Mystery couple murdered in South Carolina, 1976 - #6

dsntslp said:

Welcome to WS!!!!

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Welcome to the forum!and Website!:twocents:

First, I want to say Welcome to WS's to all of our new posters. It is truly wonderful to know there are people in this world who still care!!! About the murder weapon: our UID couple were shot with a .357 magnum, and they were each shot with two bullets into their body and an additional shot under the chin (called an "insurance shot" in some articles). The murder weapon was found FOUR MONTHS AFTER THE MURDERS!!! It was found during a drunk driving arrest in the town of Latta, SC. A man named Lonnie George Henry was stopped for drunk driving and the gun was found under the seat of his car, which was latter "proven" to be the murder weapon by ballistics. BIG PROBLEM HERE.... the gun found under the seat of Lonnie George Henry's car was reported to be a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson with the serial number filed off. The gun was latter traced back to Lonnie George Henry's brother who "sold" it to Lonnie. There is a BIG difference in a .357 magnum and a .38-caliber gun. That is one of the questions I want cleared up when I plan on visiting the current coroner in Sumeter County sometime this Summer (hopefully in June). Lonnie George Henry passed lie detector testing in terms of him not being involved with the shooting, but he was not so clear about the origins of the gun. Lonnie has since died - but I bet he has family that could be interviewed. I really need a good investigative journalist to go with me up to Sumter County and help with this story, and I am working on that angle. As far as DNA evidence goes - new hope in that areana. There IS supposed to be DNA profiles on our Jock and Jane Doe victims. I want it compared to the DNA of Maria Vazquez Ocampo De Lugones and Cesar Amadeo Lugones who went missing as a couple from Argentina months before Jock and Jane Doe were killed in South Carolina.

Reannan said:

First, I want to say Welcome to WS's to all of our new posters. It is truly wonderful to know there are people in this world who still care!!! About the murder weapon: our UID couple were shot with a .357 magnum, and they were each shot with two bullets into their body and an additional shot under the chin (called an "insurance shot" in some articles). The murder weapon was found FOUR MONTHS AFTER THE MURDERS!!! It was found during a drunk driving arrest in the town of Latta, SC. A man named Lonnie George Henry was stopped for drunk driving and the gun was found under the seat of his car, which was latter "proven" to be the murder weapon by ballistics. BIG PROBLEM HERE.... the gun found under the seat of Lonnie George Henry's car was reported to be a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson with the serial number filed off. The gun was latter traced back to Lonnie George Henry's brother who "sold" it to Lonnie. There is a BIG difference in a .357 magnum and a .38-caliber gun. That is one of the questions I want cleared up when I plan on visiting the current coroner in Sumeter County sometime this Summer (hopefully in June). Lonnie George Henry passed lie detector testing in terms of him not being involved with the shooting, but he was not so clear about the origins of the gun. Lonnie has since died - but I bet he has family that could be interviewed. I really need a good investigative journalist to go with me up to Sumter County and help with this story, and I am working on that angle. As far as DNA evidence goes - new hope in that areana. There IS supposed to be DNA profiles on our Jock and Jane Doe victims. I want it compared to the DNA of Maria Vazquez Ocampo De Lugones and Cesar Amadeo Lugones who went missing as a couple from Argentina months before Jock and Jane Doe were killed in South Carolina.

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BBM.
You can fire .38's out of a .357. I think a 357 magnum is just a 38 special with a longer shell casing to fit more gunpowder.
Can a gun person weigh in on this?

Yes, I fire .38s out of my .357 because they are an identical bore. That is, .38 is the cartridge/chamber diameter and .357 is the barrel diameter roughly over the rifling grooves/bullet diameter. The bore diameter of the barrel is actually smaller than .357 (like maybe .350) so that the bullet will engage the rifling grooves. Magnum just designates a longer cartridge with more propellant inside.

That is interesting about the .357 vs .38 caliber... is it common for someone with a .38 caliber weapon to use .357 bullets? What would be the rationale for doing this?

Reannan said:

That is interesting about the .357 vs .38 caliber... is it common for someone with a .38 caliber weapon to use .357 bullets? What would be the rationale for doing this?

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.38s are the same diameter as .357s but they recoil less. You can't use .357s in .38 because the shell casing i too long, only vice versa.

PHB said:

.38s are the same diameter as .357s but they recoil less. You can't use .357s in .38 because the shell casing i too long, only vice versa.

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Thanks PHB... then we are back to the question of why do reports indicate the couple was shot with .357, but the "murder weapon" found in Lonnie George Henry's car was a .38 Smith and Wesson? We have discussed how aspects of this case seemed like a cover-up in the past. The thing is - at this point, I just want the victims to have their identity back.....

Reannan said:

Thanks PHB... then we are back to the question of why do reports indicate the couple was shot with .357, but the "murder weapon" found in Lonnie George Henry's car was a .38 Smith and Wesson? We have discussed how aspects of this case seemed like a cover-up in the past. The thing is - at this point, I just want the victims to have their identity back.....

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BBM.
Good question. Does anyone know if forensics can detemine if a bullet came out of a .38 shell casing vs a .357?

