Mystery couple murdered in South Carolina, 1976 - #1

[phenolred]

I am thinking back to his teeth. It seems hard to believe that if he were the son of a doctor that his teeth would have gotten so bad at such a young age as to need crowns etc etc.
And as somebody touched on before, maybe he was poor younger in life and didnt have routine dental care. Then maybe he started in the drug trade and decided to get his teeth fixed.
I was trying to think of some Latino surnames and I came up with Florez Flores and Fernandez so far.
Does anyone think he looks Columbian possibly? Also I know that it has been mentioned that he was athletic and probably played sports because of the 2, 2 inch scars on his shoulder.
What sports are popular there? Soccer, but I wouldnt think shoulder injurys would be common in soccer, what about Lacrosse or Rugby or????

 

[Marie]

Sorry, I meant date code. I'm reading and posting on here when I'm supposed to be working so I was in a hurry!

It was from the Doe Network where it said the watch was made in 1968. Here's the link to John Doe's page on the Doe Network and the statement about the watch. Thanks!

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/198umsc.html

Jewelry: He wore a Bulova Accutron yellow gold watch, serial number H918803 on his left hand. Bulova made the piece in 1968. But the company trashed its records when downsizing shortly thereafter, so no one knows where the watches were distributed. A 14 karat gold ring with a gray linde star stone that had the initials JPF engraved on the inside.

Thanks Liz. I need to re-read the Doe records

That date really does fit with his estimated age, assuming it was a graduation gift to him and it's his initials. Made in 1968, so he could have graduated in 68, 69, 70... close to that time.

 

[phenolred]

Maybe he smuggled the drugs in from Mexico, into New Mexico where maybe she bought the rings and he got the matches....

 

[BOESP]

I am thinking back to his teeth. It seems hard to believe that if he were the son of a doctor that his teeth would have gotten so bad at such a young age as to need crowns etc etc.
And as somebody touched on before, maybe he was poor younger in life and didnt have routine dental care. Then maybe he started in the drug trade and decided to get his teeth fixed.
I was trying to think of some Latino surnames and I came up with Florez Flores and Fernandez so far.
Does anyone think he looks Columbian possibly? Also I know that it has been mentioned that he was athletic and probably played sports because of the 2, 2 inch scars on his shoulder.
What sports are popular there? Soccer, but I wouldnt think shoulder injurys would be common in soccer, what about Lacrosse or Rugby or????

He doesn't look Columbian unless he is a very rare exception. :snooty: The height and build is wrong, the hair is wrong (including fairly smooth looking lower arms), the facial structure is wrong. He looks generally western European to me.

 

[SeriouslySearching]

RMF~ Great job on contacting Verna Moore and getting additional information!

Looking back on the 70s, cocaine distribution was widespread. This John Doe didn't neccessarily have to be from Columbia or anywhere specific to be neck deep into the trade enough to have him executed. All he needed at the time was vehicle and a base to distribute. If he failed to produce either the money or the drugs, the people above him would have had no problem with taking care of the situation. The drug runner theory does sound plausible and Ms. Moore's input adds substantial weight to it.

It would make sense then he was feeding the KOA campground guy a pack of lies about the wealthy father if he were into the drug trade to explain a nice car perhaps. Obviously, at the time of his death, John Doe was short of funds due to his offer to sell the jewelry, but the car was a neccessity.

He could have already been running from a drug deal gone bad and the reason he was "laying low" at a KOA campground to begin with. Since he was only down to selling the jewelry, it tells me their money ran out not long before. They could have stayed at various hotels along the corridor until then. Maybe they were tracking him and finally caught up with him...which means they had to have clues along the way to find him within the drug community. So what are we overlooking?

 

[BOESP]

... So what are we overlooking?

Excellent post, SS.

Maybe a connection to Raleigh, North Carolina? It was a noted cocaine center in the 1970s.

 

[SeriouslySearching]

Hmmm...my son lives there. Perhaps I could talk him into doing some research for us. I would like to know what was going on around the area from a couple of weeks before until their deaths. Concerts or other things which would have drawn a high volume of people.

What else do we need to inquire about? Crimes in the area at the time? Burnt vehicles found? Other deaths resembling these?

 

[BOESP]

Hmmm...my son lives there. Perhaps I could talk him into doing some research for us. I would like to know what was going on around the area from a couple of weeks before until their deaths. Concerts or other things which would have drawn a high volume of people.

What else do we need to inquire about? Crimes in the area at the time? Burnt vehicles found? Other deaths resembling these?

Missing persons? Drug arrests? Abandoned cars found?

