Family Hopes Found Truck Leads To Break In Son's Disappearance

It has been exactly one year and one month since Bill Dewayne Shipley disappeared without a trace along with that truck.

Now that the truck has been found, they hope he will be too.

8/15/2012 Related Story: Deputies Find Truck Belonging To Missing Goldsby Man

It was a call from the Eastlake Village Apartments to impound an abandoned vehicle that led McClain County investigators to Shipley's missing truck.

"It just leads me to believe that our son has met up with evil," said Patricia Shipley, Bill Shipley's mother. "We just need closure and hopefully this will get us closer."

But just how long the truck had been sitting here undetected is not known. And that leaves Shipley's mom baffled.

"It's been on the news," laments Patricia. "On fliers, in the newspaper!"

Shipley was last seen on July 19 of last year. Surveillance video captured an image of Shipley the day he disappeared. He was in his truck at the Sonic across from the Riverwind Casino in Norman. Someone was in the truck with him, but detectives and the family don't know who it was.

"Maybe when they get in to process the truck some evidence will show up," said William Shipley, Bill Shipley's father. "Then we can bring this to a close."

Detectives continue to look for a man also captured on surveillance cameras wearing a specific green John Deer hat. They say he used Shipley's credit cards weeks after he disappeared, and could have crucial information related to the case.

Shipley's mother still hopes her son will be found alive, though.

"That little bit of hope," said Patricia. " You've got to keep that if you don't have that you won't make it through that process, I promise you."

The family is offering a $4,000 reward and hopes it encourages someone to come forward with information that can lead them to what happened to their son.

Shipley also had a Jeep that went missing the day he disappeared. The Jeep was found a couple of weeks after his disappearance, abandoned at a south Oklahoma City apartment complex.