The disappearance and presumed murder of Terry Eugene Rouse in 1991 was a major news story at the time and continued to be for multiple years to come.
The last anyone saw of Rouse was about 5:30 a.m. May 11, 1991, after he had left a party.
Rouse’s light blue 1979 Ford Thunderbird car was found later that Saturday morning beside a railroad track at the entrance to Okefenokee Swamp Park off U.S. 1 south of Waycross, less than two miles from the concrete finishing business where he worked.
Years later, Rouse’s cousin, Craig Thrift, was arrested (March 2012), tried and convicted in 2014 of the murder of Rouse, although no body was ever found to substantiate his death.
Craig Lester Thrift, 47 at the time, was arrested on a charge of first-degree murder.
Now today, the case is stirring interest again as a TV documentary is being prepared for release in about a year that will be shown on the Oxygen Network.
The company was in Ware County over the recent weekend, conducting interviews with people connected to or familiar with the case including Waycross Journal-Herald reporter Myra Thrift Williams, who covered the case in its early days and months, then covered the trial of the man believed responsible for Rouse’s disappearance.
“The documentary will not be ready for release for several months,” said a spokesman for the company.
Thrift, who is about 6-feet-6 and weighs approximately 270 pounds, was suspected of beating his 24-year-old cousin, shooting him and then disposing of the body, perhaps in the Okefenokee Swamp Park.
He was arrested in March 2012 when officers executed a search warrant at his home at 116 Trout St. at Harriets Bluff, near the town of Woodbine in Camden County. He was booked into the Camden County Jail on charges of Possession of Marijuana with Intent to Distribute and Possession of a Firearm During the Commission of a Crime.
Ware County detectives had interviewed people who said Thrift had admitted he killed his first cousin because of an affair Rouse was having with Thrift’s wife at the time. They divorced the following year, and Thrift moved to Camden County in the late 1990s.
Born June 14, 1966, Terry Eugene Rouse was 24 years old when he was last seen or heard from by anyone. In the early morning hours (between 5:30 and 6 a.m.) of May 11, 1991, Rouse left a party he had been attending at a residence on Swamp Road in Waycross.
Later in the day, a Georgia state trooper found Rouse’s light blue Ford Thunderbird parked near the entrance of Okefenokee Swamp Park, engine running with the radio playing and a window rolled down. Inside the car were his clothes and a few other personal effects. Rouse was nowhere to be found.
Early on in the case, the investigating detectives zeroed in on one main suspect — Thrift. Both were employed in the Thrift family’s concrete finishing business. The reason Thrift became a suspect in the case was Rouse was allegedly having an affair with Thrift’s wife, Rhonda.
Thrift was brought in for questioning in 1997. He refused to take a polygraph test.
It was said that Thrift told the investigating officers, “without a body, you don’t have anything and I’m not taking a test.” The investigators believe Rouse was killed and his body thrown into the swamp, though their search of the swamp and surrounding areas never turned up anything.
During the trial, the jury heard conflicting statements from Thrift’s wives, Robyn and Rhonda Thrift. His ex-wife Rhonda claimed Thrift had been partying and drinking with her the entire night.
Several other witnesses including, Thrift’s then-wife Robyn, testified Thrift had told them he had beaten up, shot and killed his cousin. According to witnesses, Thrift often told them he had killed Rouse so he could intimidate them.
However, one witness, Aubrey Taylor, testified Rouse had told him he was going to skip town to avoid going to court on a DUI charge and also because he was in debt that he couldn’t repay.
Without the body, the jury couldn’t be certain about what had happened to Rouse. Many people testified against Thrift’s bragging about being the murderer the jury believed it was enough to convict him.
In 2014, two years after his arrest, Thrift was convicted of felony murder in the disappearance and presumed death of Rouse. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, later denied, after seven years which included the two years he had already spent in jail during his trial.
