Nearly 30 years have passed since Ashley A. Hankins was last seen in Charleston with a white man, and his disappearance remains unsolved.
According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), Hankins was last seen on March 29, 1995, leaving his home on Martin Luther King Drive in Charleston. Authorities said Hankins, who is black, left that morning in the company of a white male and never returned.
Hankins’ mother reported him missing two days later, on March 31, 1995. He was 30 years old at the time of his disappearance.
Hankins was between 5’5″ and 5’7″ and weighed between 185 and 195 pounds.
The Charleston Police Department is listed as the investigating agency. The case remains open, and no arrests or significant developments have been publicly reported since Hankins vanished.
In the days following Hankins disappearance, a police commissioner, chosen to act as a go-between for the police department and the public, called for the resignation of the police chief and tried to tender his own resignation over the case. One particular point of debate was that the chief would not upgrade the case to a homicide because there was a lack of evidence, leaving it as a missing persons case.
In June of that year, the NAACP called for the resignation of the whole Charleston Police Department.
The commissioner argued that meant the police department was saying there was no crime, but the chief said he had assigned three officers to the case full-time, according to the Charleston Sun-Sentinel’s reporting at the time. A Charleston police officer wrote a letter to the editor trying to explain all the measures being taken on the case to try to find Hankins, including that the FBI and MBI were both involved and that several people had been polygraphed.
“Nobody, with the possible exception of his mother, would be any happier to find Mr. Hankins than the members of the Charleston Police Department,” wrote Officer Mike Rogers.
Police are quoted in multiple stories saying they needed the public to come forward with any information they might have.
Even now, 30 years later, anyone with information about the disappearance of Ashley Hankins is urged to contact the Charleston Police Department at (662) 647-5841.
Missing in Mississippi is an ongoing series highlighting unsolved missing persons cases across the state.
