Regina McCorkle, 19, disappeared from East Moline, Illinois, on August 14, 1981, leaving behind a child who never knew his mother.
Who Was Regina McCorkle?
Regina “Gina” McCorkle was born on October 16, 1961, to Robert and Emma Jean McCorkle. She has two older sisters, Rita Sterling of Moline, Illinois, and Rosalind McCorkle of Bettendorf, Iowa.
Gina was a United Township High School graduate and a recently divorced teenage mother to her son Curtis Campbell, Jr. (called CJ, for short), born on November 27, 1979. Regina and CJ resided with her parents at 1507 11th Avenue in East Moline.
During the day, Gina attended college and worked as a janitor at Rock Island Arsenal in the evenings.
Disappearance of Regina McCorkle
On August 14, 1981, Gina awoke early and told her mother she was taking her boyfriend to look for a job. Jean left for work at Case IH in Davenport, Iowa, at 6:30 a.m. Gina’s Ford Mustang was parked in the driveway of the garage, which sat behind between the home and an alley.
Jean returned home from work around 3:45 p.m. and noticed Gina’s Mustang still parked in the same spot. She tried to enter her home, but both screen doors were locked, so she had to crawl through a window to enter the home. Gina’s son, CJ, was unharmed and locked in his mother’s bedroom, but Gina was gone.
“I know he couldn’t have been there too long. The only thing he could say was ‘Mommy door. Mommy door.'” (Cook, 2022a)
Jean said there was nothing disturbed in the home. The only items missing were Gina’s blue nightshirt, which she had worn when Jean left for work that morning, and the top sheet off Gina’s bed.
Jean immediately knew something was wrong because Gina would never have left her baby alone. She called the police. However, they told her she had to wait 48 hours before reporting Gina missing and tried to convince Jean that her daughter “went to the store.” She knew that was a ridiculous theory and believed someone kidnapped her daughter. Jean also believed that whoever took her daughter knew her work hours and when she left and returned home daily. She telephoned people she knew and asked if they had seen Gina. Nobody had, nor did they know where she might have been.
The next day, Jean called the FBI. Investigators administered a polygraph test to Gina’s boyfriend. He passed, and they ruled him out as a suspect.
However, Gina’s ex-husband, Curtis Campbell, Sr., was a different story. He refused to take the test but denied having any involvement in Gina’s disappearance. The Charley Project reports that Curtis arrived at the McCorkle home at 10 a.m. on the day Gina disappeared. He said he knocked on the door, but nobody answered, so he left.
With few leads to go on, East Moline police called in a psychic who took them and Jean “up and down Credit Island,” a small island on the Mississippi River just southwest of the Rock Island Arsenal where Gina worked and 12 miles west from the McCorkle home. The psychic worked with the police for two weeks but provided no valuable clues to Gina’s whereabouts.
After that, the investigation went cold. Occasionally, a body would surface, and investigators would compare it to Gina’s dental records, but there was never a match.
In 2021, Curtis Campbell contacted Jean late one night. She flat-out asked him if he had anything to do with Gina’s disappearance. He told her, “I swear, I didn’t do anything to her. I loved her,” he said. (Cook, 2022b)
Since Gina vanished without a trace in 1981, someone used her social security number once in Minnesota. She has not been legally declared dead as of this writing.
Aftermath
Curtis and his girlfriend raised CJ after Gina disappeared. CJ grew into a fine young man and enlisted with the U.S. Air Force. He now works for the government. He is 44 years old, has two daughters, and lives near Huntsville, Alabama. His father resides in St. Louis.
Gina’s parents divorced after her disappearance. Robert married Marilyn McLemore Little in 1988. He died of cancer on May 20, 1992, at age 52.
Sadly, Jean passed away at her home on May 3, 2024, at age 82, never knowing what happened to her beloved daughter.
TCD’s Thoughts
I punched in “Regina McCorkle” online and got a hit on one the same age, born the same month and year who lives in Minnetonka, MINNESOTA, the same state where her SS# had been used ONCE and roughly 370 miles from East Moline. There was a previous Moline and Ames, Iowa address as well an address in Hopkins, MN, directly east of Minnetonka, both suburbs of Minneapolis. Annette Markel was also listed as a possible associate, who shared the same Hopkins address and was the same age born the same month and year with a current address in North Dakota. Maybe Markel was the one who used Gina’s SS # or it’s Gina herself. I don’t believe so; I just thought that was strange.
I don’t think she would have left CJ. She was going to school and working to support him in securing a future for both of them. Gina was close to her family, too.
I think that morning, someone known to Gina showed up at the McCorkle home. Something happened on Gina’s bed because the bed sheet was missing. Gina or the killer then locked CJ in the bedroom, likely to keep him safe. Because the baby was not harmed, that makes me think the killer thought a lot of the child.
It seems obvious that Curtis, Gina’s ex-husband, might have harmed her because he refused to take a lie detector test. However, I have to also wonder about Gina’s boyfriend. I don’t care that he passed a lie detector test—big deal. Guilty people have passed them before. I want to know whether Gina and CJ left home to pick him up. Did they return to the house afterward instead of looking for a job? Why did investigators rule him out? What was his alibi, if he had one?
I also wonder about a coworker. Whoever kidnapped Gina and likely killed her knew Jean’s work hours. That tells me it was someone pretty close to Gina and the family.
Sources
Cook, Linda. 2022a. “Vanished QC: After 40 years, a Mother Hopes to See Her Daughter Again.” OurQuadCities.com, March 28, 2022. https://www.ourquadcities.com/news/crime/vanished-qc-a-mother-waits-40-years-to-see-her-daughter-again/
—2022b. “Vanished QC: For 4 Decades, a Missing Woman’s Mother, Son, Have No Answers.” OurQuadCities.com, April 4, 2022. https://www.ourquadcities.com/news/crime/vanished-qc-for-4-decades-a-missing-womans-mother-son-have-no-answers/
“Emma J’ean’ McCorkle.” Obituary. Trimble Funeral Home. https://www.trimblefuneralhomes.com/obituaries/emma-jean-mccorkle
Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/204334005/robert_w-mccorkle: accessed October 12, 2024), memorial page for Robert W. McCorkle (22 Jul 1939–20 May 1992), Find a Grave Memorial ID 204334005, citing Riverside Cemetery, Moline, Rock Island County, Illinois, USA; Maintained by E. M. (contributor 47118572).
Good, Meaghan. “Regina L. McCorkle.” The Charley Project. https://charleyproject.org/case/regina-l-mccorkle