After being missing for seven years, Earnest “Bonnie” Gambrell has come home to Pell City.

The well-known Pell City native apparently died shortly after he disappeared from a boarding facility in Birmingham, and his body has finally been identified. A memorial service is planned for 2 p.m. Sunday at St. Clair Memorial Gardens, across the Highway 231 from Usrey Funeral Home in Pell City.

Gambrell was a life-long citizen of Pell City and a friend to many in the area. His sister, Loraine Higginbotham, said that he was nice to everyone, and she wants everyone to remember him that way.

Higginbotham said that she was responsible for Gambrell’s nickname, “Bonnie.” She said that when he was baby, he was chubby and looked like a fat bunny rabbit when he crawled around the floor. So everyone followed Higginbotham’s lead in calling her brother Bonnie.

“As he got older, he wanted us to call him Earnest,” she said. “But no one ever did.” Gambrell will always be “Bonnie” to those who loved him most.

Because Higginbotham did love her brother so much, it was hard to receive the news that he was ill in 2010. Higginbotham said that she was in Georgia at her 80th birthday party that February 7. She said that when she returned home, she couldn’t find her brother anywhere.

But the next day she was contacted and told that her brother was in the emergency room at St. Vincent’s St. Clair. Gambrell had woken up the morning of his sister’s birthday party and could not move his legs. He had to use a blanket to lower himself to the floor, dragging himself to the kitchen, where he knocked the phone off the wall so that he could call for emergency services.

Higginbotham said that her brother stayed at St. Vincent’s for 13 days before he went to rehab. She said once he made it to rehab, he started reporting pains in his chest. Doctors said that they could not find any problems and suggested that he just wanted to get out and come back to his Pell City home.

In March Gambrell was sent to Carraway Hospital, back to rehab, and then to Trinity Medical Center. He was then sent to another hospital, where he stayed for 29 weeks. All this time, Gambrell was still having issues with his legs and wanted to go home.

Finally leaving his last hospital, Gambrell was sent to a boarding home in Fairfield. Higginbotham said that he was sent there to learn how to give himself insulin shots.

After a short stay in the boarding house, Gambrell went missing. According to the officials at the boarding home, they had searched for Gambrell for two hours and could not find him anywhere. This is when the housing center contacted Higginbotham.

She said that no suggestions or evidence were found to lead to her brother’s whereabouts for almost three years. However, in November 2010 the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office discovered the skeletal remains of a male, found in a basement only a few miles away from the boarding home that Gambrell had resided.

Higginbotham said that she identified her brother’s clothes and had her mouth swabbed for a DNA test to help the coroner determine whether the man was Gambrell or not. But it was another three years before Higginbotham heard anything back about the results.

On March 6, 2014, Higginbotham received a call from the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office confirming that her brother was the man that had been found in the basement. According to the coroner, Gambrell had died in his sleep.

After seven years of uncertainty, Higginbotham said she is relieved to finally have an answer and be able to give her brother the memorial service that he deserves. Remembered as a member of Bible Methodist Church and a well-known citizen in the Pell City Community, Gambrell is finally home.

“Bonnie was a lot of fun,” said Higginbotham. “ I would like for everyone to remember him that way, and I want them to remember him as being friendly and kind.”

A few friends share their memories of Bonnie:

– He was a part of Pell City. There wasn’t a day that went by that you didn’t see him waking the streets, and you got use to that. I was wondering where he went.  It just didn’t seem right that he wasn’t out and about on the streets. My thoughts and Prayers go out to his family and Friends. —Darlene Andrews Willis

– He was always smiling and spoke to me every time I saw him. He had a held hand scanner and he was always listening to it to hear what was going on with the police. A lot of times he was up around the courthouse, on the corner. I even saw him walking to K-Mart. He is already missed. I hardly remember a time when I was in town that I did not see him somewhere. He always called me by my name, and I do not know how he knew my name. Thank the Lord he is at rest in Heaven. —Judy Macon

– He was a real nice man. I used to give him a ride home from town many times. He used to like to sit out front at Food World. My prayers go out to his family. –Linda Bell Long