Identified! Mystery couple murdered in South Carolina, 1976 - Pamela Buckley & James P Freund #8

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onceuponadecember said:
(Before I begin, I'm going to change some of the names to keep the privacy of his family. I'll call the wife Gia, the daughter Marie, the father Mr. Freund, the uncle Geoff and the grandfather P.B., thanks.)
  • October 17, 1974: Charges filed by "Gia" on the grounds of non-support of a child are dropped due to payment of costs (I think this means she couldn't afford to go through with the lawsuit)
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BBM & SBM

Thanks for the timeline.
I'll just have to disagree on the "Charges filed by "Gia"(...)".

The newspaper article mentions "a child born out of wedlock". So, it's not the daughter "Marie".

Lancaster New Era from Lancaster, Pennsylvania on October 17, 1974 · 12

MOO JMO
 
Betty P said:
I checked James Paul Freund on Ancestry.com yesterday and didn't reach any final conclusions. There are multiple males with that name born around that time, in that general region. It's probably going to take more than one source to verify the DOB. JMO
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There's the newspaper announcement with his parents' names, dated Sep. 17th 1946. He was born the 16th.
 
If you guys are wondering how I have time to chat away as a teacher here - it's simple: record your lessons for your students to watch whenever.

I think I found a connection between Pam and James. Remember the truck stop matches? There is a highway near Colorado Springs that if she took north and went northeast, she would've made it to Nebraska.
 
UncoolNegated said:
I never found an authored report for either of these formerly missing people. I did find a legal notice for James P. Freund, however.

Clipping from Intelligencer Journal - Newspapers.com
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Yes, it appears his wife went through the process of having him declared deceased. It took a couple years, apparently, you'll see legal notices published between 1986 and 1988. IANAL, but it was probably the process for Pennsylvania and varies from state to state and over time. It's possible she suspected he was deceased and took this step to help qualify their daughter to receive survivor benefits from Social Security, etc.

At some point, Jim's family probably assumed he was deceased. It doesn't appear his life was "out of control", IMO. He was doing what a lot of people did back in the early 70's. He had married and started a family while still in his teens, served in the military and ended up in an unhappy marriage. He lived in a small town/city where he probably felt his life was boring and predictable. Living the single life there after divorce was probably no picnic, with his ex in the same city, lots of gossip and the only women to date being people he grew up with and knew his ex wife.

He probably saved up his money and took off for Colorado, just to get out and live somewhere new, meet new people. Maybe he even considered going to college to get a degree. With his training in mechanics, he may have had good skills and found good paying work as a mechanic. Traveling to see the country was something a lot of guys did who were his age, not long out of the military.

In the early 70's a lot of young people, free spirits were moving to Colorado. John Denver and other musicians made it a popular destination, especially for those who loved the outdoors, skiing, etc. It attracted a lot of artists, musicians, writers, etc. Pam may have ended up there for that reason. She probably settled in around friends, married, got a divorce, etc. Somewhere along the line she probably met Jim. Maybe she was still singing in coffee houses or open mic nights at clubs, etc. They hooked up, maybe decided to take a road trip, go to Florida to see the stock car races at Talladega and ended up running into a very dangerous criminal who killed them.

All JMO from what is known so far.

ETA: When I was in college during the mid 70's, there were quite a few military vets who were also students. They were in Jim's age cohort, background, some divorced, a few years older than the rest of us. Most lived off campus, in their own house. They received GI benefits. Nice guys, kind of like "older brothers". Had pretty wild keggers.
 
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onceuponadecember said:
If you guys are wondering how I have time to chat away as a teacher here - it's simple: record your lessons for your students to watch whenever.

I think I found a connection between Pam and James. Remember the truck stop matches? There is a highway near Colorado Springs that if she took north and went northeast, she would've made it to Nebraska.
Click to expand...

If Jim traveled to Colorado from PA, he probably drove through Nebraska, especially if he took the route from the East via Chicago.
 
(Name changes for privacy are present here.)
Here is my timeline for Pam:
  • December 16, 1951: Pam is born in Redwood, MN
  • June 6, 1956: Pam's sister, "Mary", is born in Redwood, MN
  • September 13, 1959: Pam's sister, "Jane", is born in Redwood, MN
  • March 11, 1970: Sunlending performs as the opening act for We Five at the University of Minnesota Morris. Tickets were $1 to UMM students.
  • c. May 1970: Pam graduates from Redwood Falls High School
  • October 14, 1972: Pam marries GCK in Manitou Springs, CO
  • December 1975: Pam disappears from Colorado Springs, CO
  • August 9, 1976: Pam and James are found dead in Sumter County, SC
(Note: 11 days after Pamela was found dead, GCK divorced her in El Paso, CO)
 
UncoolNegated said:
Talk about a red herring. To everyone who thought it was Maria Vasquez and Cesar Lugones, missing since May 1976 -- guess what you (including me...) were wrong! Whoops!
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To be fair, Maria Marta and Pamela do look like they could be sisters :p Maria and Cesar remain missing, but I think it's safe to assume that they did not survive that military arrest in 1976. What a terrible fate for both couples.
 
