Crime Junkie - UNIDENTIFIED: Sumter County Does

Episode Date: July 1, 2019

In August of 1976, the bodies of a young man and woman were found in rural Sumter County, South Carolina. Police would infer a lot from their belongings and the state of their bodies, but more than four decades later, their identities - as well as the identity of their killer - remain a mystery... BUT the Crime Junkies have a chance to change that. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/unidentified-sumter-county-does/    

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today, I have a totally different type of story to tell you. In 1976, it was the year of the American bicentennial, and all through the U.S., events were being held in cities to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the signing of Declaration of Independence. Now, that summer, fireworks lit up the night sky, and it was hard to avoid the festive cheer.

The U.S. had just gotten out of the Vietnam War, and with Watergate scandal fresh in everyone's mind, people were hoping for a return to some kind of normalcy. Then came 1976, and everywhere you looked, you saw the American flag on everything. T-shirts, magazine covers, even cigarette lighters and sneakers. It was hard to escape the patriotic optimism that was the spirit of 1976. But roughly one month after the bicentennial,

police in a quiet region in South Carolina would come face to face with one of the more perplexing mysteries maybe ever. It's a horrible double murder in which both of the victims, as well as their killer, remain unidentified to this day. But it is the season of justice, and Britt, you, me, and our listeners, actually have a chance to help solve a cold case. This is the case of the Sumter County Doze.

Our story begins on August 9th, 1976, a Monday, and a trucker named Martin was traveling along Locklair Road in Northwest Sumter County, South Carolina. Now, this is a secluded dirt road about half a mile from Interstate 95, which just ran parallel to it. Around 6.20 that morning, this trucker decided to pull over along the side of the road to rest, and that's when he made a shocking discovery. Two bodies, one male and one female, had been abandoned on the side of the road,

and each had been shot multiple times. Martin tried to forward this information to someone, anyone, and he was able to get in touch with a man named Charles Graham, who worked at a store nearby. Wait, this is in the 70s. How did he get in touch with them? I honestly don't know. I can only assume that he called him via his CB radio, because in some of the reporting on this story, it says, like, in quotes, he called him.

But clearly, again, like you said, this is the age before cell phones or any kind of mobile communication. So that's kind of where my mind goes. It has to be CB radio. But he was able to forward this information to this Charles Graham, and then Charles phoned the police. Not too long after, officials with the Sumter County Sheriff's Department arrive on scene, and they begin to look over the victims. And there's actually a photo available of the crime scene, and, Bert, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

Oh, wow. So they were found pretty recently after their death, and they still have all their clothing on. The bodies are pretty intact with no decay. That's a really good sign, right? Like, we have everything we need to really, really figure out what's going on with the bodies, the cause of death, everything, right? Right. I think everyone on scene that day thought this would be solvable. It quickly became apparent to investigators that each of the victims

had been shot three times with a.357 revolver. Both the male victim and the female victim had been shot in nearly the exact same locations, the chest, the back, and the throat. Oh, that seems really methodical. Exactly. This wasn't someone firing randomly, and investigators theorize that this was actually a planned killing of some sort, and each of the victims had likely been shot in the back and the chest first, and then it was actually the shot to the neck right underneath the chin

that were their final, like, kill shots, if you will. Yeah, that definitely is methodical, but it kind of seems like overkill, doesn't it? So that's actually what police thought at the time, too. It seemed like whoever wanted these two dead really wanted them dead for whatever reason. Now, neither of the victims had any identification or money on them. To investigators, they appeared to be just two normal-looking young adults. They looked well-groomed. They looked like, you know, maybe a couple, but they were in their early 20s, and as police learned later,

both of the victims had actually showered within 24 hours of their murder. They were non-smokers, and from what they could tell from the autopsy, neither one of them had done drugs recently or consumed any alcohol. Now, fingerprints were taken for both of the victims and compared with local missing person cases, but we wouldn't be calling them Sumter County Doze, and this would probably be a really short episode if they had any luck identifying them by their prints.

