This SC man went unidentified for years. Here’s how ‘Cowboy’ finally found his real name

Willie Jean Caldwell finally knows his name.

At 76 years old, he’s known as “Cowboy” by his friends and caretakers at the Recovery Ranch, a haven for recovering addicts in western Horry County. After taking him in from a local hospital nearly two years ago, ranch owner Christa Reynolds couldn’t figure out his name. She couldn’t find a trace of his identity.

Arriving at the hospital, Caldwell didn’t have a birth certificate. He didn’t have an ID. He didn’t have a social security card. His memory was unreliable.

So Caldwell, nameless at the time, became “Cowboy,” a reference to the description on hospital records when staff didn’t know his name: “American cowboy (Black male).”

The name has become a persona. An old-fashioned cowboy hat has become an unofficial uniform sometimes accompanied by reflective sunglasses. He’s settled in at the ranch, he has friends and a routine. But something’s been missing: his identity.

After almost two years and countless dead ends trying to find relatives or personal documents, a “happy ending” has finally come to fruition.

Reynolds and a social worker, Lisa Hyatt, have tracked down Caldwell’s birth certificate and some of his siblings.

“It feels better,” Caldwell said. “A whole lot better.”

A lost wallet and a lost identity

Three decades ago, Cowboy dropped his wallet. Working in an orange grove near Orlando, Fla., it was lost. With it went his state ID and any other identification he carried.

So began a winding tale of twists and turns that would result in a search for his identity spanning four states and nearly two years. He fell through the cracks of the system, lacking a social security number, a driver’s license, stable housing, secure employment or contact with family.

“It tells me we’ve failed as a society when we take advantage of vulnerable people,” Hyatt said.

Caldwell shows signs of memory loss, which Reynolds believes could be dementia. His accounts of information, including names of his parents and where he grew up, can be inconsistent or incorrect, so gathering information to research is difficult.

His memory is sharp some days, shaky other days. After a while, it became clear certain details were consistent. Caldwell was born in Louisiana and spent time in Mississippi and Florida before coming to South Carolina. Eventually, Reynolds and Hyatt believed they knew his name and some of his siblings’ names.

No ‘breakthrough’ for months

The Sun News first reported Cowboy’s story in August of 2020, after Reynolds believed she had exhausted her options to find out who Cowboy is, like Adult Protective Services with the state’s Department of Social Services.

At the time, Reynolds believed his name was Jim Willie Caldwell, but pointed out there’s no way to know for sure. Once Hyatt tracked down records, they confirmed his name is Willie Jean Caldwell.

The Sun News article opened up fresh leads. Self-appointed investigators reached out with information on ancestry and genealogy, and people donated money. But nothing reached the point of a “breakthrough,” Reynolds said.

Until Hyatt entered the scene. Hyatt, a clinical social worker with Family Matters who works with rescued horses, heard about Reynolds and the Recovery Ranch through an equine vet. She began doing therapy and mental health work with the residents, and she took a liking to Cowboy.

Most people do.

He loves to make people laugh, flashing his own toothless grin when they crack up. His face brightens at the mention of any type of sweets, especially peanut butter or pecan pie.

At the ranch, residents pitch in by helping take care of animals and do maintenance work. Cowboy is in charge of picking up pecans falling from three massive trees on the property.

From Louisiana to Mississippi to Florida to South Carolina

Hyatt has a history of working with people who are recovering from trauma. Piecing together Caldwell’s story through long conversations and intentional questions, she has no doubt he’s been traumatized from a young age. Once he began to lose memory and fell on hard times, she says people have likely taken advantage of him, too.

Hyatt found Caldwell’s mother in a Census document from 1940, which listed her as 13 years old. At the end of that same year, she had her first child, Hyatt said.

Cowboy was born August 10, 1945, in Hammond, Louisiana. That was also a missing piece of the puzzle. Reynolds estimated he was in his 80s, but couldn’t nail down an exact age or birthday until his documents were located.

By the time he was 11 years old, Caldwell remembers drinking gin with his dad in the Louisiana and Mississippi countryside, he says. His father died a few years later after drinking heavily for years — moonshine, or “blackjack wine,” was his drink of choice, Caldwell said with a chuckle.

After the death of their father, Caldwell and his 10 siblings appear to have dispersed, Hyatt said. They don’t seem to keep in touch, potentially a consequence of their troubled upbringing, she said.

