of McGhee, and members of the communities she was a part of.