So they had to rely upon evidence found at the scene, as well as witness statements from the surrounding area to try and help identify these two. During the autopsy, investigators would learn that the victims had eaten either ice cream or fruit shortly before their murders. And now, to me, those are wildly different things. Yeah. But I guess maybe when it's all mashed up in, like, stomach-assity mess. And gets broken down. They look really similar.

Yeah, it could be anything, but they end up thinking that it's fruit because a witness would come forward who claimed to have seen these two at a fruit stand along the nearby Florence Highway shortly before their murder. Was the witness able to provide anything that was helpful other than they ate fruit, maybe? Yeah, unfortunately, no. It seems like this witness didn't know anything else. They couldn't even tell investigators whether they were at the fruit stand by themselves, like were they driving their own car or whatever. All that they knew was they were standing near the fruit stand the end.

But this was just one of multiple witnesses that came forward in the following days and weeks claiming to have personally encountered this young man and woman in the surrounding area. Now, one of these other witnesses was a guy that lived out in the boonies between Sumter and Florence, South Carolina, which really is in the middle of nowhere. And he claimed to have heard the crime take place in the early morning hours of August 9th, but he couldn't provide any specific details. He just said that he heard a car pull along the side of the road, which was followed by a series of gunshots, and then he heard a vehicle speed away.

Wait, this is in the boonies, right? Mm-hmm. What was he doing all the way out there? Yeah, it seems a little bit fishy. I don't know whether they looked into this guy. I would assume that they did. And it really doesn't say. In all the research I found, I couldn't find out why he'd be out there,

but some of the sources seem to refer to this guy as kind of a hermit. So I just assumed that he was living a little bit of an alternative lifestyle, kind of out in the middle of nowhere. And I don't know exactly how valid his series of events actually was, but there was another witness that came forward a few months later who had a much more detailed story. This eyewitness was a campground employee from Santee, South Carolina, which wasn't too far away from where police found these two bodies.

Now, he claimed to know the name of the male victim, who he actually called Jacques. Like Jacques, like the French name Jacques, or like the athletic guy in high school. So it's weird. The police kind of referred to him as Jacques-Quise. So the witness actually spells the name J-O-C-K. But for whatever reason, police seemed to have assumed that he was mistaken,

and they would apply the other spelling of the name, the French name Jacques-Quise, to this unknown male victim moving forward, and they actually ended up nicknaming him Jacques-Quise Doe. But through the story, I mean, I'll still call him Jacques, because the only person who had any kind of interaction with him calls him Jacques. And how does this witness claim to know him? Well, this witness claims that Jacques had been staying at the campground that he worked at, and apparently this guy, like, stayed there while en route to Florida.

And at the time, Jacques apparently did have a female companion with him, who the witness believed to be our Jane Doe. A short time later, after his initial stay, Jacques and this unknown young woman were actually traveling back through the same area, and they stopped and stayed at the campground again. Now, during the second stay, the witness claims that he actually kind of befriended Jacques, and they were shooting pool together, they started hanging out for a bit, and during their time together, he said that Jacques apparently had talked about his father

being a prominent Canadian doctor. And he also mentioned that Jacques had once pursued a career as a school teacher, which his family, like, did not like at all, made them super mad. They wanted him to pursue a life in medicine, and he was eventually disowned by his family for his refusal to do so. Is that when he decided to just start traveling around the States, or what? I mean, yeah, I guess this witness said that Jacques was just wandering around America at his leisure doing kind of whatever floated his boat at the moment.

But if he really was from Canada, maybe that's why police are assuming that his name was French in origin. And if the story is true, it would explain why no one had reported him missing in the area. If he was disowned by his family for being a school teacher, then maybe they weren't even looking for him. Right, which, I mean, as far as reasons to disown your kid goes to me seems like one of the absolute worst. 100%. But let me just recap a bit. Police didn't know the victim's full identities, but they had their fingerprints, multiple witness statements, and a possible first name for the male victim, and a bunch of personal details. Doesn't that seem like a good start to investigation?

