Thelma “Polly” Melton: Vanished From the Great Smoky Mountains
Polly walked far ahead of her hiking companions on the trail, disappearing over a hill, and was never seen again
Thelma Pauline Melton
Thelma Pauline “Polly” McAllister was born in Alabama on February 26th, 1923, to parents Fred and Luella. She was one of six children.
Those who knew Polly described her as friendly, intelligent, and generous. She loved the outdoors and was an avid hiker. She had previously worked as a teacher.
Twice divorced with no children, Polly married Robert “Bob” Melton, a man 20 years her senior, in 1975. The couple resided in Jacksonville, Florida, for most of the year, but spent each fall living in their Airstream trailer in North Carolina’s Deep Creek Campground, near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Bob had two adult sons from a previous marriage.
Polly was a two-pack-a-day smoker on medication for nausea and high blood pressure when she went missing. Additionally, she was no longer permitted to drive alone, for undisclosed reasons.
Uncharacteristic Behavior
While staying in North Carolina, Polly Melton was a frequent volunteer at the Bryson City Presbyterian Nutrition Center, where she served meals to elderly people. She reportedly never missed a day of working at the food bank.
For this reason, it was undeniably odd when Polly chose not to sign up to volunteer on September 25, 1981. However, she offered no explanation for this decision.
In another uncharacteristic move, she reportedly used the phone at the center the day before—the first time she’d ever done so in all of the years that she’d been volunteering there. To whom she made the call and what they spoke about is unknown.
Neither her friends nor family could remember speaking with her on the phone that day. No long-distance charges appeared on the bill, suggesting the call was local.
Disappearance at Deep Creek Trail
Polly went hiking daily, if the weather permitted, with her longtime friends Trula Gudger and Pauline “Red” Cannon. September 25th was a beautiful day, so they decided to go for their usual walk together.
Before leaving home, Polly prepared spaghetti sauce for the dinner she planned to have with Bob later that evening. Then she set out with Red and Trula for the Deep Creek Trail, a moderately challenging trail that Polly knew well and had hiked countless times.
According to her friends, nothing seemed out of the ordinary about Polly that day, except for the fact that she was walking unusually slow. They teased her about this. Moments later, at approximately 4 p.m. that afternoon, Polly sped up and quickly passed them. When she was about 75 yards away, she walked over a hill and out of sight.
This would be the last time anyone ever saw Polly Melton.
Red and Trula kept to their own pace, assuming that they’d soon catch up to Polly. Yet, bizarrely, when they crested the same hill themselves, she was nowhere to be seen. Notably, there was a parking lot near Polly’s last known location.
Their best guess was that she’d gone home, so they headed over to the Melton camper, arriving at 4:30 p.m. They learned that Bob hadn’t seen her since she’d left to go hiking with them that afternoon. He began calling anyone who might know where his wife was or had maybe heard from her, but this yielded no results.
Trula and Red told their respective husbands that Polly was missing. The two men immediately went to the Deep Creek Trail and retraced the route that the women had taken, but they found nothing. They also questioned any hikers they passed along the way, but no one had noticed a woman matching Polly’s description that day.
Polly Melton was reported missing at 6 p.m. and an intensive search for her began.
The Search for Polly Melton
The trail was closed to the public for four days, during which 150 searchers and nine K9 teams searched for Polly, covering approximately 100 miles of trails, creeks, and forest. But there were no signs of a struggle or indications that anyone had erratically left the path in the area where Polly vanished.
The only bit of information they had to work with were “hits” from the search dogs who detected her scent on a downed tree along the trail. Park rangers dismissed this as a significant clue, however, believing Polly had likely just stopped to rest momentarily.
Her friends and family were certain that she wouldn’t have left the trail, as she was afraid of snakes.
Foul play was not suspected as law enforcement considered it implausible that the 5’10’’ 180-pound Polly could be abducted so quietly and without a struggle in such a brief window of time. And though her family and friends didn’t believe it was possible, police began to suspect she may have left willingly.
Investigators also believed that Polly Melton was no longer in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
“If she had been in the park, the dogs would have found her. They were well-trained,” said park ranger, Dennis Burnett.
