The 18-year-old went out for a night of fun at a club called Wild Bill’s in Duluth, Georgia. He never made it home.
In 2007, 18-year-old Justin Gaines was a college freshman at the then-Gainesville State College. “He loved it. He would always update me on how he was doing,” Erika Wilson told Dateline about her son. In one of his first assignments for his English class, Justin wrote a paper about how his college experience was going so far. “In his paper he said he hoped he did well so one day he could take care of his mom — like me and my husband took care of him,” she said.
She told Dateline that later that evening, Justin was picked up by his friend Chris, who then dropped him off at a nightclub called Wild Bill’s about half an hour away in Duluth. Erika said Justin was familiar with Wild Bill’s. “When he was younger, he would go up there sometimes for teen night on Sundays,” she said.
Justin was seen standing outside of the club. Erika told Dateline that according to his phone records, Justin was calling friends to ask for a ride home. Friends and family gathered at the Wilsons’ house to pass out missing person flyers on Monday, November 5. They drove around the area surrounding Wild Bill’s looking for Justin. “We checked in dumpsters and all the area for any signs,” Erika said. But they found nothing.
Nearly sixteen years later, the search for Justin continues. The Walton County Sheriff’s Department is now leading the investigation. Dateline spoke with Investigator Michael Rising, who has been involved with Justin’s case since February 2022. Investigator Rising told Dateline that the theories about what happened to Justin have remained relatively the same. “One theory is that he was interested in a girl that was someone else’s girlfriend, and that upset some people, and got in his face.
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