Cold case closed: Missing girls died in car accident
John Hult, jhult@argusleader.com 11:15 p.m. CDT April 15, 2014
ELK POINT - The 1960 Studebaker Lark was in third gear, with the keys in the ignition and the lights on.
One tire was damaged.
And the remains of two girls, Pamela Jackson and Cheryl Miller, who disappeared in 1971 on their way to a party at a gravel pit in Union County were in the cab.
Those details emerged on Tuesday, as Attorney General Marty Jackley announced that neither foul play nor alcohol were part of the mystery that started as a missing persons case, and was investigated as a homicide in the early 2000s based on jailhouse testimony that turned out to be false.
They could state with certainty that alcohol was not involved, after 42 years?
Miller, Jackson positively identified; 43-year cold case closed
April 15, 2014 | Local News, Featured
By David Lias
david.lias@plaintalk.net
ELK POINT – Skeletal remains found last fall in a car submerged in a Union County creek have been positively identified as belonging to Cheryl Miller and Pam Jackson.
Official: Vermillion teens died in car crash in 1971
MOLLY MONTAG mmontag@siouxcityjournal.com
ELK POINT, S.D. | After nearly 43 years of searching for answers, Kay Brock finally has an explanation, albeit incomplete, of what happened the late-spring evening her younger sister, Pamella Jackson, mysteriously disappeared.
Jackson and a friend, Cheryl Miller, both 17, went missing while driving to a party at a gravel pit in Alcester, S.D., on May 29, 1971. On Tuesday, authorities announced the Vermillion High School students died that night when their car crashed into Brule Creek, just a half-mile from their destination.
The car, with two sets of human remains inside, was recovered in September after a passerby who knew about the case spotted it upside down and partly submerged in the muddy creek bank.
....
The car did not contain any evidence, such as cans or bottles, that alcohol was involved. Based on witness accounts, the girls, who visited Miller's grandmother in the hospital in Vermillion, then met up with friends and followed them to Alcester, wouldn't have had time to stop along the way, Jackley said.
How did the driver's license survive intact after being submerged for 42 years?
= new reply since forum marked as read