Mystery couple murdered in South Carolina, 1976 - #6

[TedMac]

Shouldn't the McMinns have been ruled out by now? I ask because I found an article dated 2012 where someone was working on matching them. CarlK is even mentioned in the article and it sounds like the person researching this is/was a member of WS, but I don't know their screen name, it only lists their real name. Of course, I'll feel like a total idiot if it turns out to be someone I interact with on here all the time, LOL. Anyway, if I had to guess, DNA for both the UPS and MPS have been available for comparison for at least two years, if not more, and the former coroner was aware of the potential for a match since 2012 as she is quoted in the article. If she was aware back then, I'm sure the current one is, too. Wouldn't this have been a rule out by default? Or am I missing something and it's taken over 2 years to get a yay or nay? http://www.singletonfamily.org/getperson.php?personID=I280980

You raise a good point. There has been ample time to make a connection through DNA with the McMinns, even with the long back log of cases the lab is trying to deal with. There has never been any mention if it was a match or not. I would think either way, some information would be made public.

 

[Roselvr]

You raise a good point. There has been ample time to make a connection through DNA with the McMinns, even with the long back log of cases the lab is trying to deal with. There has never been any mention if it was a match or not. I would think either way, some information would be made public.

To answer the other posts; there's history in this thread; they've been turned into LE; its why they were added to NamUs. Now that the couple has DNA in NamUs; I want an official rule out

I'm out otherwise I'd link the McMinn posts.
The DNA for the Does was only added to NamUs the other day when I sent the emails to t:he RSA's

 

[Roselvr]

To answer the other posts; there's history in this thread; they've been turned into LE; its why they were added to NamUs. Now that the couple has DNA in NamUs; I want an official rule out

I'm out otherwise I'd link the McMinn posts.
The DNA for the Does was only added to NamUs the other day when I sent the emails to t:he RSA's

Here is some history, the posts at the end by Reannan goes back to 2012, thread 3

It seems someone is convinced that the mystery couple are Michael and Cordelia McMinn, to the extent that they've been included in their family's genealogical website which lists the couple's identity as Michael and Cordelia McMinn with a death date given as 1976 and place of death as Sumter County. If you Google Michael McMinn then this website comes up. It seems they are certain it's a match.

That's from 2012 by member Tear Drop; who started posting about McMinn's here
The link you mentioned is here

They were then entered into NamUs to be compared to the mystery couple. I'm not sure if the mystery couple are in NamUs in a hidden case file that we can't see. I asked someone from NamUs but never got an answer.

7-03-2012 Tear Drop

After watching several “disappeared” episodes, I felt compelled to try and solve a missing persons case myself. I started in my own state of SC and trolled around looking for cases that seemed solvable, which led me to this case. I believe, like so many others, that this couple had to have a family that was missing them and there was enough pieces of the puzzle to at least identify this couple. IT IS SOLVABLE!!!

I first started by eliminating missing people from 1976, and essentially eliminated all but a handful of missing persons. I kept coming back to Michael and Cordelia Mcminn, a couple from Portland, Oregon who went missing in May of 1976. Information about their disappearance wasn’t posted on missing person websites until 2008. At first glance, it seemed to be a “lost at sea” tale, but after doing some more investigating, there seems like something else was going on. They were spotted within 25 miles of their port of destination and LE has confirmed spottings in Canadian waters just north of the border as late as July. After doing some research about Michael and Cordelia Mcminn’s disappearance, it became clear (at least from news articles) that drug smuggling seemed to be a central theme in their disappearance. It was speculated that couple was high jacked and murdered by drug smugglers. On the other hand, in another news article, that references the Mcminn’s disappearance, the DEA indicates that high jacking of boats by drug smugglers for the purpose of smuggling drugs was not common, due to the fact that drug smuggling operations aren’t interested stealing boats, since they have plenty of money to buy boats and drug smugglers like to remain low key. Also, their boat was only a 25’ trimaran, not an expensive boat. Moreover, their boat was installed with an automatic radio beacon that would have been activated in the event that boat was sinking that the search parties would have easily located. Could the Mcminn’s been involved with drug smuggling themselves and were purposefully eluding authorities?

