My guess on who they are and why no one is looking for them

[necco]

A long shot, I know, but could this couple possible have come to the US from South America for training and/or sabotage at Fort Benning? While the School of the Americas was not yet relocated there, there is evidence that the CIA was training Latin American individuals there as early as 1963 or so.

 

[BOESP]

Was anyone able to see the "hair moles" on Maria that are known to be on Jane Doe in South Carolina?

 

[redmeli]

Was anyone able to see the "hair moles" on Maria that are known to be on Jane Doe in South Carolina?

The attached photo, though grainy, shows what appear to be the two moles.

 

[Swamp Fox Trot]

Last Summer, I sent a lenghty letter to the current Sumter County Coroner, along with pictures and the text from the WS post from Redmeli that IMHO explains how Maria and Cesar made it to the United States from Argentina. I never heard anything back - not even a "thank you for your interest" letter. The lack of a response is really annoying, as a tax paying South Carolina citizen. I am not giving up.... sometime in June of this year, I hope to make a trip up to the area, speak to the coroner face to face, and visit the grave site, and the site where they were killed. I will share pictures with all of you here on WS's. I also made contact with a representative of the Desprarecidos group from New York. They also were less than helpful.....but, it was a volunteer, so take that for what it is worth. We have a new poster here on WS's who speaks Spanish, and is attempting contact with the Argentina group. I am so convinced that Jock and Jane Doe are Cesar and Maria that I need to see resolution, or I need to see them ruled out so that I can move on to another angle. This case can.... and WILL be solved. It haunts me.

Sumter County simply doesn't have any interest in this case. They don't even have a file on it anymore.

SLED won't do anything since "it's Sumter County's case." The local SLED agent said she would forward my own report to former coroner Verna Moore. She didn't. But I did talk to Mrs. Moore myself. She seems intelligent and reasonable, but she doesn't have any official authority anymore.

Furthermore, these two were probably killed by Miami-based Cuban exile terrorists Luis Posada Carilles and Orlando Bosch (CORU), who have been protected by the Bush family and the Republican Party (Illeana Ros) since before the Bay of Pigs. Sumter is an exceedingly right-leaning town.

It's been documented that the CIA (then led by future president George H. W. Bush, who pardoned Bosch in 1990) actually lied to the FBI about the Letellier bombing in September 1976. Same players. Incredibly, in 2005 (while son George W. Bush was president), the FBI destroyed its files on Posada (read Ann Louise Bardach).

Also, the local papers have withered to hardly anything. There simply isn't much investigative journalism anymore.

Finally, the Argentineans aren't going to want to believe that the most famous witness against the junta, Adolfo Scilingo, really was a bulls*** artist when he said María Marta gave birth at ESMA. He later recanted; at his 2005 trial he said he never even worked at ESMA. He was always a complete flake, but the human-rights activists are deeply invested in best-selling story "The Flight" he peddled to Verbitsky.

My favorite suspect is Posada. He trained at Fort Benning and was married in nearby Columbus, Ga. Before the murders he and Bosch were actually in Buenos Aires offering their services to the Argentine junta. They even started signing their communiqués "El Condor." Posada was a very sophisticated operator who at one time was head of Venezuela's state security service.

It is absurd to think the Lugones connection, first suggested around four years ago, hasn't been pursued by law enforcement. The reasons for this, like the murders themselves, might be purely political.

 

[liz b.]

What a fascinating theory...I am very impressed by the investigation done here, and the work and dedication put forth.

Respectfully, though, I have a hard time with the fact that the young couple were seemingly hanging out in South Carolina, at racing car venues...getting manicures...

I read the U.S. State Department's Argentina Declassification Project ebooks, and it was interesting,and sad reading... According to National Security Archive's Electronic Briefing Book # 104, edited by Carlos Osario, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, along with our own intelligence agencies, was urging the Junta in Buenos Aires to hurry up and round any suspected dissidents up, and get rid of the evidence before our Congress came back from its recess. Kissinger believed that Congress would cut Argentina's military funding...

I am thinking that the United States might not have been a place for this young couple to come to, given the politics involved ?How comfortable would they really have felt here ? Canada was probably way more appealing.Or even Spain, as Franco died in 1976...

But, a fascinating theory, and I am glad to be able to post here... Liz.

 

[Swamp Fox Trot]

There is a possibility the couple never left the custody of the junta's agents. There are documented cases of disappeared victims being abducted in one country (i.e. Peru) and executed in another (Spain, Mexico).

I suspect they were taken from South America to Miami, interrogated or made to identify other Peronists, and merely driven way out in the countryside (i.e. the 12 hours to SC) to be executed, as the regime did to other victims within Argentina.