So you would think so. However, this case would struggle to move forward, because to this day, more than 40 years later, police have yet to identify the victims. In fact, one of the investigators who's now retired would later state that these two victims seem to have come from another planet. That's how difficult this case would prove to be. Now, there are really two separate aspects to this story. The identity of the victims and the identity of the killer. And in a case where you don't know the identity of either, you've got to start with the victims, and who they might have been, because we know most victims know their killer.

So we need to know who they were and why someone would want to kill them. The first thing that stands out is how peculiar this case is. Generally, whenever you look into a dough case, there's not much about the victims. Like, you usually don't even have a physical description, clothes. I mean, half the time we just get a pile of bones. But in this case, police were able to learn a lot about the victims from the items they had on them, in addition to their physical features and clothes and everything. So let's take a look at Jacque's dough first, or who our camp guy calls Jacque.

Physically, Jacque was about 6'1", and weighed around 150 pounds with shoulder-length brown hair, which was, you know, very fashionable at the time. And he had olive skin, brown eyes, and brown eyebrows. And I point them out because they're like thick eyebrows. And the bodies hadn't been there very long at the time, like you mentioned earlier. So we aren't even working off of artist renderings. We actually have pictures of them, and Brett, I'm going to actually send you one, so you can see what I'm talking about.

Yeah, I mean, you described him completely, and it is a completely intact picture. There's nothing wrong with him, honestly. And from someone who also has thick eyebrows, his eyebrows are definitely present. They're super thick and super bushy. I totally get that these are distinctive. Right. So he also had an athletic build. And originally, in this investigation, he was believed to be very young. Now, the autopsies listed his estimated age somewhere between 18 and 22.

But, as we'll learn, he might have been much older than that. How could they be that far off an age? You think that an autopsy could really narrow it down? I mean, kinda. It was speculated that due to his build and clothing he wore, he looked younger than he really was. It's not like humans have those bark rings like trees do. So if you know nothing about them and there's no ID, the only thing you have to go off of is physical fitness, clothing, and you just kind of piece the puzzles together little bits at a time.

But there's usually something about our bodies that give us away. Our teeth. They got a forensic dentist named Dr. Charles B. Hannah Jr. to come in and look at the teeth of both victims. And he stated that Jacquees Doe was older than police had originally theorized. Due to the dentation, which actually is the development or arrangement of the teeth, and he said due to the dentation, he was likely older than 27. And he had apparently had his wisdom teeth pulled out years before the crime,

and they generally don't come in until you're an adult. So it's believed that about a decade had passed since Jacquees had his wisdom teeth pulled. Now years later, when Jacquees Doe's profile was created in Namus, his age was listed anywhere between 18 and 30, which is a really wide range to me and really not super helpful at all when trying to like narrow down who this guy might be. Now in addition to having his wisdom teeth out, the forensic dentist was also able to determine that this unknown young man

had received some pretty extensive dental work, and he'd been in the middle of a total dental restoration. Some of this work happened as recently as within a year of his passing, but some of the work had been incredibly unique. Jacque had apparently had a unique kind of root canal performed on a tooth, and it was called a fluted root canal, which is only performed by a small number of dentists in the United States at the time. How small a number of dentists are we talking about?

