Kristi Cornwell’s 39th birthday will be marked with a candlelight vigil Sunday in her hometown as authorities continue to track down new leads in the Blairsville woman’s disappearance more than four months ago.
Cornwell’s family is inviting the public to the 7 p.m. vigil at Union County’s Meeks Park, located off Ga. 515.
"We did not want that day to go by without a celebration," said her mother, Jo Ann Cornwell. "She is such a wonderful part of our family, and we just pray she will feel or know that we’re celebrating her birthday and she is not forgotten, and will never be forgotten."
Meanwhile, a second composite sketch is making the rounds in law enforcement bulletins on Cornwell’s case.
An unidentified person in a newly-created sketch based on a June 5 incident in Morgan County is similar to a sketch in profile released last week of a person involved in an Aug. 2 incident in Ranger, N.C., authorities said.
"We’re hoping that anyone who knows the person in the sketch would recognize him and contact us," Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge Mike Ayers said Wednesday.
The GBI said after it released the first sketch on Dec. 7, agents were contacted by an investigator with the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office, who said the person in the sketch shared similarities with an unidentified person who attacked a female motorist on the side of a road this summer.
The GBI’s forensic artist met with the Morgan County victim and made the second sketch last week.
The person in the second sketch was described by the witness as about 5 feet, 6 inches tall, slender and "young looking," and wearing a white T-shirt and beige shorts that fell below the knees.
Cornwell was abducted on a remote Union County road near her parents’ home while walking for exercise about 9 p.m. Aug. 11. Her boyfriend heard indications of a struggle over the cell phone she was using at the time of the abduction. Investigators later recovered the phone and other personal effects near the site of the abduction.
Cornwell’s case shares similarities with the Aug. 2 incident in Ranger, about 25 miles north of Blairsville, in which a man driving a car bumped into a woman walking along a road and knocked her down. The woman said the man got out of the car, described as possibly being a Nissan Xterra, and began walking toward her. Another car approached and the man got back in his car and left. The woman was not seriously injured.
In the Morgan County incident, a woman was replacing battery cables on the side of Ga. 441 at about 5:30 p.m. on June 5 when she was attacked from behind by an unidentified man. The woman fought off her attacker and was able to flee in her car. She did not see if the man was in a car.
Ayers said Cornwell’s case and the North Carolina incident share the similarities of time of day and are close in location. Investigators are looking into the similarities between the descriptions of the men in the Morgan County and North Carolina cases. There were no witnesses to Cornwell’s abduction to provide a description.
Ayers said composite sketches like those distributed to law enforcement agencies in the past week have led to arrests before.
"We are getting additional leads," he said.
Cornwell’s mother said the family continues to work hard to keep attention on the case.
"We’re not letting up, and we will not let up until we find Kristi and bring her home safely," Jo Ann Cornwell said.