If microfilmed newspapers are available (and I bet the archives has some from the 1970s) that might help. They may have covered this case even though it was in South Carolina.

Sometimes want-ads will have interesting entries (cryptic messages) but researching those would be an impossible task for one person.

 

[BOESP]

Interesting comparisons between the cases.

It would be interesting to know for certain what types of pistol and ammo were used in both cases. And to know if there were ever ballistics comparisons made between these or other cases.

Generally speaking, any pistol or revolver of 38 caliber and smaller could be considered small caliber, while those of .40, .41, .44 and .45 are usually considered large caliber weapons.

A semi-automatic pistol fires each time the trigger is squeezed, and with each shot, a casing is ejected. A revolver, on the other hand, retains its cartridge casings in the cylinder after a shot is fired. Since no casings were located, it is likely that the murder weapons were revolvers of either .38, .32 or .22 caliber - with .38 being the more likely. Revolver bullets are usually soft lead, while bullets fired by Semi-Automatics are more often copper jacketed.

Fired slugs, if recovered at the scene, can be used to determine the type and make of pistol used. They can also be compared to recovered bullets from other crime scenes to determine if there is an exact match.

I'm bumping the above 2005 message because of the good information it contains. I can not find any information stating what caliber bullets were recovered from the couple. If it was a .38, that could suggest a law enforcement weapon from that era. I'm not saying it's so. I'm just saying consider it.

The .22 was often the choice of professional hit men.

I can't quite get a feel for the area as it was back then but it sounds remote. If so, that might also suggest someone familiar and comfortable with the area.

 

[phenolred]

The newspaper article linked below states a .357 was matched to this crime:

In 1977 SLED matched bullets from a .357-caliber Magnum with the serial number filed off to bullets taken from the bodies. Entry wound examinations revealed someone shot them in the back of their heads to finish them off.

http://www.theitem.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070809/ITNEWS01/108090148

iM bumping this

 

[BOESP]

iM bumping this

Thanks so much phenolred! A .357 could still be police or a local into drugs.

It's interesting, too, that it was near a county line. That can often (purposely) confuse the investigation since cooperation may not the very best between competing powers-that-be.

Also, since the .357 was found "locally" a while after the killings, that also suggests "local" involvement, in my opinion (not necessarily cops, but local nonetheless). It's interesting the fellow who had the .357 was from North Carolina.

It might be interesting to see if any missing persons reports for the counties between Latta and Raleigh or available for that era or see if there are any cold cases in those counties.

 

[superunknown]

This thread is great. There are some great lines of thought going on.

Let me provide a few more details that Verna shared with me. Forgive me for not getting too granular in my other post, but it would have been toooo long:

-Verna states the couple traveled through Santee and stayed at the KOA campground there once before they were killed. (I believe Santee is south of where the couple were found? Do we have any online mapping wizzes here that could map out the Santee Lake area vs the crime scene, because I'm not sure?) The male stated to the campground manager (the person who is now deceased) that he was on his way to Florida. This is when the pool game allegedly took place in which the J.D. told the KOA employee he was Canadian. The employee also alluded that J.D. was carrying a lot of cash and when the KOA guy commented on the ring, the J.D. offered to sell it to him. The J.D. and the girl then came BACK through Sumter county on their way BACK from Florida and this was when they were killed.

If this guy was flashing a wad of cash around, that would make him a target for robbery.

Also, the gun WAS tied to someone who was arrested for DUI. According to Verna, he was a ne'er do well and was involved with shady people- and did not have a lot of control over who was coming in and out of his house at that time. The police investigated him and determined that his wife was in a hospital far away when the killings happened and family members state he was there with her. Police investigated and determined it would have been impossible for him to drive to and from those locations. He was evasive about who he may have loaned the gun to and is now dead also, so there is no way to find out.

If someone lives near to South Carolina I also think that Verna Moore would talk to you in person. She is THAT open about this case in terms of any and all help she can get.

Feel free to post any questions here about this because there may be things Verna mentioned to me that will answer them. We talked for a long time and I took some notes. You can also PM me.

 

[superunknown]

He looks generally western European to me.

When I spoke to Verna I offered to take information about this case to the National Police in Paris because I will be there on a trip at the end of October. She told me by all means to do it, that it could not hurt. Apparently they did contact Interpol at the time but I am sure whatever information they had on file from back then is long gone. It seems that information from the 70s and 80s has not made a very good transition into the computer age. Things seem to be lost, deleted, incomplete from databases now.

 

[phenolred]

Im so glad verna is still there and so open to help. I wonder did you give her a link to our thread about this ? Maybe if she read all the post it could help her.