Like less than a dozen or so. At least that's what some of the reports have indicated. So when investigators find this out, they're like bingo, this is how we're going to identify him. And his dental records were actually published in the American Dental Association, I don't know if it was like a paper or magazine later that year, but unfortunately no dentist would ever step forward with knowledge of who Jacque was. Okay, was it not an option to be a little bit more proactive about that then? Like if they knew there were less than a dozen dentists who performed this operation,

isn't it kind of obvious that they could narrow those people down and start knocking on some doors? I mean, I'll go knock on doors, good lord. I mean, I assume that's like not how it worked though, like from everything I could gather, they were basically advised by other dentists that this type of work is super rare, but I don't think they had like a directory for it or anything. And of course, Jacque had to go to like the one dentist that isn't keeping up on his monthly publication. So other physical details about Jacque's dough that police would reveal to the press included a four-inch appendectomy scar on his lower right abdomen,

as well as him having various scars along his back and shoulders, indicating some kind of participation in like a contact sport, maybe football, hockey, something like that. So we have a lot of physical information about Jacque. Like we said earlier, more than we normally get on most doughs. It seems like this alone should be enough, but we have even more. We have the items he had on him when he died. And many people think that his belongings provide some of the most intriguing clues for his identity.

And I kind of agree. This includes his clothing. At the time that the two bodies were discovered, Jacque was wearing sandals, a faded Levi jeans, and a red Coors American light beer t-shirt. And on the back of the t-shirt it read, Camel Challenger GT Sebring 75, which seems to have come directly from Sebring, Florida, where an annual race was held. And this race in particular seemed to have taken place obviously in 75 and was sponsored by Coors. So are we assuming that he was in Sebring in 75 and that's when he got the t-shirt?

Or could he have gotten it from someone else or maybe like a Goodwill? I think either. I tend to think from the research that I did, police believe that he actually was in Florida. Again, the timeline is so close. The race happened in 75. He was found in 76. And also, if you remember, there was that story from the campground employee who said that, you know, this Jacque guy had stayed there before heading to Florida and then also stayed there on his way back. So we know this Jacque guy was in Florida at some point.

Now, Jacque Doe was also wearing a few items of jewelry, which seemed to raise even more questions. He was wearing a gold wristwatch, which had been manufactured by a company called Belova, I think is how you say the name. And it was manufactured in 1974 or maybe as early as 1968, depending on which reports you read. Is this expensive watch that maybe has a serial number that can be tracked, or is it just something that he could have picked up at a department store? No, so it's actually something that would have had a serial number and that they could have tracked. But unfortunately, it seems like the watch manufacturer had downsized a few years beforehand

and in the process ended up shredding most, if not all of their records. This meant that it would be nearly impossible to track down where or when the watch had been sold. So the watch is out, but he's also wearing a 14 karat gold ring that had a gray sapphire stone. And on the inside of the band, police were able to find one of the most unique clues pointing to this young man's identity. The ring had a set of initials, J, P, F. Well, if his name was Jacque, that would kind of make sense, right? Well, exactly. But with no clues as to what the P and the F stood for and no missing persons report with those initials,

police weren't able to get anywhere with the ring either. And it doesn't seem like police were able to match up those initials with any missing persons at the time. With no luck tracking down Jacque's identity from his body or his personal effects, police hoped to have better luck with Jane Doe. But she didn't have nearly as many of the belongings or definitive features as Jacque did. Physically, our Jane Doe stood about 5'5 and weighed between 100 and 110 pounds. She had reddish brown hair that went down her shoulders, bluish gray eyes, that some sources list as being hazel, but, you know, I think that's kind of all the same.

And she had unusually long natural eyelashes, which goals. Truly. She also had three very distinctive moles, two on the left side of her face near her mouth and another one on the opposite side, which you can see if you go back to the picture I sent you of their faces. And I'll also be posting them on the website if anyone wants to take a look and follow along. But she had a slim build, also had olive complexion and pierced ears. Jane Doe was examined by the forensic dentist who discovered that she had some dental work done in the past, but not much. Her back teeth had a couple of fillings, but other than that, there was really nothing unique about her teeth,

other than the fact that they were straight. She also had no surgical scars anywhere on her body or really scars of any kind. There was no sign that she'd ever been pregnant or recently given birth. And police also note that her legs were unshaven, which really isn't that unusual. Yeah, I mean, it's the 70s. That could have been either a feminist statement or just she's traveling and doesn't have a razor. Totally. So investigators noted that Jane Doe appeared to be a few years younger than her male counterpart.

