The Disappearances of James Cole

"Idaho Statesman," August 13, 1976, via Newspapers.com

It’s generally strange enough when a person mysteriously vanishes.  But when they pull off the feat of disappearing twice…

James Thomas Cole of Boise, Idaho, seemed to have a perfectly ordinary middle-class life.  He was 24 years old, married, and a father of a small son.  Since 1970, he had been working as a warehouse foreman at Mountain States Wholesale.  He was a good worker who was liked by everyone who knew him.  In short, Cole was one of the last people you would expect to see get into some very shady business.

Just after 4 a.m. on the morning of August 12, 1976, Cole drove a semi to the Boise Fruit & Produce Company, four blocks from his workplace.  It was expected that he would then walk back to work.  Instead, at around 4:30, a co-worker, Gary Anchustegui, got a startling phone call.  It was from an unlisted number.  A “jovial” sounding man informed Anchustegui that he had kidnapped Cole, and was demanding a $200,000 ransom.  Although Anchustegui assumed the call had to be some sort of childish prank, as a precaution he phoned the night supervisor, Ivan Edney, to check if Cole was there.  He was told that Cole had left for Boise Fruit an hour previously, and had yet to return.  When 8 a.m. arrived with no sign of Cole, police were called in.  When Albertson’s Food Centers, the parent company of Mountain States, was informed of what had happened, an emergency Board of Directors meeting was called, where it was decided that the company had no choice but to pay the ransom.

Around 5 a.m. the following day, the police received a phone call from none other than James Thomas Cole.  Cole said that as he was walking back to work after delivering the semi, someone had abducted him.  He was then drugged and taken to Mission Manor Apartments in nearby Nampa.  Later that day, police arrived at the apartment building to investigate a drunk and disorderly complaint.  Their presence so unnerved his captors, they again drugged Cole, and fled.  When Cole recovered his senses, he went to the Nampa Chief Motel three blocks away, where he contacted the police.

When officers searched the apartment where Cole said he had been held, they found a brand-new Honda motorcycle, as well as a new TV and a motorcycle helmet.  Cole told them that the men who abducted him had been driving a 1972 turquoise pickup truck with a white camper shell.  This was an identical description of Cole’s own car.  Odd, that.  The “odd” factor only increased when police found out that the registered owner of the Honda motorcycle was Gary Anchustegui.  Two employees of the shop where the motorcycle was sold identified the purchaser as James Cole.

But wait, there’s more!  Around the time Cole was abducted (although by this point, everyone was probably putting scare quotes around that word,) over $1600 disappeared from the safe at Albertson Food Center.  Both Cole and Anchustegui had access to that safe.  After the two men both failed polygraph exams, Cole was arrested on August 18 and charged with attempted extortion, embezzlement, and forgery.  (The last charge was because police believed Cole had forged Anchustegui’s name on the forms to buy the motorcycle.)  Police decided that there was not enough evidence to charge Anchustegui with any crime.

Cole initially pleaded “not guilty,” but he eventually admitted guilt to extortion, in exchange for the other charges being dropped.  However, he continued to insist that he genuinely had been kidnapped.  In August 1977, Cole was sentenced to three years in prison (although he only served 30 days) and a $3,000 fine.

So far, we have nothing more than an idiotic petty con gone wrong.  But a year later, Cole’s life took another, even weirder turn.  In March 1978, Cole told people that he had been phoned by someone who claimed to know who had kidnapped him in 1976.  On March 13, Cole was seen going to a pre-arranged location where he was to meet his mysterious informant.

After that, Cole disappeared again--this time for good.  Considering that his car was found abandoned at the Boise Airport, and that he had taken out a $25,000 life insurance policy just one month before he vanished, it was generally assumed that Cole had left voluntarily, but as he was never heard from again, his fate remains unknown.  (After seven years, Cole’s wife was able to have him declared dead, and she finally collected the insurance money.  She remarried, and went on with her life.)

There is a postscript to this case, one that deals with another mysterious event.  On December 4, 1982, a man walked into the Sacred Heart Church in Boise.  He seemed to want to use the confessional, but it was already occupied, so he merely sat silently in a pew.  A few hours later, as parishioners began to gather for the 6 p.m. mass, they were stunned to find the stranger lying on the ground, dead.  It was later discovered that he had swallowed cyanide.

The man was young, dressed in Western attire.  His wallet carried no identification--just $1900 in cash and a note reading:  “In the event of my death, the enclosed currency should give more than adequate compensation for my funeral or disposal (prefer to be cremated) expenditures.  What is left over, please take this as a contribution to this church.  God will see to your honesty in this.”  The note was signed “Wm. L. Toomey.”

No record could be found for anyone by that name, and as it was also the name of a company that manufactured ceremonial clothing for priests, it was presumed the man was using a pseudonym.  Police were unable to trace any of the man’s relatives, or even anyone who knew him, so the church had no choice but to bury him under the name of "Toomey."  (The permission of relatives would have been needed to cremate him.)

There is one haunting clue that may solve the twin mysteries of the disappearance of James Cole and the identity of “William Toomey.”  In 2021, an anonymous letter was sent to the “Idaho Press" about the Toomey case.  The writer suggested “This man may be James Thomas Cole who went missing in 1978.  Compare his picture to that of ‘William Toomey’ and compare the resemblance.”

Some believe that the police sketch of “Toomey” does bear a resemblance to James Cole, and it is not implausible that after four years of being away from his old life, Cole felt he had had enough of a solitary existence.  All one can say is that if Cole was indeed “William Toomey,” he certainly paid a terrible price for his 1976 escapades.

"William Toomey"