That being said, I also believe drug smuggling is at the center of the Sumter case. I think these are not drifters or hitchhikers as some people have suggested. I believe, for many reasons, foremost because they were to have been staying at the KOA, indicating they most likely had a vehicle or a camper. Also because of a news article which I have not seen any discussion about. A news article about a mechanic in York, Nebraska (where there is a Grant’s truck stop) who said he recognized John Doe and he had done repairs on their vehicle. He also stated that he remembered the license plate had either OREGON, or Washington plates. The most direct route from Portland or Vancouver region to SC goes through York, NE……….Hmmmm….

At this time in the drug smuggling history, camper vans were the vehicle of choice for the distribution of drugs(LE believes the tire tracks were from a van). Could Jane and John Doe have been smuggling drugs? According to David Batson, the guy at the KOA who shot pool with John Doe stated the couple was driving back and forth to Florida via I-95(The largest drug cable in the US). John Doe also stated “I was disowned for being a teacher rather than doctor…. like his father….and being from Canada” as one person described it…… “It sounds like something out of a Victorian novel”. This was a fabricated story to explain his North Eastern accent and why they are so far from home and are available to travel so much. If they are drug smugglers on the run, it would sound like a very likely story. The fact that the couple had been to Florida the year before, based on the ’75 IMSA shirt John Doe was wearing, also lends itself to this theory. The whole thing stinks of drug smuggling. Ultimately, I think Jane and John doe were executed for being a liability to the drug smuggling organization. I have also interviewed someone else that said they saw them at the campground.

During my investigation, I also saw that Reannan had contacted Michael’s brother.

Link to her post - http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...n-South-Carolina-1976-3&p=2562896#post2562896

Thanks for the heads-up Shadetree! I will of course, take your advice. Heck from reading WS's I LIVE in constant combat ready mode!

I stumbled on the following information today about a missing couple from the April/May 1976 time frame. I have never seen their names anywhere else, and it is infact, hard to find information on them. I can't find a description anywhere. Apparently, they were a young couple from Portland, Oregon with ties to Vancouver, Canada. They must have been fairly affluent because they sailed from Hawaii to Oregon for several years. They went missing on a sailing trip in May of 1976. There was one article from a September 1976 Newspaper that "the family" had launched an investigation. No mention of LE being involved. And the other thing I found was a posting on a Cruisingworld.com webiste by the brother of the missing man from August of this year (2008). How timely, huh? No where is there a description of the couple. So....I registered at the cruisingworld.com site and responded to his query with directions to our thread here. Can't hurt. The missing couple's name was Michael and Coredlia McMinn, both around 26 years old.

I have also contacted the brother and it is his position, as it was then, that he doesn’t believe that this is his brother and sister in law based on looking at photos. I think there are several reasons that can explain why he was unable to make an identification. Primarily, because it would be tough to identify anyone with so many varying composites and crummy photos, and also because of the enormous amount of time that has passed.

When I look at these photos, especially Carl’s composites, I see the same people. Thanks Carl for such fantastic composites! Also, I believe you can see a mole on Cordelia’s cheek. Michael Mcminn had a piece of metal pierce his shoulder in a motorcycle collision with a street sweeper rear view mirror which would explain the scars on his shoulder. Cordelia has blue/green eyes. All physical characteristics match: height, weight, hair color, eye color. I have been in contact with both families and they are willing to submit to DNA testing. This process will begin soon and I will keep the community updated with the progress.
I apologize for the length of the post, as I am new to websleuths. I have read every post on websleuths on this case. I think there has been some amazing investigating taking place on websleuths, by far the most in depth discussion of this case. I have conducted several interviews and have way more to post, but I will keep it short for now. I think the IMSA connection is the missing connection as some people have alluded to.

I think more compelling than anything else, is this that this explains why two families never went looking for their family members. They haven’t been looking for them, because they thought they were already deceased!

McMinn, Michael & Cordelia 5-12-1976 porchlight thread


http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...n-South-Carolina-1976-3&p=2562933#post2562933

And here is what the "brother" who is posting as "Sailorbrother" over at the cruisingworld.com forum said:

cruisingworld.com forum
COLD CASE
Sailorbrother
Hi folks,
I'm new to this forum, and although I sail a lot, I'm not an ocean cruiser. The real reason I've joined is to post a query.

