Charles Collingwood Missing Person Case

Charles Edward Collingwood, a 20-year-old inmate at Brevard Correctional Institution in Titusville, Florida, disappeared on December 12, 1979. He had been serving a four-year sentence for car theft and was working on a landscaping detail outside the prison when he asked a guard to use the restroom. Collingwood never returned and was presumed to have escaped. During the subsequent search, some of his clothes were found in a wooded area near the prison, but no other trace of him has been found since.

A major suspect in the case was a prison guard, John Rodney McRae, who had a criminal past, having been convicted of murdering an 8-year-old boy in Michigan in the 1950s. McRae had allegedly been involved in an inappropriate relationship with Collingwood, though he denied these claims, stating that Collingwood was merely an informant for him. McRae later became a suspect in the disappearances of several local boys and was convicted of another murder in 1987. Despite McRae's conviction for other crimes, Collingwood's case remains unsolved, though foul play is suspected.

Authorities strongly believe that McRae may have been responsible for Collingwood’s disappearance, but they were unable to definitively prove it before McRae’s death in prison in 2005. The case remains open and unresolved.
Last Seen: Dec 1, 1979

Missing Person / NamUs #MP54247

1426DMFL - Charles Edward Collingwood - Doe Network

Charles Edward Collingwood - The Charley Project

BREVARD COPS DIG, BUT '79 DISAPPEARANCE STAYS MYSTERY

Philadelphia Record Photograph Morgue