Mystery couple murdered in South Carolina, 1976 - #3

[Mysterylover]

I had trouble believing they were THAT faded just sitting in a storage place too.
Sumter County Coroner Verna Moore is the one who is really investigating this case.
Apparently the sheriff's dept and other LE in Sumter don't think this case will ever be solved and aren't very helpful when approached with questions about the case.
At one point Ms. Moore, and a detective who is helping her with the case, was supposed to look at the couple's belongings again and possibly take some more pictures but I don't know if that has happened yet......

Is it possible to get DNA from the couples cloths after all this time?

 

[Mysterylover]

But where is their luggage? Where were they staying before they ended up shot on the side of the road?....

Believe...I suspect the couple was still staying at the Santee KOA...their bodies were found approx. 40 miles from there.. they had not left the area....imo

IF they had moved to a Motel, someone would have recognized this beautiful couple as staying there..not checking out/paying the bill..and no one did...

 

[Mysterylover]

Its ME AGAIN!!!

I was thinking about a new bit of information from the article that I had never heard before.

That was the information regarding the lead from the KOA guy he stated not only that the guy said his name was Jock and he was from Canada AND his dad was a doctor and he had basically disowend him BUT it went on to say he indicated he was a TEACHER.

The has never been mentioned before and I think it is a good lead. He had to have taught somebody somewhere....

That is he the story he gave were true. Also, I think that even though the KOA registration records and photos burnt in their house fire, wouldnt the man KNEW at least what kind of car they drove. And what they camped in a tent or a camper or a VAN?

So MANY unanswered questions and alot of the people involved in the beginning are deceased....

Phen...All good questions..
With just a little investigation these questions
would have been answered decades ago....

I have noticed over the years how some LE do not use a note pad or take notes on questions asked or answered....only name and date of birth...it's no wonder facts are forgotten or remembered wrong..and cases go cold.

 

[Mysterylover]

Thank you MaryBeth

You know I was looking at the crime scene pics again, and something is strange about the bullet wound on His neck. the blood is running upwards across his neck.

Blood doesnt flow when your dead but it is odd blood wouldnt go up and over........

The bodies look so 'POSED' ...their positions are not normal for being shot with a powerful .357 and falling....how does one fall with legs straight out?...

I know LE says the couple was murdered at that location, but I still can't get over the thought,
the couple was possibly shot twice in the back at another location,

when they had their back turned, at a campsite or indoors..possibly visiting/meeting someone.

somewhere other than a highway because of the wedge sandals the girl was wearing...and clean feet.

Loaded in a van, driven to the dirt road, layed straight out on the grass and shot under their chins....

How could one man shot 2 people in the back, twice, same places on each??..(If they were shot from the front, in the chest I can see one man doing it...)
It would be normal with the first shot, one person would have turned, moved, jumped away and would have been shot in their side...unless he shot them each twice in the back as they exited the van....otherwise it would have taken 2 killers, one to hold them and one to shot them on that road, that Aug. night....jmo

http://www.nationalpost.com/multimedia/photos/gallery/index.html?id=407163

 

[mollyjohnson100]

My apologies if this has been discussed before, I haven't read through all the threads.

Does anyone else think it may be significant that whoever shot them left their faces intact?
Maybe I've watched too many movies, but you'd think to finish someone off they'd have just shot them in the head, with no worries about damage.
It's like the killer made sure he saved their faces,
for whatever reason, psychological or for identifying purposes.

 

[bluestarzz]

mystery lover,
i have thought they look poised.......
bluestarzz

 

[Mysterylover]

MollyJ and BlueStar...I agree
It would be interesting to hear what a sharp Criminal Profiler would have to say about this case!

 

[Mysterylover]

I did NOT find 'our couple' listed on this Winnipeg Canada site. It could help identify this couple IF someone knows how to list them..

http://www.winnipeg.ca/police/Unsolved_Cases/MissingPersons/index.stm

 

[Mysterylover]

mystery lover,
i have thought they look poised.......

blusters

Blue...Definitely..
I suspect the killer deliberately left the couple laying, in plain site, on the side of the road, in order to make LE 'think' the couple was hitchhiking and had been murdered by a drive-by stranger...
Inorder to throw the investigation OFF the trail of what 'actually happened' that night in Aug. '76 and where ... years have proven the killer succeeded.