My brother and his wife went missing some 30 years ago (April/May1976) somewhere between Kauai, Hawaii and Seattle, Washington. They were well regarded among sailors in Hawaii and had many floating friends. This is to ask the cruising public at large, especially you old-timers in the Pacific, to reflect on any of the following information and email me with any information you may have, however foggy:

J. Michael McMinn
Cordelia McMinn
25 foot trimaran, Drum
Sailed throughout Hawaii in the years 1973-1976

Also, if you have other resources you feel I should make use of, please let me know.

Thanks ahead and fair winds,

Peter McMinn

 

[Alleykins]

Four years is a long time to wait for DNA results and a comparison. Are you sure the Coroner didn't already rule it out a long time ago? It seems rather odd that in 2012 that a family member, investigators and the former coroner were all aware of the potential match between these four cases and are now just getting around to it? It didn't take that long to rule out Reet Jurvetson and Tammy Jo Alexander.

 

[carbuff]

We had a case here that took three years to confirm an identity they were pretty sure about to begin with.


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[Alleykins]

We had a case here that took three years to confirm an identity they were pretty sure about to begin with. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Do you know why it took so long to match up in that case?

 

[carbuff]

Do you know why it took so long to match up in that case?

Because it was a cold case, it kept being bumped by more active, urgent cases. It was also at a time when the MA labs were short-handed and had administrative issues as well.


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[Roselvr]

Four years is a long time to wait for DNA results and a comparison. Are you sure the Coroner didn't already rule it out a long time ago? It seems rather odd that in 2012 that a family member, investigators and the former coroner were all aware of the potential match between these four cases and are now just getting around to it? It didn't take that long to rule out Reet Jurvetson and Tammy Jo Alexander.

The couples DNA has been lost or something cause it just got put in. You can search all the threads for a rule out; I don't recall there ever being one.

There was stuff going on behind the scenes that a few people didn't feel they were checked so I decided I was gonnaspend my time to get the couple in NamUs with DNA and get them compared so that's what I've done. Hopefully I'll get a reply so those of us that don't feel they were compared can put it to bed.

 

[Ozoner]

I never heard of a Grant's Truck Stop in Montana. Maybe you are confusing it with the one on th AZ/NM border. Do you have a source for this?

The Grant's truck stop is in Idaho, not Montana, but the main freeway through Boise, I-84, continues into Montana.

In order to develop any theories, we need to start with a few suppositions. So let's suppose they were traveling from somewhere in Canada more or less directly to Florida and that they stopped by a Grant's Truck Stop. (Nothing is certain: they could have gotten the match book second hand.)

The only Grant's Truck Stops that I know of are in New Mexico and Idaho. Someone mentioned one in Nebraska, but I can't find any record of one there.

If they traveled through Boise, there's a good chance they started in BC or Alberta. That would also be true if they stopped by the Grant's in NM. I suppose Vancover is an equally likely starting point. I was originally thinking travelers from Vancouver would be slightly more likely to travel through California than Idaho, but maybe they did exactly that if the Grant's they stopped at was the one in NM.

The guy from the campground didn't mention Jacques's having a French accent, so that makes me think that he came from a predominanlty English-speaking portion of Canada.

 

[Springrain]

The only Grant's Truck Stops that I know of are in New Mexico and Idaho. Someone mentioned one in Nebraska, but I can't find any record of one there.

Wikipedia indicates that, when the mystery couple died, there were Grant's Truck Stops in Idaho, Nebraska, and Arizona.

The guy from the campground didn't mention Jacques's having a French accent, so that makes me think that he came from a predominanlty English-speaking portion of Canada.

I think it's definitely possible Jock came from Quebec. In fact, I think it's probable. I lived there for four years, and only about half of the people had any trace of a noticeable accent when speaking English. But I do think he could have been from anywhere in Canada.

 

[Alleykins]

Because it was a cold case, it kept being bumped by more active, urgent cases. It was also at a time when the MA labs were short-handed and had administrative issues as well. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Gotcha. I've noticed that something was up with MA when they started uploading a ton of cases in NamUs a few months ago, some were very old (over 20 years). I had sent a potential match in where they both had fingerprints and the NamUs rep was still trying to obtain them to make the comparison like two months later. I thanked her for her time.