A .357 is usually a heavier bullet (because it can be with the greater charge) so if it was a bullet that was heavier than anything that comes in a .38 then you would know it was a .357. If it was a lighter .357 then I doubt that you could tell for sure unless it was a particular type of bullet (point type or makeup or brand name or whatever) that only came in one or the other number designations. Those are some but not necessarily all the ways to tell. I would expect that there are some bullets where you would not be able to tell for sure which they came from.

For that matter, a 9mm that was deformed in firing and impact could also look very much like a .357/.38.

Reannan said:

Thanks PHB... then we are back to the question of why do reports indicate the couple was shot with .357, but the "murder weapon" found in Lonnie George Henry's car was a .38 Smith and Wesson? We have discussed how aspects of this case seemed like a cover-up in the past. The thing is - at this point, I just want the victims to have their identity back.....

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Yes, I would say either something "funny" was going on or simply that one of the reports was in error.

I read about the report from the KOA worker earlier in the thread. How far was that campground from where the bodies were discovered? Were any bags or other belongings ever found? Camping equipment? The female victim wasn't wearing the type of shoes that most women would wear if they were camping/traveling on foot. They must have either had their car stolen, or they were staying somewhere nearby where they could change/keep their bags. Any campgrounds nearby with unclaimed belongings? Hotels with occupants who never returned? These people were most likely traveling through the area, so what happened to their stuff? They weren't reported as being dirty or looking like they were unwashed, so where were they staying?

marie-chantal said:

I read about the report from the KOA worker earlier in the thread. How far was that campground from where the bodies were discovered? Were any bags or other belongings ever found? Camping equipment? The female victim wasn't wearing the type of shoes that most women would wear if they were camping/traveling on foot. They must have either had their car stolen, or they were staying somewhere nearby where they could change/keep their bags. Any campgrounds nearby with unclaimed belongings? Hotels with occupants who never returned? These people were most likely traveling through the area, so what happened to their stuff? They weren't reported as being dirty or looking like they were unwashed, so where were they staying?

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There is no information on what happened to their stuff. The KOA story came out a year later, so their stuff they may have left behind at the KOA was long gone. There is no info provided in the thread as to if any gear was reported unclaimed at other campgrounds or motels in the area and given the length of time since then, any records are long gone.

Fascinating case. Is it known what kind of accents they both spoke with ?

The dental work the young guy had had done is very puzzling...where could he have been,that his teeth were in such bad shape ? Didn't most states use flouride in the water back then ? I know Nevada didn't start using flouridated drinking water until later than the other states..

Also, how did he suddenly have the money and/or dental insurance to get such extensive dental work done ? And it looked to be American standard of dentistry,yet no dentist ever came forward to say that he worked on this guy's teeth ? Weird...MOO

I kind of thought they may have been Cubans...would explain why no one was looking for them. If their families were still in Cuba... Maybe they were originally from Cuba,but living in Florida, and that's where the car racing interest came from.Maybe around Daytona...

Going to read more...

Is it just me, or does Jane look like she's wearing eyeliner, maybe eyeshadow? If so, where is the makeup?

Also, I'm from Charleston and I'm going up to visit at the end of this month. I plan to make a detour to visit the scene of the crime. Anyone know whereabouts on locklear rd they were found? Any landmarks or even coordinates?
I know it sounds macarbe to want to visit these places, but I feel one can learn alot by being in the actual area rather than just viewing google earth.

An article in the National Post (3 april 08) said that the couple "stepped from the back of a van" before being shot. I am assuming they know its a van due to tire impressions, and footprints may have been in such a way to look as if they got out the back of the vehicle. I have not read this anywhere else.

parakeet said:

Is it just me, or does Jane look like she's wearing eyeliner, maybe eyeshadow? If so, where is the makeup?

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I did not really want to look too deeply a few times I just looked it over quickly.
But I did notice eyeliner, still the description says her legs were not shaven?
Some controlling men do not allow shaving of any body parts.
They may have been held captive for a few weeks and she was not allowed to shve her legs?:what:

It's very interesting that she did not have the dental problems that the young guy had... I wonder about their relationship.How did they know each other ? The only commonality that they had when they were found is that neither was wearing underwear... It seems kind of unusual for a young woman not to wear any underwear. Because of periods etc ? MOO

ETA I found out that race cars and car races were a popular thing in Cuba at one time...but before the young guy's time, he would have been a kid. There was a group of Argentines who lived in Cuba before Castro took over, and they were big on race cars... FWIW, and JMO

If there is a chance these are Europeans, could they DNA not be enterd into the European systems as it might pick up a relative. On that note does the american DNA system allow for comparing DNA to see if an unknown donor has a relative in the system. Alternatively universities might be prepared to look at the DNA. I read somewhere that there was a high chance that a man's DNA could be narrowed down to just a few surnames by looking at various databases. Also if the DNA was examined they might be able to detect their ancestory, which might hint as to where they are from. I know that they can sometimes detect where a perosn lived by looking at their bone make-up, maybe they could do that too. It seems to be it might be good if LE asked a university to look at the bones for their own interest rather than having it treated like a nrmal cold case.