Cowboy left for Florida, where he worked picking oranges for a while. He eventually made his way to South Carolina, where he stayed in Green Sea before coming to the ranch with Reynolds.

Of his 10 siblings, only a few are still living, and some haven’t been welcoming of Hyatt’s calls. But a welcome reunion could be on the horizon.

Caldwell is planning to speak to his youngest brother, Terry, over the phone and visit him on an upcoming trip to Louisiana to get his birth certificate.

“I think about going home,” Caldwell said. “(It’s been a) long time, way back, 50, 60 years.”

How the team found Cowboy’s family and birth certificate

Through her background in social work, Hyatt knew some of the channels to find records that Reynolds hadn’t tried.

She started in McComb, Mississippi, where Caldwell’s mother grew up and where he lived for some time in his youth. She tried to find documents in Louisiana and Florida, too. Throughout the process, Hyatt enlisted the help of an attorney and a private investigator, and called numerous people who may have personal information about Caldwell or his family.

After pulling a few threads to no avail, Hyatt found an obituary printed in a local newspaper called the Enterprise-Journal. The obituary said one of Caldwell’s sisters had died in 1997 at a hospital in McComb, and it listed Caldwell’s name and those of his siblings.

Finally, a solid lead.

Hyatt posted in a Facebook group of McComb residents, asking if anyone knew the Caldwell family. One commenter suggested contacting her aunt, who was a secretary at a local church. Turns out, the secretary, Annie Carr, knew Caldwell’s brother, Terry. Through that connection, Hyatt was able to find out more family information.

With help from Carr, Hyatt called the local school and asked if they had any record of Caldwell, thinking it was a long shot, especially since she called near the end of the day on a Friday.

“She called me back 15 minutes later,” Hyatt said. “She said, ‘I found him.’ I said, ‘You’re kidding me.’”

The school had records of Caldwell’s parents’ and siblings’ names, which have been reviewed by The Sun News. Most importantly, it had his name, matching his sister’s obituary.

“Finally, relief,” Hyatt said. “I’ve had some difficult cases in my time but never have I had a case where somebody’s fallen through the system like this.”

The Sun News left messages for Carr, but didn’t hear back.

In the coming weeks, Reynolds and Hyatt are looking toward the light at the end of a tunnel that’s been frustrating and exhausting, but simultaneously heartwarming and hopeful.

“There was a time or two when I got really discouraged, but you can’t give up on people,” Hyatt said.

Cowboy’s next steps to secure his identity

Reynolds and Hyatt plan to take Caldwell to Louisiana to access his birth certificate and prove his identity. There’s an error on his birth certificate — “Caldwell” is spelled “Carwell” — that needs to be fixed before he can access the social security benefits he’s missed out on for more than a decade. Reynolds is accepting donations to pay for the trip, which she estimates will cost around $1,600 between gas, hotel rooms, food and other expenses.

Hyatt said Caldwell likely doesn’t meet the criteria to appoint his own power of attorney, so she and Reynolds are discussing starting a conservatorship for him so someone can make life decisions on his behalf.

When Caldwell gets the proper identification, Reynolds hopes to move him from the ranch to an assisted living facility near Florence, where he has a “lady friend,” who used to be a resident at the ranch.

“When I met her … I was on the front porch, (I) played the harmonica,” Cowboy said. “She wanted to see.”

Reynolds has been Cowboy’s main caretaker for the better part of two years. She calls the resolution a “happy ending” she didn’t always expect.

“It’s a really sweet ending to a precious story,” Reynolds said. “Seeing him on a daily basis and watching him smile, walking up from the back part of the farm to the front is always a blessing.”

Sitting on a picnic table at the ranch on a recent chilly morning, Reynolds looks at Cowboy. Both grin.

“Life’s a better place because of you,” Reynolds says.

This story was originally published November 7, 2021 at 7:00 AM.

Mary Norkol

The Sun News

Mary Norkol covers education and COVID-19 for The Sun News through Report for America, an initiative which bolsters local news coverage. She joined The Sun News in June 2020 after graduating from Loyola University Chicago, where she was editor-in-chief of the Loyola Phoenix. Norkol has won awards in podcasting, multimedia reporting, in-depth reporting and feature reporting from the South Carolina Press Association and the Illinois College Press Association. While in college, she reported breaking news for the Daily Herald and interned at the Chicago Sun-Times and CBS Chicago.