And she was originally estimated to be between 18 and 20. But when she was entered into NamUs years later, this estimate is amended and she is now listed as being between 18 and 25 years old. Now, clothing wise, Jane Doe seemed to have been wearing stuff that was very typical for the time. She was wearing lavender and hot pink wedge sandal heels, daisy due cut off jeans shorts, a pink halter top tied in the front and a white blouse. Unfortunately, there was really nothing about these items that really made Jane Doe stand out or really pointed to her identity. So police would end up leaning on a few pieces of jewelry that she was wearing to get the most unique indicator of her identity. Now she had three very distinctive rings that she was wearing. Okay, so you just sent me the pictures of some of the jewelry found and it looks really Southwestern, a lot of silver and turquoise.

It looks like it could be, you know, something that is maybe Mexican or Native American. Yeah, so investigators because of this jewelry theorize that at some point the jewelry at least had come from the American Southwest. And they determined that they were authentic handmade pieces. Each ring was made of sterling silver and featured various designs with turquoise chips and stones. And these are what police would use to try and find Jane Doe's identity, hoping that somebody would recognize them as they were so unique. Again, this isn't something you're picking up from like a general store. Yeah, I feel like these would definitely stand out in South Carolina. It's not at all the American Southwest.

Yeah, like, I mean, I used to live in Arizona. This is exactly the kind of thing you see at like very small local boutique shops. And this actually plays a major focus in the investigation when trying to identify these two. Police had all of these unique pieces of evidence. You know, they're placing the man in Florida at some point with her. She's got these rings from the Southwest. He's told people he's in Canada. It's like we have all of these little pieces and this huge unfinished puzzle.

So to make things more confusing, we've got these pieces from everywhere. Police discover a pack of matches inside the male victim's pockets. And the matches bore the logo of a chain of truck stops named grants. Is that like similar to a loves or a flying J like a gas station? Exactly. But because this was a chain, it made it really hard for investigators to pin down where these matches might have actually been obtained. Grants truck stops were located in three states, Idaho, Nebraska and Arizona. Naturally, you'd think the matches had to have come from the Arizona location.

It would explain the rings and the turquoise and everything, right? Right. And that's exactly what I thought. But it seems like after the information of these two murder victims was distributed around the country, a man in Nebraska actually contacted authorities. And he told them that he was a mechanic at a grants truck stop in Nebraska. And he had done some work on the young man and woman's car as they were driving through the state. And he recalled them having either Oregon or Washington state license plates, but didn't have any more information about them.

So again, police have all of these different clues, a race track in Florida, a campsite in South Carolina, jewelry from the Southwest, dental work that was unique and only could be performed by this like select group of dentists, a father in Canada, who's a well-known doctor, a possible sighting in Nebraska with Pacific Northwest license plates. Like, do you see what I mean? This case is crazy. There are so many pieces that seem like they should fit together, but don't. And that's what police had to work with at the time as they tried to figure out the identity of these two victims. And hopefully they're killer.

So with this information about their victims, police start to put together theories. And one of the theories that detectives floated early on was the idea that Jock and Jane Doe might have been hitchhikers who were eventually killed by the person that was driving. I guess that would explain why they are never linked to a vehicle. Yeah, but it doesn't really explain the Nebraska truck stop story. And it's possible that the victims had been hijacked by the killer, like maybe they had a car. Maybe it was someone they had stopped to pick up or someone that had been riding with them who, you know, got out of the car and shot them on the side of the road.