There was many places the couple could have been thrown/hidden in the bushes and never found. There was a reason the killer wanted the couple posed like hitchhikers and found...imo.
After months of reviewing the pictures and details a smart investigator should have suspected something was wrong/missing with this crime scene, picture..and looked deeper..it wasn't what was found, but what wasn't found...jmo

 

[youshouldveknown]

Personally, I think they were both shot and turned over onto their backs to be searched and so the murderer could take id, money, drugs, what have you.

I don't think there was a lot of thought into posing the bodies in a particular way. I think there was forethought in the killing, but I'm not sure how much. This wasn't an accident. I think they weren't hidden or buried because the killer knew they were travelling. The killer knew they weren't from the area. There was no reason to hide the bodies because there was nothing to trace the bodies back to him/her.

I think it looks professional, or in the very least, someone who had seen The Godfather films. Small time hoods often take after what they see on TV and movies, after all.

But that's all just my opinion. Can you tell me why you think it's posed?

 

[JaneInOz]

Have you seen the theories on this case on the Graphic Picture thread ?
The possible connection of these two to the dirty war?

 

[Mysterylover]

Youshould've,
After viewing the picture of the couple as they lay shot beside the dirt road...here's the pic

http://www.nationalpost.com/multimedia/photos/gallery/index.html?id=407163

 

[JaneInOz]

Ive been looking over and over at the crime scene photo I enlarged it also.
They are in full rigor right ?
well the girl looked to be certainly.
Anyway It almost looks to me like after they shot them in the back , and turned them over that they shot the girl first through the throat and made him watch her being shot and then shot him through the throat and finished him off.
Their eyes were both wide open and mouths open ? not sure if that was from the shot through the throat doing that ? or whether it was that they KNEW *who* it was that shot them or that they were going to be murdered

 

[MaryLiz]

As JaneInOz suggested, there are some new discussions going on in the Graphic Photos section of this thead which are very interesting.

As far as them being posed, I never thought they were. I don't think there was time. I read an article a long time ago and although I haven't been able to find that exact article again, I found a similar one and posted it somewhere in either Thread #1 or #2....I can't find it at the moment. According to people who lived around the area, the report was that they heard a car going down Locklair Road that slammed on the brakes. They heard car doors closing and then gunshots almost immediately, then heard car doors closing again and brakes squealing as the car took off at a high rate of speed. If that report was true, if the couple was robbed of anything that was in their pockets or her purse it was almost certainly done while they were alive. It sounded like the murder was done pretty quickly. I've never been able to figure out why no one called the police after hearing the car brakes screeching, car doors slamming and gunshots. Like I said, a similar article is on this thread somewhere. I'll see if I can find it later. But the original article had a better report of what people around there heard that night. I actually bookmarked it but when I went in to read it again, it said the page was no longer available.

 

[MaryLiz]

This is what I posted on 8/10/07 post 113 in the second thread:

I read 2 similar news articles from South Carolina papers about 3 years ago. From what I can remember the articles stated that shortly after midnight, someone who lived in the vicinity of Locklair Road where the victims were found, was awakened when he heard a car come down the Locklair Road at a rather high speed and screech to a halt. He heard car doors slamming and almost immediately after that heard gunshots. He then heard car doors being shut and the screech of tires again as the car took off.

I know I read that twice in 2 different SC papers. I bookmarked one of them and when I went back to re-read it again, I couldn't bring the page back up; it said the web page was no longer available.

Here is the other article I posted on 8/10/07, post 114. It doesn't go into it as in-depth as the other article did about the timing of the gunshots, car doors slamming, etc.

Well, I wasn't able to find the exact article but there aren't many newspapers from SC at NewspaperArchives.com. I found one from the Florence Morning News from August 11, 1976 that says they thought they were shot right there and that nearby residents heard gunshots between midnight and 1:00 a.m.

