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

[PatLaurel]

Orphans' Court | Lancaster County, PA - Official Website

I wonder if he had a child. They deal in adoptions and termination of parental rights.

He did. Born in 1970.

ETA: The name is misspelled. Freud instead of Freund.
13 Jan 1970, 2 - Intelligencer Journal at Newspapers.com

 

[superunknown]

Very interesting!! Thanks for sharing.

Here is a link

10 Oct 1985, 43 - Lancaster New Era at Newspapers.com

It was a legal notice of him being declared dead in 1985, which would have been 10 years after he was noted as missing.

Here's a link to another notice of his former wife petitioning the court to have him declared dead. It's from 1988.

22 Apr 1988, 38 - Intelligencer Journal at Newspapers.com

This notice said he hadn't been heard from since December 25, 1975

13 May 1988, 42 - Intelligencer Journal at Newspapers.com

 

[Betty P]

Hah! So if we operate under the assumption that this is "our" Jim, he totally made up that name, Jacques and gave some *advertiser censored* and bull story to the campground guy about being from Canada and having a father who was a doctor who disapproved of his son's life choices. Yeah, he was definitely either a jokester or deliberately trying to conceal his identity while on the road.

If you follow enough cases here at Websleuths and elsewhere, you'll learn what law enforcement experts say about witness testimony. In spite of best intentions, people's memories are often unreliable. Someone working at a KOA Campground back then probably saw a lot of young couples like this one traveling through, especially during the summer months. It sounds like the witness mistook them for another couple passing through. JMO

 

[Bit of hope]

Here is a link

10 Oct 1985, 43 - Lancaster New Era at Newspapers.com

It was a legal notice of him being declared dead in 1985, which would have been 10 years after he was noted as missing.

Here's a link to another notice of his former wife petitioning the court to have him declared dead. It's from 1988.

22 Apr 1988, 38 - Intelligencer Journal at Newspapers.com

This notice said he hadn't been heard from since December 25, 1975

13 May 1988, 42 - Intelligencer Journal at Newspapers.com

Kind of sad, isn't it?

 

[superunknown]

Super good observations here. I think with any situation like this, it's all about ruling things out. It's very possible that James WAS the man at the campground, and that for his own reasons, he had a cover story. My gut feeling is that this case is going to get much more interesting as time goes on. I personally do not think they were hitchhiking, I think they must have had a vehicle. They were, according to the former (now deceased) Coroner, very clean and well groomed, which if you are old enough to remember the heydey of hitchhiking, was not usually the case

There's more to go on here than in a lot of cases, but we do have to be careful not to assume too much. I'm sure many thousands of hours have been expended trying to chase down French Canadian possibilities.

Colorado Springs is where the Air Force Academy is located, and a large number of Air Force personnel are posted there or retire there. It could mean something, but maybe not. Anyway, although her family is from MN, she is reported missing from there in '75. It's a long time to keep your family guessing, which suggests that maybe there was a reason she didn't want to be in touch, such as a guy.

But in this case, the guy is reported missing, also in '75, but from his hometown of Lancaster, PA. He's about 30 by this time, and he's a guy, and he's ex-military, but his family are still concerned enough to report him missing. And as Carl likes to remind us, this is all--both of them not entered in NamUs before last year, when genetic genealogy had offered them up as possibilities and their status as missing was entered on our accessible databases--a good reminder of what an incomplete picture of missing persons we have available to us on the web. Now, does he go out west, and meet her there, and travel across the country? Sounds romantic, and maybe they head south to AZ, go to the southernmost of the three truck stops represented by the matches, and travel east until they get to SC. Or, maybe not. Maybe Jim gets the matches from a truck driver or someone who's staying at the KOA, assuming they ever were there. At any rate, LE seems to have reason to believe they met each other hitchhiking, and maybe someday we will find out why that is, or what other suspicions they may have regarding PsOI. And it's just as likely that she hitchhiked and he hitchhiked and they fell in together close to where they were murdered.

