Services held for man missing since 1990

By TONY FYFFE

BSN Editor

PILGRIM — The mystery surrounding the disappearance of a Martin County man from a Paintsville health care center three decades ago has been solved.

Graveside services were held Sunday for Ruvil Hale of Pilgrim, who was reported missing from the former Paintsville Health Care Center nearly 33 years ago.

Hale was reported missing from the facility on July 3, 1990, the same day a Ford Tempo was stolen from Druther’s Restaurant, which was located next door, police said.

A missing-person case was opened on Hale, who was 43 at the time and had been a coal miner until an injury rendered him unable to work. Hale suffered from a stroke, seizures and was being treated for a brain aneurysm at the time of his disappearance.

Unsolved Appalachia, a website dedicated to “detailing missing and unidentified persons as well as unsolved murders of the Appalachian region of the United States, said law enforcement conducted aerial and ground searches the next three days, “scouring a twenty-mile radius from the location where the car and Ruvil vanished from.”

“Law Enforcement had received a tip that the vehicle was last seen headed toward Prestonsburg, so they concentrated a considerable amount of time searching on the southern end of Johnson County. They searched the roadways, strip jobs, ponds, rivers, Dewey Lake, Paintsville Lake, side roads, even his homeplace was searched. KSP advised that they searched every location that was accessible by car. Unfortunately, it turned up nothing in the way of indicating where either of them was.”

In 1996, Hale was legally declared dead, but the story did not end there.

The missing Ford Tempo was discovered submerged in Dewey Lake on March 18, 2022, and remains found inside the vehicle were sent to the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Frankfort for identification.

On Jan. 19, just eight days before what would have been Hale’s 76th birthday, the medical examiner said that the remains were those of Hale.

Hale is survived by his wife, Catheline Hale of Killen, Ala.; two sons, Max Hale of Pilgrim and Keith Hale of Glasgow; two brothers, Ernest Hale Jr. and Eddie Hale; five sisters, Edith Collins, Betty Hale, Janice Hayes, Elva Smith and Linda Muncy; four grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.

Graveside services were held Sunday, Jan. 29, at Hale Family Cemetery at Pilgrim, under direction of Callaham Funeral Home in Inez.