Mystery couple murdered in South Carolina, 1976 - #5

[MaryLiz]

I really didnt see the resemblence with the Sylivie girl either...

I did find this girl that went missing from indiana in Oct 1974 she was 19 at that time what do you think of her? It doesnt say anything about moles. I thought the nose and lips forehead looked like a match.. Debra Ann Wilhite

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phenolred, that's a good possibility but I've read several news articles about Debra Wilhite and LE pretty much thinks she was murdered in Indiana the night she disappeared and even did a search of a landfill for her if I'm not mistaken. If I can find any of the news articles documenting this I'll post them.

 

[phenolred]

Ok I went back and found this I KNEW I had read the suspects name somewhere. Now if we can do some more investigating on him. LONNIE GEORGE HENRY HE WAS FROM NORTH CAROLINA
Sumter County Sheriff I. Byrd Parnell and his deputies arrived minutes later. Crouching over the corpses, they noticed a pair of tire tracks. There was nothing else.
The investigation
After making a plaster cast of the tire tracks and scouring for evidence, Parnell shipped the bodies to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston for an autopsy, which turned up little more than the obvious.


Sole suspect
About four months after the murders, police in the Darlington County town of Latta arrested Lonnie George Henry for drunk driving. Under the seat of his car they found a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson with the serial number filed off.
Police sent the gun to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division's forensic lab for tests and later concluded that Henry's revolver had killed the mystery couple. Bullets taken from the bodies matched with the weapon.
When officers asked Henry point blank if he was the killer, his polygraph said he was telling the truth. No, he hadn't pulled the trigger. But several other lie detector tests implied he was lying about something, at least, maybe covering up for somebody. Investigators wondered if someone had stolen his gun and whether a relative or friend of Henry's had killed the couple in Sumter.
But case files say Henry did lie about how he'd obtained the gun, first telling officers that he'd bought it from a truck driver. Days after the purchase, Henry told investigators, he discovered the serial number had been filed off. By then, it was too late to return the item for a refund.
SLED recovered the serial number and investigators tracked the gun from its manufacturer to Henry's brother, who said he gave it to Henry as a Christmas present four or five years earlier.
The gun had been bought, stolen and resold several times before falling into the hands of Henry's brother. But he said the serial number was still there on Christmas Eve.
When confronted with the new information, Henry confessed to filing the serial numbers off himself.
It remains unclear why Henry lied if he was innocent. And it also remains unclear if he really was. Case files say Henry was a recovering alcoholic and had also gotten in trouble with the law for a slew of minor offenses.
At the time, his son had recently drowned in the Pee Dee River. He'd also accidentally killed one of his co-workers, by backing a dump truck over him.
Investigative psychologists even wondered if he'd killed the Sumter couple and simply couldn't remember doing it

 

[phenolred]

I have a couple of questions too, We have talked alot about wether the KOA guy noticed an accent. BUT there was one other person that had seem them too. The fruit stand worker, the reports indicate he doesnt remember them being in a car or with other peeople. BUT DID HE notice ACCENT???

 

[Angie4b1g]

ANG I just thought of something I remember the work you did with the picture of the Arizona Jane Doe and added the eyes to her pic & hair, I was wondering IF PLEASE you could so something like that with the morgue pics of these to like open their eyes and maybe fix her hair a bit, I think it would defainately help to see their REAL pics with their eyes OPEN...

You did such a good job with the Arizona girl THANKS in advance

HEY GUYS I DONT KNOW WHY THESE PICS ARE SHOWING UP AS LINKS INSTEAD OF THE PIC ??????

I have a pretty hectic next few days, but I'll see what I can do.

ETA: I had a pretty good morgue photo of the Maricopa JD, nice and straight on, fairly large, easy to work with. I am by no one's definition a reconstructionist.

 

[phenolred]

Thanks Ang....I think it would be awesome if we coud get some open eyes on them....They seem to COME ALIVE....See what you can do I sincerely appreciate anything you can do. I wish we could get more REAL photos of them....Wonder if thats something Verna might know. I dont like composites I want to see the real person, composites just look too cartoonish to me...Thanks ANG

 

[christine2448]

I really didnt see the resemblence with the Sylivie girl either...

I did find this girl that went missing from indiana in Oct 1974 she was 19 at that time what do you think of her? It doesnt say anything about moles. I thought the nose and lips forehead looked like a match.. Debra Ann Wilhite

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The drawing and the morgue photo look very similar, IMO. But the real photo is throwing me off. Has this been looked into more?

 

[phenolred]

The drawing and the morgue photo look very similar, IMO. But the real photo is throwing me off. Has this been looked into more?

Im not sure maybe we could ask Verna if she has already been eliminated, since she has stated that the Indiana angle has been looked at, BUT I wonder if maybe they didnt look at her because she went missing in 74 and the Doe died in 76...I found a site where this persons daugher has posted looking for her missing mother, I read elsewhere that a couple of years after mom went missing her dad was killed in a car wreck and one of the other children died soon after of Luekemia, she is the only one left..I hate to bombard Verna with useless questions. Here is a link to the website where the daughter is asking about her mom she might know if her mom had moles on her face. Also this site is a great tool for other people we are looking for.
http://www.77investigators.com/messageboard.html

 

[BOESP]

I think we're all very conscious of these concerns, and I trust that the folks here will come up with viable leads for Verna. I mentioned that issue in my initial post about my contact with her, a few pages ago in this thread.