In other words, Operation Condor essentially extended to Miami. In court hearings there was testimony that Argentina's Batalion 601 had a base there. The anti-Castro Cuban exile group CORU had been working directly with the governments of Peru and Argentina, and signed its letters "El Condor."

 

[liz b.]

There is a possibility the couple never left the custody of the junta's agents. There are documented cases of disappeared victims being abducted in one country (i.e. Peru) and executed in another (Spain, Mexico).

I suspect they were taken from South America to Miami, interrogated or made to identify other Peronists, and merely driven way out in the countryside (i.e. the 12 hours to SC) to be executed, as the regime did to other victims within Argentina.

In other words, Operation Condor essentially extended to Miami. In court hearings there was testimony that Argentina's Batalion 601 had a base there. The anti-Castro Cuban exile group CORU had been working directly with the governments of Peru and Argentina, and signed its letters "El Condor."

Could be...but, if they had been interrogated in Miami, they would probably have been killed and left in the Everglades someplace.They would likely never have been found. The bodies seemed kind of posed to me, as though their killers wanted them to be found quickly... Also, it seems a little bit unlikely that they would have been brought to Miami. Very risky if it had ever leaked.And no need to take that risk ; they could have been interrogated anywhere in Argentina...

I kind of think this was drug related,rather than political.Who knows,though ? What happened to any DNA ?

 

[Reannan]

I think it is reasonable to think this couple, if from Argentina, were smuggled into California, given some funds, and then set free to travel across the US... thus the Grant's Truck Stop matches and turquoise jewelry. As to how they met their demise.... could have been targeted, could have been pure bad luck and wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time kind of thing. I still want DNA compared to the Argentina database. There is another thread on this case where there is a REMARKABLE resemblance to a couple that went missing from the Pacific Ocean a few months before Jock and Jane Doe were murdered. The case could be drug related, which I don't think would be a huge surprise back in 1976 or today. The bottom line, is that there are reasonable explanations for why TWO people could be missing and unidentified, but it is a fairly short list of suspects, and there is opportunity to continue the pursuit for answers in this case. I remain hopeful and committed to finding answers.

 

[Swamp Fox Trot]

Could be...but, if they had been interrogated in Miami, they would probably have been killed and left in the Everglades someplace.They would likely never have been found. The bodies seemed kind of posed to me, as though their killers wanted them to be found quickly... Also, it seems a little bit unlikely that they would have been brought to Miami. Very risky if it had ever leaked.And no need to take that risk ; they could have been interrogated anywhere in Argentina...

I kind of think this was drug related,rather than political.Who knows,though ? What happened to any DNA ?

Like I said, they were hunting down subversives outside the country, in the US and all over the world, and they used captives to identify them. Driving victims several hours into the countryside was a technique also used in disappearances within Argentina. I believe the killer was familiar with the crime scene; Lonnie Henry lived just an hour away from it.

 

[Swamp Fox Trot]

It's been established the CIA actively lied to the media and even the FBI regarding DINA (Chilean secret police) involvement in the Letelier assassination of September 1976. Furthermore, in finally getting Chile to turn over their agent Michael Townley, the U.S. Justice Dept. agreed not to investigate any other DINA crimes. Hence, no federal investigation of the August 1976 execution of these two in SC, and possibly a CIA coverup.

 

[Magnum P.E.]

Can't imagine a political killing in which the murder weapon is then given to a local criminal. They may be the Argentine couple, but there is a lot of fanciful speculation going on. Even people fleeing evil regimes can be robbed, killed, and dumped on a secluded road. Let's face it, every case on here is here because of a confluence of weird factors. Let's not write spy stories. Did anyone ever send prints and DNA to Argentina?

 

[Swamp Fox Trot]

Can't imagine a political killing in which the murder weapon is then given to a local criminal.

Yet that's exactly what DINA did in other assassinations in Buenos Aires and Rome.

 

[Magnum P.E.]

After reading up on Operation Condor and the Letelier Case, among others, it now seems way less outlandish to suggest that they were victims of more than a robbery. No proof either way, which may be what was intended.

In the case of Letelier, they blew him up on the streets of Washington D.C., showing that they were not afraid to kill a high profile target in the US. Not a stretch to say they would kill two lesser targets in the countryside. Where is the part about leaving the weapon with local criminals in another case? Fiendish way to throw off suspicion, don't dispose of the weapon, give it to someone else likely to use it in another crime. If that is what was done, it is keeping us chasing our tails over 35 years later!:banghead:

 

[Bobby88]

I just thought of something. Did César and María Lugones know English?

The reason I'm asking is because if Jock and Jane Doe were in fact César and María Lugones from Argentina (or some other unfortunate victims from that country's Dirty War), would they have known English well enough to be the same couple at the KOA campgrounds? Would César have been fluent enough in English to have quickly concocted the Canadian doctor story to tell David Batson?

