I also think this was a carjacking. James P Freund would not have been without a vehicle. He was a “car guy.” As a mechanic and car salesman, he might have had a very distinctive car or van - one that attracted the attention of a criminal. James likely paid close attention to the care and appearance of his vehicle. Like others here, I think James would have given Pam a ride.
It is possible that Jim and Pam could have pulled into an area suitable for a romantic encounter, and been accosted by either rogue LE (efficient and accurate shooting - 3 bullets per victim with a 6 cartridge revolver) or other criminal focused on victims in such a setting.
It is also possible that one or both victims were sexually assaulted, leaving evidence that could be tested for DNA if the original investigators saved it.
I think that a carjacking seems most likely, too.
Was James really a car salesman? I know his father was, but I hadn’t heard anything about what work he did when he got out of the Army. I heard that he trained as a mechanic in the army. Car sales would make sense, though—it’s a job he could step away from to travel the country, and if he’d been good at it, I’d think he could step right back into it when he ended his travels.
They could have picked up a ‘local hitchhiker’—not a long distance traveler, but just someone who needed a ride home, and had a gun in his jacket that he’d borrowed from his good friend Lonnie....
Question about LE, would they have been driving around two to a car at this era, in this place? If James and Pamela were accosted by someone in another car—there have to be two people in the other car, I think—one to drive each car away. And why would ‘rogue LE’ even make an effort to drive James’s car away—I think it’d be more risky than just leaving it there.
The news reports at the time said that Pamela hadn’t been sexually assaulted, but LE keep many things to themselves. Also, there could be evidence left, without her being physically assaulted.
If by any chance, Pamela and James WERE hitchhiking, they could have picked up hair of the driver from the car seats. And if LE collected hair evidence—I’ve heard that there’s new techniques for testing hair for DNA....
If the story of hearing shots and a car race away from the scene is actually true, and wasn’t exaggerated, does that point away from the hitman idea? (I feel very skeptical of it, anyway.) I’d think that racing away noisily points toward someone who’s NOT practiced in that sort of thing.
