GRAY’S CREEK — Life has been what you may describe as a living hell for Stefanie Firkins as she desperately pleads to know what has become of her brother, Clinton “Clint” Bonnell, the retired Green Beret soldier who has been missing from his Gray’s Creek home for five weeks.
She has come to know sleepless nights.
She has asked God to hear her prayers and the prayers of others hoping for her brother’s safe return home.
“Heartbroken to share this but I’m asking for prayers,” Firkins, who lives in Round Rock, Texas, wrote on her Facebook page on Jan. 31, just after the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office alerted news media that the 50-year-old Bonnell last was seen on Jan. 27 at the Fit4Life Health business on Owen Drive in Fayetteville. “My brother Clint is missing in North Carolina. He recently retired from the Army Special Forces and is in P.A. School where he is the Class President. He did not show up to class on Tuesday. We are worried sick. Please pray for Clint’s safety and for the detectives working to find him.”
Deputies conducted a welfare check at Bonnell’s home that sits on wooded property off Butler Nursery Road. His vehicle, according to published reports, was in the driveway. Bonnell was nowhere to be found.
“I believe someone out there has information that can help us find him,” Firkins posted on her Feb. 17 Facebook page.
There was another post on Feb. 20.
“I’m not going to stop,” her post reads, “until my brother is found or we get answers!”
Firkins, 47, says her brother was in good spirits when she last spoke with him, and proud to be a part of the Physician Assistant studies program at Methodist University.
“He worked hard to get into this PA program,” Firkins said Friday afternoon. “He was quickly elected class president. You should hear the way his classmates talk about him. They are devastated.”
They, too, became concerned when Bonnell didn’t show up for exams on Jan. 28, the day after a Sheriff’s Office news release says he last was seen at Fit4Life, and dressed in brown slacks, a plaid button-up shirt and a black hoodie.
“I would describe Clint as a dedicated, passionate student that his classmates quickly recognized as a leader,” April Martin, program director for the university Physician Assistant program, said Feb. 25, according to a university spokesperson. “He was elected as the president of his cohort shortly after beginning his studies at Methodist University. His PA program family are thinking of his family during this time.”
‘There’s no way …’
Bonnell grew up as a well-rounded teenager, his sister says. He played on his high school football team. He was a musician. He was involved in theater productions. He joined the Army after Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaida terrorists hijacked U.S. commercial airliners and flew into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a United Airlines Flight 93 in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
“He did multiple deployments,” Firkins said about her brother, who was an Army medic. “I don’t have an entire list of his deployments, but I do have some. Iraq, I know, for sure. And Germany.”
She says her brother met his wife, Shana Cloud, while he was stationed in Oklahoma. They have been together, Firkins says, for about 16 years, and Bonnell treated Cloud’s now 19-year-old daughter like his own.
“There’s no way that he would have done that to his daughter,” Firkins said about Bonnell’s disappearance. He “worshipped” her, she said.
Firkins says Shana Cloud is a traveling nurse, and often away from the Gray’s Creek home.
“She worked at a prison in Virginia,” Firkins said.
Clint Bonnell’s disappearance has taken an emotional toll, including on her parents, who reside in nearby Austin, Texas.
“My father was the deputy director for the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission,” Firkins said, “so, we grew up knowing right from wrong. My dad is amazing. He is 80 years old.” She said her mother is 79.
The strain of a missing son and missing brother is exhausting.
“None of us are doing well,” Firkins said.
She says her husband is a firefighter and has been a constant source of strength for her, as well as her parents.
‘Salt of the earth good man’
Firkins says her brother is not one to just walk away from a wife, a daughter and his life.
“My brother is a salt of the earth good human being,” she said. “I mean, he had his flaws like every other person. But he was just a salt of the earth good man.” His disappearance, she says, is “devastating and nauseating.”
Her brother’s disappearance, she says, has been one with red flags since Firkins first learned he was missing without a trace. It is a mystery fraught with what she describes as a myriad of “dynamics.” Firkins has initiated a $25,000 GoFundMe reward for information leading to her brother’s whereabouts.
“He was fully capable of taking care of himself,” she said. “My understanding is that he had, like, lone operator training. My understanding is that it’s specialized Special Forces training on how to survive on your own in a foreign country whenever you’ve been [separated] from your team.”
Stefanie Firkins has her own suspicions about what has led to her brother’s disappearance. She believes, in her words, Clint Bonnell is a victim of foul play.
“I want to find my brother,” she said. “I don’t care whose feelings get hurt from me doing everything that I can to find my brother.”
She has traveled once to Fayetteville since her brother went missing.
“They’re not telling me a whole heck of a lot,” she said about the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. “They’re protecting the integrity of the investigation,” but “they are doing everything they can to find Clint.”
Body found in pond near Butler Nursery Road home
Deputies responded to a 911 call Tuesday from a homeowner along Gainey Road about the discovery of a body in a pond behind the brick home.
“We have not confirmed an identity of the body that was found” at the pond, Sgt. Mickey Locklear with the CCSO said, adding that the body has been sent to the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Raleigh.
About 20 deputies also were at Bonnell’s home for 10 1/2 hours last week executing a search warrant on the missing former soldier’s property.
“We are searching for any details that will help us find Mr. Bonnell,” Locklear said. “The search warrant is for the home that he lives at. We have no evidence to link this search for Mr. Bonnell to the case where the body was found at this time. Gainey Road is about a half mile from the residence of Mr. Bonnell.”
Although the CCSO is awaiting identification of the body discovered in the Gainey Road pond, the investigation of Clint Bonnell is ongoing.
“Deputies are still actively investigating this case and pursuing all avenues to locate Mr. Bonnell,” Locklear said. “Anyone with information is requested to contact Sergeant J. Mcleod at (910) 677-5548.”
Epilogue
Stefanie Firkins is bracing herself for the worst-case scenario about the body discovered near her brother’s Butler Nursery Road home.
“I have been praying for Clint to be found,” she said. “So, all I want is for Clint to be found, so that we can have some closure. So that we can have some answers. So that we can start finding justice for Clint. I believe that God has been working behind the scenes. That he can see all and that he will shine light in the darkness and bring truth to light, and I trust in his plan and his timing.”
Stefanie Firkins wept at moments as she thought about the fate of her brother.
She doesn’t know for sure if the body in the pond along Gainey Road is the brother she loves.
“I think it’s 2.6 miles away,” she said about the body found in the pond on Gainey Road. “It’s four minutes from his house.”
Stefanie Firkins is not giving up hope.
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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Praying that he is found safe and that the body found was not him. I and my significant other grew up with Clint in Dripping Springs, Texas and always knew him to be an outstanding person and a solid friend to everyone. This is such a tragedy.
Thank God is Sister is not giving up!❤️This is a heartbreaking story. Please if anyone in Grays Creek or anywhere knows anything about this young man that served our Country please call the CCSD. I am praying for Clint his family and so many friends. I really don’t understand why his wife is not talking to help. It just doesn’t add up but I am praying.