TedMac
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What do others think about leaving the bodies so visible rather than hiding or burying them? Had the person(s) that murdered these two had them buried, and with nobody coming forward to claim them, these two would very literally have disappeared with no one looking for or missing them.
Do you think the killer was confident nobody would trace these two back to them, would it have been a warning to leave them so visible where they would be found right away as opposed to putting them in an empty field or somewhere where they wouldn't be found until they decomposed or were they in witness protection and wanted them to be found? Thankfully we at least have pictures of them, I wonder if the killer knew these two didn't have anybody looking for them, so didn't bother covering their tracks more.
What are some thoughts on being so casual with them as opposed to tucking them away in hopes of them never being discovered or not until sufficient time had passed to make ID and evidence minimal? Does that speak to a possibility of what the killers relationship to the victims or am I grasping at straws?
I remember another case where a woman and 3 children were found in oil drums and found decades apart, or Caledonia Jane who was left in a field, or the McStays found in an unmarked grave in the desert, here our Does were just left for anybody to drive by and see them. I don't know if there is any psychological reasoning behind that, since they could easily have been spotted executing them on a public road instead of taking them behind some closed business and doing it there. It's almost as if they picked up a hitchhiker and he or she pulled a gun on them and had them exit and decided it was safer to kill them then risk themselves being caught. Maybe they mentioned it was just the two of them and the killer thought that with them gone, nobody would report the vehicle stolen?
Just curious what others think, if it's common in crimes like this to not make more of an attempt to cover things up, and since they weren't discovered for several hours, if the killer knew that or not that the road wouldn't be used much at that hour so that was good as anywhere else and that whether or not pictures of the two could be taken, no evidence on them existed to ID them and nobody would ever be able to recognize them, as if they were tourists from outside the country and in that time it would be next to impossible if they were "backpacking" through the country that anyone would come across the Does since they could be anywhere and there are a lot of unsolved and unidentified murders especially difficult for their family if they didn't speak English in addition to being outside the country.
BBM There are a lot of things unknown about this case, starting with the identity of the victims. One poplar theory has the victims as being John McMinn and his wife. They were reported lost at sea in the Pacific not long before the two bodies were found in SC. If the dead bodies are the McMinns, that would explain why family members haven't reported them as missing (believing they were drowned in the Pacific). Some feel that the McMinns were caught by Federal Authorities with drugs in the Pacific and were working undercover when they were murdered in SC. Others also feel that the victims were the McMinns and they faked their deaths to become involved in the drug trade on their own.
The motive of the killings is unknown and whether the killer or killers even knew who they were is also a mystery. This may have been a drug deal that went bad and the killer/killers simply ripped them off.
The killer may have known that the victims would never be identified or they simply may have wanted to make a quick getaway and left them where they where they were found. The killer also may have not cared whether the victims would be identified or not.
You questioned whether the couple may have been backpacking across the U.S., but the coroner indicated that the female had smooth feet which would probably indicate that she was not a hiker. Plus, the shoes she was wearing were not hiking shoes.
Also, the McMinn's DNA was submitted back in 2012. Hopefully, we will get some answers soon.