FL FL - Maggie, 18, & Mary Jenkins, 16, Key Largo, 3 May 1973

petchie

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Searched for a thread on these sisters but found nothing.


It was spring 1973, when hitchhiking was common practice for young people with somewhere to go and no car to drive there.

Maggie and Mary Jenkins were sisters, just 18 and 16 years old. The former North Scranton Junior High School students' journey to Key West was supposed to be a carefree break soaking in the Florida sun. The sisters, who had grown up in Scranton, were last seen hitchhiking back to their parents' home in suburban New Jersey.

They never returned, and their deaths remain a mystery.



Read more: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/cold-case-who-killed-the-jenkins-sisters-1.1252433#ixzz1iQv7LZk4
 
Two teen age girls hitch hiking that far in 1973?
Good Lord.Its amazing they even made it to Florida.The youngest sister was a minor did they have anyone looking after them when they came up with that brainstorm idea?
I hope the DNA is able to yield some answers.
 
This is classic, I mean classic for Gerald Stano. I just finished a book titled "I would find a girl walking." He committed double murders of female hitchikers, not just single murders.

He had ties to both FL and NJ. He was eventually tied to 22 murders, but LE believed there were many more.

Gerald Stano - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
This is classic, I mean classic for Gerald Stano. I just finished a book titled "I would find a girl walking." He committed double murders of female hitchikers, not just single murders.

He had ties to both FL and NJ. He was eventually tied to 22 murders, but LE believed there were many more.

Gerald Stano - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gerald Stano was still young at that year but according to himself already killing. However I read that he didn't sexually assault his victims and mostly stabbed and/or strangled them?

I was thinking of the modus operandi of Gerard John Schaefer who lived in Florida and picked up young girls hitchhiking. He picked them up in pairs because it excited him to kill 'doubles'. However, I believe he was in jail early 1973 so that doesn't fit him, but maybe somebody got 'inspired' by the news of his arrest. A copycat?
 
Gerald Stano was still young at that year but according to himself already killing. However I read that he didn't sexually assault his victims and mostly stabbed and/or strangled them?

I was thinking of the modus operandi of Gerard John Schaefer who lived in Florida and picked up young girls hitchhiking. He picked them up in pairs because it excited him to kill 'doubles'. However, I believe he was in jail early 1973 so that doesn't fit him, but maybe somebody got 'inspired' by the news of his arrest. A copycat?

7/24/72 - Schaefer is charged with aggravated assault and false imprisonment, and released on bond.
01/08/73 - Colette Goodenough and Barbara Wilcox, both 19, set out from Biloxi, MS, hitchhiking to Florida and are never seen again. Identification and papers belonging to the girls are later found in Schaefer's mother's home. Both bodies were recovered in 1977 at Port Saint Lucie.

01/15/73 - Schaefer begins serving his sentence for the crimes against Trotter and Wells.
You are very correct, reading the details of the disappearance of the girls. the case reads just like a Gerard Schaefer murder, however you are correct, he started serving his jail time in January 1973.
 
We need to get this solved, I am from Scranton PA - this is a cold case that has wrecked my hometown
 
They have evidence and DNA so hopefully this will be on FDLE's genetic genealogy radar soon if it isn't already. Lots of detail at link.

AUGUST 7, 2013
Mary and Maggie Jenkins – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports | Fort Lauderdale
Snips:
Duane Barlow, brother-in-law: "Their interest were boys, making money, they wanted to travel."

Duane Barlow was married to Mary and Maggie's sister and sadly remembers bragging to the girls about the time he hitchhiked from New Jersey to the Keys.

They decided it was a trip they had to take. Their parents gave them money for the bus tickets and they headed to Key West.

Detective Mark Coleman of Monroe County Sherrif's Office: "Met up with some friends down there, friends from their same home town. They partied; did the Key West thing at the time, just having a great time."

They ran out of money and instead of taking the bus back, they decided to hitchhike home like Duane had done.

Monroe County cold case detective Mark Coleman says a witness remembers seeing the girls standing near Mile Marker five with their luggage.

Detective Mark Coleman: "There was an extensive investigation from the files that I've gone through."

And that evidence has been preserved for 33 years.

Detective Mark Coleman: "Just last year, I resubmitted everything to the lab."

Detective Coleman is hopeful new technology and that DNA evidence will be point him to the killer of the young sisters.
 
Posted 11/14/2012

https://www.facebook.com/floridakey...ew-jersey-took-a-bus-to-key-/191765874281660/

18 year old Maggie and 16 year old Mary Jenkins of New Jersey took a bus to Key West in the spring of 1973 for a vacation in sunny Florida. They stayed for several weeks with friends. On May 2nd, 1973 they headed home. They told their friends they planned to hitchhike home to save money. The following day, the girls were found by a man walking his dog. They were dead in an isolated wooded area of Key Largo. They’d been shot multiple times and they had been sexually assaulted.

Detectives found one witness who said he drove them to mile marker 5 of Highway U.S. One and dropped them off at the Royal Castle Restaurant at about 10 p.m. on May 2nd. Another witness saw them there shortly after 10 p.m., but said he drove by again about 10:15 p.m. and the girls were gone.

Although their killer has not been found, detectives with the Sheriff’s Office have not given up. Recently, male DNA found on the bodies was sent to a state crime lab and to the FBI for entry into their DNA database for comparison to known criminals on file. Detectives say they also have bite marks, a shell casing and bullet fragments as evidence in the case.
 
Posted 10-26-2013. Lots more at link.

Our Unsolved Family Murder of Maggie & Mary Jenkins
Snip:

Maggie and Mary Jenkins were my Aunts who were murdered a few years before I was born. For a while Ted Bundy was a suspect because he was killing in that same area, but DNA testing ended up eliminating him. They were both redheads though and that didn't really fit his MO.

As of today even, with the DNA sample in the system no match has yet to be found and my family is still left wondering.
 
They have evidence and DNA so hopefully this will be on FDLE's genetic genealogy radar soon if it isn't already. Lots of detail at link.

AUGUST 7, 2013
Mary and Maggie Jenkins – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports | Fort Lauderdale
Snips:
Duane Barlow, brother-in-law: "Their interest were boys, making money, they wanted to travel."

Duane Barlow was married to Mary and Maggie's sister and sadly remembers bragging to the girls about the time he hitchhiked from New Jersey to the Keys.

They decided it was a trip they had to take. Their parents gave them money for the bus tickets and they headed to Key West.

Detective Mark Coleman of Monroe County Sherrif's Office: "Met up with some friends down there, friends from their same home town. They partied; did the Key West thing at the time, just having a great time."

They ran out of money and instead of taking the bus back, they decided to hitchhike home like Duane had done.

Monroe County cold case detective Mark Coleman says a witness remembers seeing the girls standing near Mile Marker five with their luggage.

Detective Mark Coleman: "There was an extensive investigation from the files that I've gone through."

And that evidence has been preserved for 33 years.

Detective Mark Coleman: "Just last year, I resubmitted everything to the lab."

Detective Coleman is hopeful new technology and that DNA evidence will be point him to the killer of the young sisters.

Thanks for posting that article PayrollNerd. I so hope there is a break in the girls’ case - such young girls and so far away from home....
 

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