 

[carbuff]

Gotcha. I've noticed that something was up with MA when they started uploading a ton of cases in NamUs a few months ago, some were very old (over 20 years). I had sent a potential match in where they both had fingerprints and the NamUs rep was still trying to obtain them to make the comparison like two months later. I thanked her for her time.

Yeah, and some of them are for UIDs I never even heard of being found. One of them was in back of a building where I worked, when I worked there. It was back along the railroad frontage, but still, you'd think we would have noticed. But it was summer and the trees and undergrowth were thick, so maybe not.

P. S. I believe he was identified right away once the information was made public.


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[Alleykins]

Yeah, and some of them are for UIDs I never even heard of being found. One of them was in back of a building where I worked, when I worked there. It was back along the railroad frontage, but still, you'd think we would have noticed. But it was summer and the trees and undergrowth were thick, so maybe not. P. S. I believe he was identified right away once the information was made public. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wow, how long were the remains there before they were discovered?

 

[carbuff]

Wow, how long were the remains there before they were discovered?

I'm not sure. I think at least a year -- he died in the winter and was found late the following fall. The case didn't have much information, and like I said it never got into the news at the time. The only information was the little notice that said he'd been identified when his family saw the information in Namus, and his name wasn't being released. They said he was a homeless veteran, which is really sad.

The other thing that's sad and sobering is that first of all nobody found him for a while, and then nobody heard about it. We say about many of our older cases, "Oh, well, if they were from the area, somebody would have identified them by now." But it certainly wasn't true in this case.

 

[dotr]

Although the male Doe was described as 18-22, they say he could be older, so-
because of that, the possible name of Jock, his appearance, and that he might be a Canadian, and may have studied medicine.. i wonder if it is too much of a stretch to compare him to a poi in the 1969 murder in Laurel Canyon, of a young woman from Montreal? he was a medical student from Montreal, named Jean or Jacques.
speculation, imo.
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?56996-CA-Laurel-Canyon-WhtFem-358UFCA-20-23-Manson-Victim-Nov-69-Reet-Jurvetson&p=12796059#post12796059
[url]http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/47-years-later-police-learn-where-montreal-woman-stayed-in-hollywood-before-being-stabbed-to-death-1.3752816

[/URL]

 

[Alleykins]

That's an interesting hypothesis, Dot.

 

[carbuff]

I had the same thought. Click to enlarge.

 

[Roselvr]

That's an interesting hypothesis, Dot.

I agree. I posted on the Fifth Estate

 

[JanetElaine]

Although the male Doe was described as 18-22, they say he could be older, so-
because of that, the possible name of Jock, his appearance, and that he might be a Canadian, and may have studied medicine.. i wonder if it is too much of a stretch to compare him to a poi in the 1969 murder in Laurel Canyon, of a young woman from Montreal? he was a medical student from Montreal, named Jean or Jacques.
speculation, imo.
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?56996-CA-Laurel-Canyon-WhtFem-358UFCA-20-23-Manson-Victim-Nov-69-Reet-Jurvetson&p=12796059#post12796059
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/47-ye...ywood-before-being-stabbed-to-death-1.3752816

Very interesting. And I could totally see if his name was 'Jacques' how he'd end up as 'Jock' (or how people could have thought he said Jock).

 

[Wondergirl]

Although the male Doe was described as 18-22, they say he could be older, so-
because of that, the possible name of Jock, his appearance, and that he might be a Canadian, and may have studied medicine.. i wonder if it is too much of a stretch to compare him to a poi in the 1969 murder in Laurel Canyon, of a young woman from Montreal? he was a medical student from Montreal, named Jean or Jacques.
speculation, imo.
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?56996-CA-Laurel-Canyon-WhtFem-358UFCA-20-23-Manson-Victim-Nov-69-Reet-Jurvetson&p=12796059#post12796059
[url]http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/47-years-later-police-learn-where-montreal-woman-stayed-in-hollywood-before-being-stabbed-to-death-1.3752816

[/URL]

Dotr, did you send this tip in? It needs to be sent in, I'M. Great catch

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