Police assume that the victims had originally been shot in the back and that their killer followed that up with the shots to the chest and the neck. So if you can imagine, like whether they're driving or someone else is driving, someone hijacked them, like if they're being marched out of their car, if someone has a gun to them, the killer's probably behind them, would shoot them in their back and then shoot them again. Regardless, though, it's a very real possibility that the victim's vehicle had been stolen by their killer. But without knowing, again, either of the victim's identities tracking down this vehicle would be pretty much impossible. Out of the two possibilities, the victims either being hitchhikers or someone like hijacking their vehicle, I tend to lean towards the hijacking.

Yeah, I think that makes the most sense to me, too. I mean, both victims were well groomed, they were dressed well, and they both showered really recently, right? Totally, like you would imagine that hitchhikers might look a little rough for the wear, especially in the middle of South Carolina in the summer where it's like humid, there's bugs everywhere. Well, and on top of that, the Jane Doe was wearing heels, who would hitchhike in heels? Such a good point. Okay, so to go a little off track here, I have a quick question. Is the assumption that these two were friends or dating, or do we think they even knew each other at all?

Actually, for many years, there was a theory that the two victims were related, probably like even brother and sister, because they looked kind of similar, like they have the same olive skin tone, the same dark hair, dark eyebrows. Yeah, I guess from their photos, I could see that maybe they're related. Yeah, so for a long time, this was kind of the assumption, everyone had their theories. However, several years later, DNA of the two was compared, and it seemed to prove once and for all that the two were definitely not related. So wait, their DNA was tested?

Yeah, so actually several years ago, back in 2007 or so, it was reported then that police were submitting the samples to a forensic database, but it doesn't seem like it actually led to much other than just being able to say that they're not related. Officials repeatedly tried to match their identities with missing person, and as far as I know, reached out to officials in multiple states and counties to no avail. Okay, so I assume that if we can't even get their identity through DNA, we definitely don't know who the killer is, right? I mean, unfortunately, no, but not for lack of trying.

Shockingly, even without the victim's identities, it seemed like police had a couple of really strong suspects that they looked into, including a suspect that popped up on their radar a few months after the murder. This suspect, whose name was Lonnie George Henry, was arrested in Lauda, South Carolina in January of 1977 for drunk driving. Now, this is just about two counties away from where the two bodies had been found in the prior August, and Lonnie was even already on police's radar. He was nearly 60 years old and didn't have much in the way of a police record.

However, during his arrest, police found a pistol inside his car, and the gun's serial number had been partially filed off. Well, that's always a good sign that the gun was obtained legally. Awesome. Right. Was it the murder weapon, or did it have any of the same characteristics? It was the same type, a.357 caliber revolver. Investigators actually test-fired it to try and match ballistics,

and according to reports, it seemed to be a match for the murder weapon. Okay, and by match for the murder weapon, you mean it was the murder weapon, right? It seems like it might have been, but I don't really know for sure, because reports were never quite clear on that, and firearms tests are never 100% accurate. But police seemed to believe that this was the murder weapon, and they had Lonnie submit to a polygraph test. He told police that he had not murdered the Two Sumter County Does, and on that question, they said he passed.

However, when asked about when he had received the pistol, he seemed really evasive. And this is odd, especially since a family member explained to police that they had given the guy a pistol as a birthday present a few years prior. Now police questioned him about this, and Lonnie admitted to filing off the serial number himself, but we can only really speculate if he knew anything about the murder or had any involvement. It seemed like he had an alibi for the day of the murder, and that seemed to be that, citing insufficient evidence,

police never pressed charges or pursued a case against him. And to make matters even worse, Lonnie passed away just a few years after the murders in 1982. Whatever he might have known seemed to have died with him. Because of his age at the time, which again, he was like pushing 60 years old, some believe that he might have loaned out the pistol to someone, and later just refused to name names. Okay, but that would still make him complicit. Yeah, but it's kind of a moot point now.

