A vehicle about 40-feet below the surface of Parksville Lake is not the one driven by Kathleen Wrinkle, the Bradley County woman who disappeared without a trace over 51 years ago.

Divers from the Bradley County Fire and Rescue Unit and the West Polk County Fire and Rescue Unit worked in near zero visibility on the bottom of Parksville Lake, often feeling their way around in mounds of silt that has collected over the years.

After hooking a wrecker cable to a Volkswagon, the divers felt their way around and connected to a vehicle they had thought could be Wrinkle’s 1951 Chevrolet Bel Aire.

As the operators of the wrecker from M and W Towing Company in Cleveland began slowly pulling the car toward the surface, the affect of exposure to water for years caused the vehicle to come apart, resulting in recovery of a piece of the vehicle’s roof. It is believed to be a late 60’s model Ford Station Wagon, not the Chevrolet Wrinkle owned. And the color did not match either, the piece that was pulled to the surface was green.

Attempts to recover a third car from the lake were called off when the wrecker’s cable snagged on underwater debris.

Wrinkle was last seen on February 22,1956. While she had indicated intent to travel to Chattanooga that day to seek employment, it is believed she instead went to Copperhill in eastern Polk County where jobs in the copper industry were available. An investigator believes her car slid off an icy section of U.S. 64 into the lake as she traveled through Polk County.