Robbery doesn't seem to be the motive, if the watch and jewelry are still there. Presumably, though, they would have carried some form of ID, so it's likely that was removed to make ID more difficult. There is some speculation that they may have had a vehicle, and that it may have been stolen, but in that case now that we have ID investigators stand a good chance of finding out whether either had a car registered to them. And I'm going to guess no, because if Jim's family were posting ads regarding an inheritance, there's a good chance they may have hired a PI to run down at least Social Security and car registration records.

So, maybe we will get enough information to speculate intelligently on the circumstances, and maybe not.

 

[vermontaigne]

Here is a link

10 Oct 1985, 43 - Lancaster New Era at Newspapers.com

It was a legal notice of him being declared dead in 1985, which would have been 10 years after he was noted as missing.

Here's a link to another notice of his former wife petitioning the court to have him declared dead. It's from 1988.

22 Apr 1988, 38 - Intelligencer Journal at Newspapers.com

This notice said he hadn't been heard from since December 25, 1975

13 May 1988, 42 - Intelligencer Journal at Newspapers.com

I find this very interesting, too, because the sheriff said that they both had been reported missing by their families in 1975, but if he called his wife on Christmas Day of 1975, you'd think they might not have reported him missing until 1976.

 

[branmuffin]

James' high school yearbook says he wants to be an accountant.

And the KOA guy said "Jock" was a teacher.

 

[Triss]

Seeing my pet case being solved... gives me all kinds of feelings. It's weird. I've never felt this way before. They were the case that brought me to the world of Does. I can finally call them by their real names and it's bittersweet.
James Freund... being half German, I can't help but smile looking at his last name. He did seem like a pretty friendly guy. And he was reported missing, his family was looking for him all these years!
Pam Buckley... you guys were right, it really is her. And wow, looks like she was quite an artistic and creative soul, a free spirit, no wonder James wanted to hang out with her. Fun fact - she and I share the same initials and birthday. Cool!
They had such interesting lives, lives that were taken too soon. My heart breaks for them, their families and their friends. I hope they can find some peace knowing that there were many people who cared about Pam and James all these years. I'm grateful for all the people who worked hard to discover our couple's real names. I wish Verna Moore was alive to see this. She was so dedicated to this case.
Rest in eternal peace, Pam and James. I will not forget you. May justice come swiftly. <3

 

[leilarose68]

Seeing my pet case being solved... gives me all kinds of feelings. It's weird. I've never felt this way before. They were the case that brought me to the world of Does. I can finally call them by their real names and it's bittersweet.
James Freund... being half German, I can't help but smile looking at his last name. He did seem like a pretty friendly guy. And he was reported missing, his family was looking for him all these years!
Pam Buckley... you guys were right, it really is her. And wow, looks like she was quite an artistic and creative soul, a free spirit, no wonder James wanted to hang out with her. Fun fact - she and I share the same initials and birthday. Cool!
They had such interesting lives, lives that were taken too soon. My heart breaks for them, their families and their friends. I hope they can find some peace knowing that there were many people who cared about Pam and James all these years. I'm grateful for all the people who worked hard to discover our couple's real names. I wish Verna Moore was alive to see this. She was so dedicated to this case.
Rest in eternal peace, Pam and James. I will not forget you. May justice come swiftly. <3

Triss, you are the poster I will always associate with this case You were in here discussing them at times when very few were. I can only imagine how gratifying these answers are for you.

 

[Bit of hope]

Seeing my pet case being solved... gives me all kinds of feelings. It's weird. I've never felt this way before. They were the case that brought me to the world of Does. I can finally call them by their real names and it's bittersweet.
James Freund... being half German, I can't help but smile looking at his last name. He did seem like a pretty friendly guy. And he was reported missing, his family was looking for him all these years!
Pam Buckley... you guys were right, it really is her. And wow, looks like she was quite an artistic and creative soul, a free spirit, no wonder James wanted to hang out with her. Fun fact - she and I share the same initials and birthday. Cool!
They had such interesting lives, lives that were taken too soon. My heart breaks for them, their families and their friends. I hope they can find some peace knowing that there were many people who cared about Pam and James all these years. I'm grateful for all the people who worked hard to discover our couple's real names. I wish Verna Moore was alive to see this. She was so dedicated to this case.
Rest in eternal peace, Pam and James. I will not forget you. May justice come swiftly. <3

Thanks Triss, wonderfully said. These two were also my "way why" to websleuths....