Of course, that's assuming that the man who told Batson that story and then tried to pawn his ring and Jock Doe were one and the same, which no one has ever really been able to confirm.

The alleged sighting of the couple at the KOA does raise some questions in my mind that if answered might rule in rule out the Lugones couple as being our victims. Sadly, I doubt that we'll ever be able to find the answers to them, so there's not much point in me posting them.

 

[Fukiyama]

Of course, that's assuming that the man who told Batson that story and then tried to pawn his ring and Jock Doe were one and the same, which no one has ever really been able to confirm.

That's assuming too that Batson was even telling the truth when he came forward over a year later.

 

[Reannan]

CarlK and I recently discussed that it should have been obvious to the camp ground employee if the UID couple had an accent - as you would certainly expect if they were from Argentina. Great points, but we are making a huge assumption that the camp ground connection - David Batson - was accurate in his statement about his interaction with "Jock". It was actually David Batson's wife who worked at the KOA campground in Santee, SC. So many questions that seem like there should be clear answers to, but we continue with little information and many questions.

 

[Magnum P.E.]

If hair were saved then isotope analysis would tell where they had been. It shows the geographical origin of water they had been drinking. Hair grows about three inches per year, the woman at least should have several years worth of travel that could be determined. The Argentine and French Canadian possibilities could be proved/disproved. Does anyone know if hair was preserved?

 

[Swamp Fox Trot]

I haven't been able to find out much info on César Amadeo Lugones. As a professor of veterinary surgery, he was well educated and that may have included some English. I wonder if he had traveled to Miami previously, hence the 1975 Sebring T-shirt that pre-dated their 14 May 1976 abduction in Buenos Aires.

The similarity between his veterinary background and "Jock" Doe's reported cover story of abandoning a future as a doctor makes me think the Lugones couple might have in fact been released from ESMA and allowed into exile. That is what happened with Orlando Letelier, who had been held in a Chilean prison camp for some time before emigrating to Washington, DC, where despite the warnings he became a very vocal embarrassment to Pinochet.

Also, earlier in 1976 the Letelier bombmaker Michael Townley had driven from Miami to Mexico City in a Dodge camper on a DINA mission to assassinate leftists at a big conference in Mexico City (they arrived too late). (This is per Townley's federal testimony, recounted in 1978's Assassination on Embassy Row.) He was accompanied by his wife (native Chilean) and a Cuban exile terrorist from Miami. Perhaps they---or others on a similar mission---crossed paths with the Lugones pair. Remember, María Márta's father was the Argentinean ambassador to Mexico City at the time.

The Cuban nationalist terrorist Orlando Bosch had spent the previous two years in Buenos Aires and Santiago soliciting business from the military juntas and right-wing terror groups such as AAA. If I recall correctly, he had already worked with Townley on assassinations in Buenos Aires.

Seems likely the gunman Lonnie Henry was returning from Vietnam, up from some anticommunist action like other Fort Bragg mercenaries who went to Angola, etc. The juntas hired other subcontractors, including Cuban Nationalists (CORU, CNM etc.) all the time, who hired local thugs. In fact compartmentalization was standard operating procedure. Maybe Henry was really just supplying the gun, and he was too cheap to dispose of it.

 

[Magnum P.E.]

Once again, if teeth were preserved isotope analysis would tell where, geographically, they lived during the time their adult teeth were formed. It does not change. Canada, Cuba, Argentina,...we would have facts and knowledge to go on. Why is it always easier to spin tales than to run a test and have hard facts? In the UK they successfully do isotope analysis on ancient remains. Who has charge of the remains and can order an isotope test? If they are uncooperative, maybe we could publicly shame them into doing the test. If we are going to continue to speculate we may as well use a Quija board or read tea leaves. Someone answer me please.

 

[Salem]

Once again, if teeth were preserved isotope analysis would tell where, geographically, they lived during the time their adult teeth were formed. It does not change. Canada, Cuba, Argentina,...we would have facts and knowledge to go on. Why is it always easier to spin tales than to run a test and have hard facts? In the UK they successfully do isotope analysis on ancient remains. Who has charge of the remains and can order an isotope test? If they are uncooperative, maybe we could publicly shame them into doing the test. If we are going to continue to speculate we may as well use a Quija board or read tea leaves. Someone answer me please.

Magnum PE - I don't think we have an answer as to why isotope analysis has not been done. Nor do I think we really know if LE has done such testing, but has not shared it with the public.

I do know there have been a few cases where such testing has been done and that there is a lab, in Santa Barbara, CA (I think) that does such testing. Maybe it is just hugely expensive?

Salem