On October 2nd, 1981, park officials told the press that evidence suggested Polly exited the park in a vehicle, probably of her own free will.
If so, where did she go? And why? And who might have been driving? These are just some of the important questions that have yet to be answered in this case.
Additional Information
Searchers and investigators noted some additional case facts:
Most of Polly’s belongings were left behind, including her medication, ID, money, and purse. The only items she was known to have had with her, aside from her clothing, were a pack of cigarettes, her wedding ring, and a diamond-studded white gold wristwatch.
She was prescribed Valium as a muscle relaxant in 1977 but was no longer taking it when she vanished. However, her husband was on Valium at the time and noticed that his pills went missing around the same time that Polly did.
Bob was so distraught on the night of his wife’s disappearance that he had to be hospitalized.
Polly’s Mental State
Polly’s mother Luella, with whom she was very close, passed away in 1977. Polly felt this loss keenly and suffered through a dark period of depression. But by 1981, she was seemingly doing better.
Trula and Red came forward to report part of their conversation with Polly during that final hike together. The women stated that they’d been teasing her about a man at the Bryson City Presbyterian Church Nutrition Center, where she volunteered, saying that he was clearly interested in her.
While Polly didn’t deny this, she was hesitant to speak further about the unnamed man. This didn’t strike her friends as significant at the time, though, because Polly was generally a private person anyway.
Red and Trula found her to be in good spirits otherwise that day.
Tom Harris, a pastor at the church she attended, stated that he had reason to believe Polly was having an affair. However, he didn’t elaborate on what made him think this. Additionally, he said that Polly had seemed sad recently, but not suicidal in his opinion.
Polly’s father Fred, with whom she’d grown close following her mother’s death, visited her that month and found nothing unusual in his daughter’s behavior or mood.
Did Polly Cash a Check?
While Polly Melton’s case was never officially closed, it quickly went cold due to a lack of evidence or leads.
Then something strange happened a few months after she disappeared.
On April 14th, 1982, a check made out to Polly, for the interest on a bank certificate, was cashed at the Birmingham Trust National Bank in Birmingham, Alabama, where some of Polly’s family lived.
Unfortunately, the bank teller had no recollection of the person who cashed the check and could provide no description of the individual. The person’s identity has remained a mystery, though for some, the story corroborated suspicions that Polly ran away and was still alive.
What Happened to Polly Melton?
A year after Polly’s disappearance, Bob sold their Airstream trailer and decided to cut ties with North Carolina. Shortly thereafter, he was admitted to a nursing home in Gainesville, Florida, suffering from emphysema and heart problems.
Neither Polly’s friends nor any of her family members ever heard from her again.
Numerous eyewitness sightings—from Florida and Alabama, as well as other states—were reported in the years following her disappearance. None could be substantiated.
Author Juanitta Baldwin, who researched Polly’s case for her book, Unsolved Disappearances in the Great Smoky Mountains, didn’t believe that she simply got lost.
“And if she had, the search was underway so quickly she would have been found.”
Though she provided no definitive evidence for her theory, Baldwin came to the conclusion that Polly Melton “arranged to be met at a crossroad there in the park and be picked up.” Noting that the 58-year-old had no children and had been married three times, Baldwin said Polly probably decided to start a new life.
Disappearing in the Great Smoky Mountains
Due to her vanishing under mysterious circumstances in a national park, Polly’s disappearance was also written about by “Missing 411” researchers, who noted its resemblance to other strange vanishings like Christopher Tompkins and Barbara Bolick.
The Great Smoky Mountains, in particular, have been the site of many missing persons searches, including the tragic cold case of 6-year-old Dennis Martin. Authorities say nearly 400 people are investigated as missing in Tennessee each year.
Speculation aside, the question of what truly happened to Polly Melton—and why—on that September afternoon so many years ago, remains unanswered.
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Additional Sources
Unsolved Disappearances in the Great Smoky Mountains, by Juanitta Baldwin and Ester Grubb
(This article was originally published on HubPages)
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