Triss said:
To be fair, Maria Marta and Pamela do look like they could be sisters :p Maria and Cesar remain missing, but I think it's safe to assume that they did not survive that military arrest in 1976. What a terrible fate for both couples.
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YEs, in fact there are like 30.000 persons still missing in Argentina since the last military government (1976-1983). Due to militar testimony it is known that many of them were killed and their bodies thrown in the Atlantic Ocean, dropped from militar aeroplanes.
 
The initials JPF on the ring would have been enough to produce major leads if James P. Freund was in NamUs, something I mentioned already. I will also point out that the following search term for newspapers.com "J????" and "P." and "F?????" and "presumed decedent" produced about 8000 hits. The question marks represent unknown search characters.

So "J????" as a search term covers "James" and "F?????" as a search term covers Freund. Including "presumed decedent" hits onto legal notices because that's a common phrase used in them (although there are many other similar search terms that may do that).

8000 hits is plenty to sift through but the legal notice for James P. Freund's death in absentia was in there. It takes at least seven years or something like that to be declared dead in absentia, I think, so maybe some of the hits could be winnowed out by identifying a target range.

The point is, we had the missing person's initials all along. If you ever come across a case where you only have initials again then the initials can be used in newspaper databases by using the question marks. It might seem tenuous but I don't think it is: it would just take patience and organization.

You would have to cover a target range of years and work with names of different lengths and that would make it hard. Honestly, I think using the question marks, studying terms that are included in legal notices involved dead-in-absentia topics, and a whole lot of organization and patience could have hit on James P. Freund's legal death notice with about 40 hours of work.

I wish I had that brainwave back in 2007 when I first read about this case. One hour a week and maybe it would have taken a year to find the lead. With a streamlined process then maybe it could take less time. Hope that makes sense.
 
onceuponadecember said:
(Name changes for privacy are present here.)
Here is my timeline for Pam:
  • December 16, 1951: Pam is born in Redwood, MN
  • June 6, 1956: Pam's sister, "Mary", is born in Redwood, MN
  • September 13, 1959: Pam's sister, "Jane", is born in Redwood, MN
  • March 11, 1970: Sunlending performs as the opening act for We Five at the University of Minnesota Morris. Tickets were $1 to UMM students.
  • c. May 1970: Pam graduates from Redwood Falls High School
  • October 14, 1972: Pam marries GCK in Manitou Springs, CO
  • December 1975: Pam disappears from Colorado Springs, CO
  • August 9, 1976: Pam and James are found dead in Sumter County, SC
(Note: 11 days after Pamela was found dead, GCK divorced her in El Paso, CO)
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Sounds like Pam and her husband had already split up before she left Colorado. The divorce became final after wards. Back in those days, there was a waiting period for divorces to become "final", IIRC. "No Fault" divorce became legal in Colorado in 1972, the first case was in 1973, according to this link.

https://content.csbs.utah.edu/~fan/fcs5400-6400/studentpresentation2009/04DivorceReadingVinsky.pdf

Even"no-fault" divorces took a long time, probably several months with hearings and waiting periods.
 
I found this part of the press conference interesting:

@ the 15:15 minute mark of the press conference:

Reporter: “Do you have any idea where they were going?”

Officer: “Where they were going? (Looks away, exhales, looks up). That’s some information at this time we’d rather not have released in the investigation. We stated earlier that we do have persons of interest that we have to interview, and certainly we’re working with some other agencies too.”

SCSO: New findings in 1976 cold case

eta: fixed typos
 
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Lexiintoronto said:
I found this part of the press conference was very interesting:

@ the 15:15 minute mark of the press conference:

Reporter: “Do you have any idea where they were going?”

Officer: “Where they we’re going? (Looks away, exhales, looks up). That’s some information at this time we’d rather not be released in the investigation. We stated earlier that we do have persons of interest that we have to interview, and certainly we’re working with some other agencies too.”

SCSO: New findings in 1976 cold case
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Weird. Why would they be hesitant to give information that could help solve the case? o_O
 
Anybody here has the autopsy reports? Also, any official report on the crime scene,
 
Yes, but we're not the investigators. I'm not trying to sound rude or be mean, but would you want anyone to speculate that your life was out of control when you're only known to them as a John Doe and a murder victim? It's a forum and a discussion, I get it, but you're starting to sound judgemental and James doesn't deserve it.
 
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