Ok so with this new information from Verna, if he had the money on him and was on his way to Florida then I think he was going down there to buy the drugs and when he stopped off back in SC with the drugs, maybe he did a little with somebody at the campgrounds like smoked a joint or did a couple of lines of Coke and this person decided to rob them of the drugs, or maybe he had somebodies money to buy the drugs and maybe he got screwed on the drug deal in Florida and when he came back empty handed no money and no drugs somebody got really Pi$$ed and killed them.

I wish so bad we had more clues.....Did Verna say anything about her unshaved legs? Were her underarms also unshaved.

 

[superunknown]

Im so glad verna is still there and so open to help. I wonder did you give her a link to our thread about this ? Maybe if she read all the post it could help her.

Ok so with this new information from Verna, if he had the money on him and was on his way to Florida then I think he was going down there to buy the drugs and when he stopped off back in SC with the drugs, maybe he did a little with somebody at the campgrounds like smoked a joint or did a couple of lines of Coke and this person decided to rob them of the drugs, or maybe he had somebodies money to buy the drugs and maybe he got screwed on the drug deal in Florida and when he came back empty handed no money and no drugs somebody got really Pi$$ed and killed them.

I wish so bad we had more clues.....Did Verna say anything about her unshaved legs? Were her underarms also unshaved.

I mentioned this site to Verna and she knows about it, but I'm not sure she's discussion forum savvy? I didn't ask her about the underarms because my assumption is that if they were unshaved- it would have been noted along with the legs. We did talk about the legs and she said back in those days she used to see American women with unshaved legs too, so who knows.

One of the psychics that was consulted claimed the girl was from Indiana but extensive checking didn't turn up any leads on people from there, so I think the general conscensus is that the psychic was incorrect.

 

[superunknown]

Here's an idea:

If you folks would like to post questions, I will make a list and contact Verna again and ask her the questions. How does that sound?

 

[phenolred]

I found this map Santee to Locklair Road about 53 miles
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=...512,-80.241394&spn=1.040478,1.557312&z=9&om=1

 

[phenolred]

Wow that would be weird if she were from Indiana where I'm from.....its worth a shot at looking....at I will think of questions and post them then you can compile a list and talk to verna again that is awesome...

 

[BOESP]

When I spoke to Verna I offered to take information about this case to the National Police in Paris because I will be there on a trip at the end of October. She told me by all means to do it, that it could not hurt. Apparently they did contact Interpol at the time but I am sure whatever information they had on file from back then is long gone. It seems that information from the 70s and 80s has not made a very good transition into the computer age. Things seem to be lost, deleted, incomplete from databases now.

All in all, based on your conversations with Verna, it sounds like the Latta folks think they were probably killed by a local.

Even though, to me, he looks Western European, he could still be a citizen of the USA or Canada. I didn't mean to sound like he was necessarily from Europe, just that his ancestry probably was.

By what process did one enter and exit the states via Canada in the 1970s and would the process leave a traceable record?

If you are drug running, why hang around a KOA unless you are waiting for a drop or getting ready to make a drop? I would think you'd drive in, sleep, get out. The couple must have felt comfortable to have stayed twice and conversed with the KOA fellow. Were both stays on return trips from Florida?

 

[superunknown]

All in all, based on your conversations with Verna, it sounds like the Latta folks think they were probably killed by a local.

Even though, to me, he looks Western European, he could still be a citizen of the USA or Canada. I didn't mean to sound like he was necessarily from Europe, just that his ancestry probably was.

By what process did one enter and exit the states via Canada in the 1970s and would the process leave a traceable record?

If you are drug running, why hang around a KOA unless you are waiting for a drop or getting ready to make a drop? I would think you'd drive in, sleep, get out. The couple must have felt comfortable to have stayed twice and conversed with the KOA fellow. Were both stays on return trips from Florida?

I think that what I got from Verna is that they were killed execution style- so if it was a "local" the person was not afraid to carry out a professional hit.

I think back in the 70s you only needed a driver's license to get across the borders. It was pretty loose then. I doubt they kept any records but I really don't know.

From what she told me, the John Doe had come there once previously and reportedly told the KOA guy he was going to Florida. Who knows if that's where he went or not. The next time, the time they were killed, she did not specify if he stated he was on his way BACK or not. I am also not sure of the amount of time that passed in between visits.

Verna did mention the KOA guy said the girl had a suitcase both times. According to info released to the public, there was no suitcase found at the scene. I'd be fascinated to take a look at the case file and the investigation/report on the guy from the campground.