I mean, again, he passed away in 1982, and any potential involvement he may or may not have is just gone. Right. Did police ever have any other suspects? They did, and because this is an open case, it's impossible to know everyone they may have looked into. But one of the most infamous serial killers of all time actually ended up being a suspect for a little while. Really? Which one? Henry Lee Lucas, who some of you may recognize as being one of the creepiest dudes ever. He was known as a bit of a drifter that committed violent crimes for over a decade,

oftentimes conspiring with another guy that was just as creepy as he was named Otis Tool. There could really be an entire podcast about their crimes, but in short, Henry Lee Lucas was an insanely creepy guy who did a lot of bad things, and you guys can go down the Google rabbit hole for yourselves, and maybe we'll do a future episode on him. But in 1983, Henry Lee was arrested, and he was eventually convicted for 11 murders. But police believe that he was responsible for many, many more. And this is partially due to the fact that Lucas would confess not just to a handful of crimes,

but even dozens and literally hundreds of crimes. Hundreds? Yeah, he confessed to quite literally hundreds of murders, and eventually a Lucas task force was created to investigate the validity of his claims. You see, he had been known as a proficient liar as well, and it was later found that he would use information from the media and directly from police files to make his false confessions. Wait, how did he have access to police files? So police just gave them to him, unfortunately.

A lot of police departments were so eager to close open cases that they were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and he ended up lying quite a bit in order to get special privileges in prison. So to be clear, in addition to being a super creepy serial killer, he's also a professional scammer as well? Yeah, you got it. Okay. So he is known to lie to police just to get out of his boring prison life for a few days,

and they would often take him to like restaurants, he'd get better food or whatever, and it's a way for him to break the monotonous nature of prison, and police just kind of indulge him again because they were eager to solve these cold cases. Well, when Lucas was going through his confession spree in the 80s, he admitted to killing two people in Sumter County, South Carolina. Now, this would later turn out to be an elderly woman he claimed to have murdered in 1975 and a young man nearly a decade later in 1983, but he also specified that he had been in Sumter County in August of 1976,

the same time that the Sumter County does were killed by an unknown individual. So it could have been him, but it's impossible to know for sure. If you're asking me, though, I think it's not likely. Police don't really comment on open cases, but when Henry Lee Lucas passed away in 2001, he had already been widely discredited as a rampant liar. It's totally possible that he had just learned the date of the murder and tried to get police interested in him as a suspect.

Now, unfortunately, there aren't many more suspects that police seem to have expressed interest in. I'm sure they had random persons of interest here or there, but other than those two, the case seems to have hit a brick wall pretty early on. So sadly, the case today is still completely open and unsolved. Police closed the murder investigation in 2009 because they wanted to focus entirely on identifying the victims, but they're no closer even now to that than they were 40 years ago. The bodies of Jock and Jane Doe were held in a local funeral home

for over a year after their murder in caskets that had see-through glass lids, and they did this because they wanted people to come in and try to identify them, and that was the best way they knew to do it at the time. They also shared their photos with publications throughout the region, hoping to raise some kind of interest and attract attention. Additionally, they shared the victim's fingerprints and dental records with experts and authorities in other regions around the nation. Multiple people contacted authorities in hopes of identifying the two,

wondering if either of them might be their lost loved one, perhaps someone that had run away from home months or years prior, or had otherwise gone missing. Now, this included people from all over the country, and police even reached out to authorities in South America in an attempt to find the Doe's names. Where in South America? Namely, Argentina, where I guess a bunch of people had gone missing in like the mid to late 70s during a crisis known as the Dirty War.

And if you look at this case online, you'll find a handful of discussion groups and threads talking about the possibilities of them matching people from Argentina, but it doesn't seem like any of these potential matches have led to positive identifications or investigative leads in the years since. So since that didn't lead anywhere, like I said, Jacques and Jane Doe would remain on display in the funeral home for more than a year. But on August 14, 1977, they were finally buried in Bethel United Methodist Church Cemetery in South Carolina.

