CAPE HATTERAS, N.C. (WVEC) -- Friday marks 35 years since two young men went missing off the coast of Cape Hatteras. According to reports, they were fishing on a boat, but never came back. Not a single trace of wreckage was ever found.
The mother of one of those boys has dedicated her life to finding out what happened to her son. Shirley Mays believes something terrible happened to him at sea.
"It was November 13, 1980. It was a nice, sunny day and he just didn't come home," she said.
It was a beautiful Thursday morning-- a perfect day for fishing. No one expected the fishermen to vanish.
Jeffrey Mays and Ted Wall were last seen around 1:30 p.m. about 16 miles off shore.
"No gas slick was seen, no oil slick was seen that we can say -- no coolers, no life jackets," Captain Kevin Duprey of the Dare County Sheriff's Office said.
For eight consecutive days the Coast Guard conducted a massive search. It was said to be one of the largest rescue operations on the Atlantic Coast at the time.
"Nothing was ever found, so there's no way for us to go back and say there's DNA, or there's a boat that had been found, that there was some type of damage," Duprey said.
"When it was over I just crawled into the chapel at the church and I just told the Lord-- I said if he'd take care of my son, I'd do anything that he wanted. And here I am 35 years later, still looking, and I'll never give up," Shirley said.
"It was reported that they had engine trouble on the boat, and that they met with another boat," Sergeant Doug Oberbeck of the Dare County Sheriff's Office said.
Whatever happened after that remains a mystery.
Shirley has spent the last 35 years gathering clues.
Through the years there have been tantalizing leads that turned into dead ends-- letters to police from West Virginia, a sighting in Alaska, and even rumors of a drug cartel possibly involved in the boys' disappearance.
"See, there was international drug dealing going on at that time in 1980 and the late 70's," Shirley said.
She believes Jeffrey may have been caught in the middle of a drug deal gone wrong. She spent years trying to find out what happened. In 2013 she felt she had gathered enough information to open a case. The Dare County Sheriff's Office agreed.
"It's 35 years later. We're going to interview everyone we can find that deals with this case, and then we're going to put it all together," Captain Duprey said.
Duprey and Oberbeck have spent the last two years tracing back, looking for the people who may know what happened.
"We'll look through it and we'll try to find all the inconsistencies that we can, and then go back and try to narrow those down to exactly what happened that day," Duprey said.
Shirley is certain -- that boat didn't sink.
"It's a big cover up and I don't know how high the cover up goes. The weather was beautiful that day. They were in shock they couldn't find them. They were in a Sea Ox. A Sea Ox is a very sea worthy boat. It's built as an unsinkable boat," she said.
Shirley believes her son could still be out there, and she's begging anyone with any information to come forward.
"Jeffrey if you are out there anywhere at all please, please, please get in touch with me. Please get in touch. Everything would be fine. There would be no danger to you, no danger to us, please. if anybody knows, or if you're out there Jeffrey, please get in touch. I love you very much."
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