2013 is the year of the closed cold case, apparently

Kinja'd!!! "McMike" (mcmike)
09/25/2013 at 11:37 • Filed to: tips

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Cheryl Miller and Pamella Jackson, both 17 and both from Vermillion, in southeastern South Dakota, disappeared May 29, 1971, as they were on their way to a party, according to records on file with the Justice Department's National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

The beige 1960 Studebaker hadn't been seen until Monday, when a fisherman spotted its wheels poking up out of the water in Brule Creek near Elk Point, almost 30 miles east of Vermillion on the Iowa border,

The car was in bad shape after having been buried in the mud at the bottom of the creek for 42 years, and crews weren't able to pull it out until Tuesday, when they made the grisly discovery, South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley said at a news conference.

Jackley earlier told DKLT that the car was spotted thanks to a recent drought in the region, which dropped the creek's level low enough for it to emerge after four decades.

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Story


DISCUSSION (3)


Kinja'd!!! dinobot666 > McMike
09/25/2013 at 12:57

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It's great this decades old mystery may finally be put to rest, but there are some pretty typical things going on with regards to city locations, that even major media outlets always get wrong.

First of all, it's KDLT, and KDLT is in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, not Sioux City, Iowa as the article implies. People always get these to similarly named, but very different cities mixed up all the time.

Anyway, I hope the family gets some closure from this.


Kinja'd!!! Meatcoma > McMike
09/25/2013 at 13:03

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I always wonder if someone was executed or incarcerated for these cases when they happened. I assume we would hear about that side of it, but 42 years is a long time to pay for something that was not your fault.


Kinja'd!!! GreenN_Gold > Meatcoma
09/25/2013 at 13:36

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Some boys were questioned but let go. The wrong person did end up being charged, but he was already in prison for rape, and it resulted in another criminal being charged with purgery. From NBCNews.com:

"They began following a car full of boys whom they'd stopped to ask for directions to the party, but the boys told investigators that when they looked back in their rear-view mirror, the girls had vanished, the report says.

In 2004, clothing, bones, a purse and other items were found on a farm belonging to David Lykken, a convicted serial rapist who was subsequently indicted on six charges of murder in the girls' disappearance.

But those charges were dropped four years later when prosecutors learned that another inmate had made up his claim that Lykken had confessed to him. The informer was convicted of perjury, and Lykken remains in prison on the unrelated rape convictions."