Description

Melvin "Mel" Wiley was the chief of police in Hinckley Township, outside of Cleveland, until he vanished without a trace on 07/28/1985. His tan 1980 Toyota Station Wagon was located on 07/30/2018 around 4:00am by Park Rangers at Cleveland's Lakefront State Park on Lake Erie. The locked car contained a shirt, trousers, belt, shoes, and socks along with Mel's wallet with $15 in cash, credit cards, his police identification and badge, suntan lotion, and a towel. Searches of the park and adjacent waters produced not a hint of Mel's fate. A friend of Mel's reported that the he told her, the day before his disappearance, that he intended to buy a bathing suit at K-Mart and go swimming with an unnamed out-of-town visitor. He never bought a suit, police said, and his friends told investigators he rarely swam. Investigators initially believed he had drowned in Lake Erie, or was a victim of foul play. They later suspected he may have left voluntarily. Mel had made no apparent travel plans and no large withdrawals from bank accounts. Mel joined the police department in 1978 and had run it since 1982. He'd been an FBI fingerprint technician, a background investigator for the U. S. Department of Defense, and an administrator for the Medina County Sheriff. He was known as a poet and amateur mystery writer. Mel was divorced with no children. He was declared dead in 1993.