10 years after Gayle McCaffrey went missing, deputies are still searching for answers

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD)- It has been exactly one decade since Gayle McCaffrey disappeared from her West Ashley home and investigators are still trying to piece together what happened.

It was March 2012 when Gayle and her husband, Robert “Bob” McCaffrey, got into a heated argument. Bob left his wife and two young children and headed for the Upstate.

When he returned the next day, he reported his wife missing and said she had left on her own– she has not been seen since.

At the time of her disappearance, Gayle was working at the Citadel. Investigators interviewed friends, neighbors, and co-workers, but no one could point them in the direction of her whereabouts.

It would be another six years until investigators finally started to piece together parts of the puzzle.

Through the course of the investigation, it was determined that Bob had not told the truth about where he went that March night in 2012. At the start, he told investigators that he went to visit family in Easley, S.C. to assess his marriage. Investigators later discovered that he had actually met a person with whom he was having an affair in Traveler’s Rest, S.C.

An affidavit in the case revealed that Bob waited twelve hours after he returned to Charleston to report his missing wife.

But that is not where the lies stopped. According to investigators, Bob said that Gayle had left home in the middle of the night when their two children were sleeping. She did not take a cell phone, wallet, keys, or her car.

The affidavit also revealed that Bob had provided investigators with a typed letter which he said Gayle wrote and left for him. In the letter, she said she took a safe with her which contained $110,000 cash and a gun. The letter also mentioned that she was running away with her lover, “Nicky.”

Investigators said people they spoke with said the safe never existed and that there was “ample evidence” to support that Gayle was making efforts to reconcile her marriage which included a romantic getaway for two booked just two days before she disappeared.

Gayle’s sister, Debbie Pearson, and other family members believed Bob’s story did not add up and questioned his behavior.

Turns out, a linguistics expert determined it was more than likely that Gayle had not written the letter.

While Bob had been named a primary suspect and initially charged with murder in connection to his wife’s disappearance in 2018, he was found not guilty and released from jail.

Fast forward to 2019 and Bob was charged with obstruction of justice for lying to police over the course of the investigation, including about the letter. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Family members and supporters have been circulating petitions for years aimed at keeping McCaffrey behind bars.

Bob has been up for parole twice– in January of 2021 and 2022. His parole was denied both times.

Now, 10 years later, although she is presumed dead, Gayle McCaffrey’s body has never been found.

Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 843-554-1111 or CCSO Detective Barry Goldstein at 843-554-2241.