In seeing the photo of the girl's corpse, I can see now that her nose does not match the nose of Sylvie Ouimet. As to the ddrawing, I don't think it looks like the corpse either. Is the girl's chin pointed or oval?

 

[phenolred]

In seeing the photo of the girl's corpse, I can see now that her nose does not match the nose of Sylvie Ouimet. As to the drawing, I don't think it looks like the corpse either.

I agree 100% I dont think Sylvie is a viable lead.

 

[MaryLiz]

Here is Debra Wilhite's Doe Network page with other photos of her. I can see a resemblance, but in looking at the other photos I'm not sure the SC Jane Doe is her.

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/723dfin.html

 

[MaryLiz]

Sorry, I should have added Debra Wilhite's WS thread to the above post too for further reference.

http://websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37915&highlight=Debra+Wilhite

 

[phenolred]

I am going to work on making them their own myspace profile and add them to school alumni's any ideas for the Grad dates I should put for them?

 

[Marie]

More from the gentleman I emailed about the watch:

The Accutron watch was a high tech instrument in its day. It had a connection to the space program and was very popular with young people. It was cool, and relatively expensive starting at $125. Most of the ones that I repair were originally gifts from parents, wives, or friends.

Bulova was a world class manufacturer at the time, with manufacturing facilities in New York and Switzerland. Components were made in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The total number of watches made during the 17 years of production (1960 to 1977) has been variously put at anywhere between 17 and 24 million.

They were marketed everywhere and sold with a sizeable discount to GI's at military PX's all over the world.


Finally, when an old watch is opened to reveal the works, you can often find the initials and date of the various repairers who had worked on it scratched somewhere on the case or movement.

Please past that last part on to Verna

 

[Marie]

I am going to work on making them their own myspace profile and add them to school alumni's any ideas for the Grad dates I should put for them?

Grad date for JD - 1968 or 1969 based on the manufacture date of the watch and his estimated age.

 

[Marie]

Bumping this up because I like to refer back to the faces while I'm researching.

I just wanted to put all the pics in one place for reference.

 

[christine2448]

More from the gentleman I emailed about the watch:

The Accutron watch was a high tech instrument in its day. It had a connection to the space program and was very popular with young people. It was cool, and relatively expensive starting at $125. Most of the ones that I repair were originally gifts from parents, wives, or friends.

Bulova was a world class manufacturer at the time, with manufacturing facilities in New York and Switzerland. Components were made in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The total number of watches made during the 17 years of production (1960 to 1977) has been variously put at anywhere between 17 and 24 million.

They were marketed everywhere and sold with a sizeable discount to GI's at military PX's all over the world.


Finally, when an old watch is opened to reveal the works, you can often find the initials and date of the various repairers who had worked on it scratched somewhere on the case or movement.

Please past that last part on to Verna

Awesome info!

 

[MaryLiz]

I am going to work on making them their own myspace profile and add them to school alumni's any ideas for the Grad dates I should put for them?

phenolred - I meant to tell you last week when you came up with the myspace idea what an excellent idea it was. Let us know when you have the page done. I don't know about the girl, I was going to suggest that John Doe could have graduated anywhere from 1968 (the date his Bulova watch was made - it could have been a graduation present) to maybe 1970 or 1971?? Thanks again for the offer to do the myspace page.

 

[superunknown]

I'm compiling all this information.

I think what I'll do is contact Verna and ask her if it would be OK for me to send her a list of possible leads/questions from WS on a bi-weekly basis. That way we'll have time to analyze them and eliminate the ones that are collectively thought to be unrelated to this case, and therefore, we won't waste her time and energy....

I also think it is a really good idea to focus on the Jane Doe too. I think we all have had a tendency to focus on the male and it is possible that the female may be the key to this case. You never know.

 

[phenolred]

I'm compiling all this information.

I think what I'll do is contact Verna and ask her if it would be OK for me to send her a list of possible leads/questions from WS on a bi-weekly basis. That way we'll have time to analyze them and eliminate the ones that are collectively thought to be unrelated to this case, and therefore, we won't waste her time and energy....

I also think it is a really good idea to focus on the Jane Doe too. I think we all have had a tendency to focus on the male and it is possible that the female may be the key to this case. You never know.

Yeah sometimes women are more liking to try to find an old friend etc...and with her having those moles on her face helps identify her SOMEBODY has to know her went to school with her, Dated her was her sister cousin SOMETHING.

 

[Marie]

I'm compiling all this information.

I also think it is a really good idea to focus on the Jane Doe too. I think we all have had a tendency to focus on the male and it is possible that the female may be the key to this case. You never know.

I do look for her. It's just that there's not much info about her to research and post about.