At 58, with a two-pack-a-day smoking habit and high blood pressure, Polly Melton wasn’t much of a sprinter. A retired schoolteacher, she and her third husband, Robert Melton, lived most of the year in Jacksonville, Florida. They spent from late spring to late fall parked at the base of the Great Smoky Mountains in Swain County, North Carolina. By around 7 p.m. that evening, a formal search was underway for Polly Melton. It was a check for bank certificate interest made out to Polly Melton.