Bodies Located Monday
Are Still Unidentified
SUMTER (AP)-​

Sumter authorities believe an unidentified man and woman whose bodies were found Monday on a dirt road near the Florence County line probably were out of state travelers. "We've sent teletypes everywhere," Kumler County Sheriff I. Byrd Parnell said, adding that they had received inquiries from as far away as Rhode Island. He also said that bulletins describing the two have been sent to other states and missing persons reports are being checked. The two were found about 6:20 a.m. near 1-95 and S.C. 141 by a man on his way to work. The dead man was about six feet tall, weighed 150 to 160 pounds and had brown shoulder-length hair. The woman was about 5-5, weighed about 110 pounds and had reddish brown hair. Both are believed to have been in their early 20s. "This girl was very young and very pretty. He was clean shaven. They were well groomed. They weren't the hippie-type. They looked like the All-American boy and girl travelers," Parnell said, "It looks like they were executed right there."

Sumter County Coroner J. Bennie Raffield said the bodies were about four or five feet apart and that both were lying on their backs. The two are believed to have been shot between midnight Sunday and 1 a.m. Monday, the coroner said. Area residents reported hearing gunshots from the area about that time.
______________________________________________________________________

I wish I could find that first article. The main reason I was trying to find it before to post it on here was because there was discussion back then too about the truck driver who found them being the one who shot them. I was trying to find the article to show that they were shot probably between midnight and 1:00 a.m. ​

 

[JaneInOz]

http://www.crimeandjustice.us/forums/lofiversion/index.php?t12233.html

Some interesting things in here

:No money on them, but they had their expensive jewelery on them
: They had eaten fruit or icecream that had fruit
:Jane doe had beautiful long eyelashes

I'm curious the morgue photos - the one where her eyes are wide open and mouth wide open and sheet pulled up to her neck and what looks like blood spatters above the sheet up the neck , and then the hair is really way back from the forehead like its been cut off and stuck back on ? does anyone else see that
So would she have been *autopsied* there before that pic was taken ?

And then at the end they close her eyes and mouth and do her hair for the photo ?

Is that how it works

 

[Teresa Larson]

http://www.crimeandjustice.us/forums/lofiversion/index.php?t12233.html

Some interesting things in here

:No money on them, but they had their expensive jewelery on them
: They had eaten fruit or icecream that had fruit
:Jane doe had beautiful long eyelashes

I'm curious the morgue photos - the one where her eyes are wide open and mouth wide open and sheet pulled up to her neck and what looks like blood spatters above the sheet up the neck , and then the hair is really way back from the forehead like its been cut off and stuck back on ? does anyone else see that
So would she have been *autopsied* there before that pic was taken ?

And then at the end they close her eyes and mouth and do her hair for the photo ?

Is that how it works

The jewelry they had on was not expensive. You could buy it at any truck stop back then. The LE also said they were shot where they were not killed and then dumped.

 

[Teresa Larson]

They had to have a car or van some place. I am sure they weren't walking. What happened to it? I don't think this case was investigated like it should have been when they were found. It seems like there was a cover up here especially after they found the gun.

 

[JaneInOz]

The jewelry they had on was not expensive. You could buy it at any truck stop back then. The LE also said they were shot where they were not killed and then dumped.

Thats interesting in that link I gave it has in all the articles that the jewelery was expensive ? expensive looking ?

snipped

Both wore expensive-looking jewelry, though. She was wearing three silver rings that resemble American Indian or Mexican jewelry. One piece had red, white and blue stones. Another ring had a black setting. The third was a feather ring with a jade inset.

 

[Mysterylover]

They had to have a car or van some place. I am sure they weren't walking.

What happened to it?
I don't think this case was investigated like it should have been when they were found.

It seems like there was a Cover Up here especially after they found the gun......

Teresa, Bingo!

You can fool all of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time....
keeping a case 'open' for 30 years is an EXCUSE to keep the facts hidden and allow the leads to dry-up or die...imo...

After reading what little I can find about this case, there's NO doubt in my mind, there is NO other conclusion to draw.

I'm of the opinion that after the murder weapon was found, 'someone with Power' made sure this case would go cold....Who was pulling those strings and Why ????

Information, clues and the males teeth 'accidently' lost!...Hmmmm!

I'd like to see the .357 S&W pistol checked again if it hasn't disappeared or was given back to L. Henry..

If a cover-up didn't happen, what other explanation is there for the lack of follow-up on the leads and the non conviction of L. Henry?..