 

[superunknown]

Ditto! I've been following this case for a long time but have only had time intermittantly to come back here to check up on it! Kudos to those who stuck with it!

You are the poster I will always associate with this case You were in here discussing them at times when very few were. I can only imagine how gratifying these answers are for you.

 

[Betty P]

Also think about the social/political/societal changes that took place between 1965 and 1976. Huge changes!!!

I knew quite a few guys - cousins, neighbors, brothers of friends - who went through this cycle back then. Early marriage just before or after enlisting in the military, usually not long out of high school. Marriages often broke up before their service was completed. Sometimes the couples already had small children. If the guy did a tour in Vietnam, it was even more difficult. Ken Burns documentary on the Vietnam War a couple years ago addressed a lot of the problems they faced fitting into their old lives back home.

I've studied genealogy for 20+ years and learned not to judge people's lives until you know more about the times and circumstances in which they lived and feel the same about victims of crime. Killers, not so much.

 

[Bit of hope]

DBM misspelled

 

[Sneaker33]

Why did it take so long for these two individuals to be entered into the NAMUS database as missing persons? What year were they entered in NAMUS as unidentified individuals? I understand both victims were reported missing. I am not sure of the year but I think they both were reported close to the time of the discovery of the remains. Is there a backlog of missing person cases in particular states to be placed in NAMUS? Do we need to make the public more aware of NAMUS to help solve these old cases.

 

[Bit of hope]

First post #1 in this case was in 2004, from @Richard, that's "only" 17 years ago.

 

[ajac71]

I just saw that Verna has passed.....I wish she had survived to see this, if not for her the dust would have settled long ago...Pams Eyelashes stayed with her...Thank you Ms Moore.

Vale

 

[JDCF1970]

I’ve never posted on this site before, but I’ve been interested in this case since I stumbled upon it about 15 years ago....in fact I still have an email from Deanna at DoeNetwork in 2007 thanking me for alerting them to the news coverage of their bodies being exhumed for DNA.
One thing that strikes me - it never once occurred to me that their families wouldn’t have been looking for two people together, when in fact it seems that neither family would have been aware that James was with Pamela and Pamela with James - assuming they were together - and wouldn’t have expected them to be. The Canadian angle was clearly a bit misleading, particularly since the “Jacques” theory was reinforced by the “J” on the ring. Another thing often suggested was that they were affluent - in reality he may well have bought his Bulova watch discounted from a PX store when he was in the army, although it’d likely still have cost a bit.
Kudos to all who worked so hard on this case and gave Pamela and James their names back. RIP.

 

[StarryStarryNight]

I kinda feel they were killed in a robbery, but the rumors about drug runners and the racing circuit seem possible too.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Super good observations here. I think with any situation like this, it's all about ruling things out. It's very possible that James WAS the man at the campground, and that for his own reasons, he had a cover story. My gut feeling is that this case is going to get much more interesting as time goes on. I personally do not think they were hitchhiking, I think they must have had a vehicle. They were, according to the former (now deceased) Coroner, very clean and well groomed, which if you are old enough to remember the heydey of hitchhiking, was not usually the case

Exactly. When I read the coroner say how beautiful she was and how clean they were ~ I knew there was something special about these two. I’ve read a lot of war stories here. I don’t think I’ve ever read such a statement from a coroner or any authority about a corpse ~ how beautiful and clean. What a lovely spin shining upon her empathetic profession. These words have grabbed and pulled me into this mystery.

 

[Ray_of_hope]

Investigators identify victims of 1976 cold case out of Sumter County