The memorial service was attended by hundreds of people from the region who had followed along with the story and had been hoping for a happier ending. The graves of the two would read, male unknown and female unknown, since they remained unidentified, and neither of them, nor their killer, would ever be identified in the following decades. Now, I had mentioned earlier we had DNA. That's because in 2007, the bodies were exhumed from those graves so that investigators could get DNA samples.

And this is where investigators confirmed that they weren't related. This effort was actually led by longtime Sumter County Coroner Verena Moore, who had been the deputy coroner at the time of the murders back in 1976. And for more than three decades, she had worked tirelessly in an effort to identify this unknown man and woman. And when she retired in 2009, she had to put the matter to rest. Now, she ended up unfortunately passing away in 2017 at the age of 91, never receiving the answers she worked so hard for.

To this day, as you guys know, the identities of the Sumter County Does, Jacques and Jane remain unknown, as does the identity of the killer who has never been brought to justice. But it doesn't have to stay that way. For the first time ever, we crime junkies have an opportunity to help solve a case. And I get full body chills just talking about this because it is so exciting to me. So here's the scoop. Britt, you know we have been seeing all these cases popping up right and left,

cases that are getting solved through genealogy, right? Of course. Well, there's this nonprofit that I am obsessed with called DNA Doe Project. Their mission has been using this new technology to give Doe's their name back. And I know we all know this, and this case is the perfect example, but it is so hard to solve a case and find a killer when you don't even know the names of the victims. Victims' identities are the first step towards justice,

and this organization is doing just that. As of this recording, they've already given names to 11 Doe's, people that didn't have their names for decades, and now we can help give more victims their names, including the two in our story today. I spoke with the folks over at the DNA Doe Project, and they have already reached out to law enforcement on this case, and law enforcement is interested in having them work it.

The DNA Doe Project is currently waiting on the bones to be sent for DNA extraction, and once they have them, they'll need money to process the DNA. So this is your chance to help solve a case, and, bonus, you can get some crime-junkie swag as well. It's a win-win, and here's the scoop. On July 1st, 2019, we opened up our online merch store, and in this release, we have a new design. Season of Justice Design.

And you guys, you've got to check it out. It is so cool. We have it on shirts, tank tops, and even water bottles. Proceeds from all Season of Justice sales will go directly to the DNA Doe Project to fund this case and others. They have four additional cases right now that need funding. If you're familiar with our store, you'll know that we only open for a couple of days at a time every other month. The first day is just for fan club members,

so the store will open to the general public on Tuesday, July 2nd, 2019. Do not wait to get your Season of Justice merch. Once it's gone, it's gone. This is a limited-time fundraiser. Now, if you don't want merch or you're listening to this later and you miss the store opening, but you still want to help solve a cold case, you can donate directly to the DNA Doe Project by going to dnadoeproject.org. When you make your donation, let them know that you're a crime-junkie listener. Now, I'm sure you guys can hear, like, how hyped up I am.

We are living in a time where we can help solve cold cases, and this is all I've ever wanted. So don't forget, either go to dnadoeproject.org to make your donation or visit our merch store by visiting our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com, and purchase any of the Season of Justice items. This fundraiser is for a limited time only. And again, the store will open to the fan club members on July 1st, 2019, and will open to the general public on July 2nd, 2019.

And it's only for a couple of days. So what are you waiting for? Let's solve a mystery together. And I cannot wait to bring you the update episode. To see pictures from this episode and to get a link to the DNA Doe Project site, you can visit crimejunkiepodcast.com. Make sure you just click the episodes tab, and you can also find a link to our merch store on the site as well.

Again, we open up to the general public on July 2nd. If you want to make sure you get the merch you want, you can get priority access today by joining the fan club, which can also be found on our website. And be sure to follow us on social at crimejunkiepod on Twitter, and at crimejunkiepodcast on Instagram. We will be back next week with a brand new episode. Crimejunkie is an audio chuck production.

So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? MMMMMMMMMM