Mystery couple murdered in South Carolina, 1976 - #6

hi, justthinkin'--yes, sorry--about where they were shot? i know what i've read in the older accounts but you mentioned something about after the bodies were exhumed & different info being written about where they were shot and/or how many times. i can't find this info anywhere & was just wondering if you remembered?

hair colour--yep, i was blonder as a kid & hair got darker. same with my dad & sister. would be cool if you could find the bit about eye colour. & i agree--they have gotten info wrong before. i think he is the closest match thus far, also.

Tara, I think Christopher King is worth submitting. Looks like a good match to me.

I also still like Dermot Faulkner Kelly, a runaway? in 1972, 4 years before the murders. I submitted him to LE in Iowa, and now I'm hoping he's not our UID because I was told Dermot's living relative has refused dna testing in the past. They are currently working on locating that relative.

I think the first drawing out on our UID here depicts a younger person, and looks a lot like 'Dermot to me. I find similarities between Dermot and the Greek looking sketch as well, plus the post autopsy photo. Someone mentioned the ears don't match, but then whoever did the work of putting the faces back on the victims after the autopsies were done did, well, not a very good job of lining features correctly; example--one eyebrow is lower than the other, one eye is stretched out more than the other. Also, I note that the official police sketch shows the UID with larger lobes. They approved the sketch, so....

Dermot's nose looks exactly like the UID's nose.

Kelly and King to me both resemble the UID enough to pursue a potential match. I've done what I can with getting the ball rolling on Dermot, and I hope you will start the ball rolling on C. King.

kitbits said:

hi, justthinkin'--yes, sorry--about where they were shot? i know what i've read in the older accounts but you mentioned something about after the bodies were exhumed & different info being written about where they were shot and/or how many times. i can't find this info anywhere & was just wondering if you remembered?

hair colour--yep, i was blonder as a kid & hair got darker. same with my dad & sister. would be cool if you could find the bit about eye colour. & i agree--they have gotten info wrong before. i think he is the closest match thus far, also.

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http://www.theitem.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070809/ITNEWS01/108090148

This is not the only article, but I have not yet found the one I was wanting to post. However, the link above does report the couple was finished off with shots to the head.

I have seen reports too that state they were both shot in the chest, and it's obvious from the crime scene photo the girl's chest area is messed up which would indicate a back shot not a chest shot. I've seen reports that omitted the neck shots. I've seen pictures of people shot with a .357, and they don't look anywhere as good as the condition of our UIDs here. I can post a link, but it's not for the squeamish.

justthinkin said:

Hair color can change, more commonly from lighter to darker. My oldest had almost white blond hair for much of his youth, but around age 17 it became brown. I had a niece who started life out with almost black hair that turned blond, and not by virtue of a bottle. I thought that was really strange.

I was reading on another case here where changes in eye color after death were discussed. If I remember which case that was, I'll put up a link. That discussion was in reference to yet another case which had people stumped when a missing person looked very much like the UID, but was discounted over and over because of wrong eye color. Dna proved the two were a match.

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Yeah, the hair I wasn't too worried about, because I know it can change. My brother's hair was white-blond as a small child, but gradually darkened as he got older, and now as an adult it's almost black. And I was born with black hair that lightened to a dark blond, then turned dark brown, and now it's auburn/reddish. Weird.

The eye color was what was throwing me off...I'd never heard of it changing, though, so that's interesting to know.

justthinkin said:

Tara, I think Christopher King is worth submitting. Looks like a good match to me

...

I hope you will start the ball rolling on C. King.

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This is probably a stupid question, but how do I submit it?

I think it is more likely that the woman here started out with possibly lightened/dyed, curled hair in the photo from 1973, and let it go natural by 1976, rather than dying it darker as she aged. How does one submit these 2 as possibles, even though the sister denies them? I don't know why they resemble the UID's so much to me, but I think they look exactly the same as the morgue pictures. For me, it's the eyebrows, the chins, the jaws, the cheeks... I dunno--they just look the same to me.

TaraONeill said:

Yeah, the hair I wasn't too worried about, because I know it can change. My brother's hair was white-blond as a small child, but gradually darkened as he got older, and now as an adult it's almost black. And I was born with black hair that lightened to a dark blond, then turned dark brown, and now it's auburn/reddish. Weird.

The eye color was what was throwing me off...I'd never heard of it changing, though, so that's interesting to know.



This is probably a stupid question, but how do I submit it?

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You can either submit the info to Sumter County Sheriff's Office or the county King went missing from in California. There are rules for submissions posted on WS somewhere. Perhaps someone knows their location right off the bat. I don't. I know I included every case number available, and I called before submitting to let them know it was coming. Phone contact is a good place to start. Otherwise, you may hear nothing back. It's a good idea to get the name of the person handling the case. That way you know who is responsible for the information you submit.

I had my msg. typed up & ready to go as soon as my phone conversation ended. That way it's fresh in their minds.

kitbits said:

hi, eeyorelrn...

i'm older AND my family moved from virginia to colorado in 72. in answer to the coors question, YES. i was just a kid, 11 when we moved to colorado, but sister & brother were older, and along with my sister's husband, the 3 of them were intrigued by this Coors beer, as it was hard to get on the east coast. and then we moved to arvada, which is near golden, colo., where it's brewed & the beer drinkers were excited...though, when i grew up & learned to enjoy beer, i couldn't figure out why--ew! like water but it was the novelty of it back then. but coors was eventually sold elsewhere. here's a wiki quote:

'For much of its history, Coors beer was a regional product mostly confined to the American west by legal restrictions. This made it a novelty on the east coast, and visitors returning from visits to the western states often made a point of bringing back a case. This iconic status was reflected in pop culture: in 1977 the movie Smokey and the Bandit centered on an "illegal" shipment of Coors from Texas to Georgia. Boston Red Sox great Carl Yastrzemski was such a big Coors fan that when he loaded up the team plane with multiple cases of Coors for the return trip to the East Coast, some of his teammates jokingly wondered if the plane would be able to successfully take off.[3] The company finally established nationwide distribution in the U.S. in the early 1990s.'

you can even get it in the UK now...

however, wasn't the auto race that coors sponsored exclusively in FL? i have no clue about these things...

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Looking back, i do see where they said that... Kinda wierd if it wasnt a national thing that they were sponcering Southern drag racing.... I wish my dad was alive for me to ask about that, hw followed that kind of stuff. Oh well....

justthinkin said:

http://www.theitem.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070809/ITNEWS01/108090148

This is not the only article, but I have not yet found the one I was wanting to post. However, the link above does report the couple was finished off with shots to the head.

I have seen reports too that state they were both shot in the chest, and it's obvious from the crime scene photo the girl's chest area is messed up which would indicate a back shot not a chest shot. I've seen reports that omitted the neck shots. I've seen pictures of people shot with a .357, and they don't look anywhere as good as the condition of our UIDs here. I can post a link, but it's not for the squeamish.

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thanks! hmmm...i went through first aid training in college & had to get used to gnarly pics. i believe you, though. i know that ballistics aren't always spot on...wish we could ask the coronor--you would think that she'd know!

justthinkin said:

You can either submit the info to Sumter County Sheriff's Office or the county King went missing from in California. There are rules for submissions posted on WS somewhere. Perhaps someone knows their location right off the bat. I don't. I know I included every case number available, and I called before submitting to let them know it was coming. Phone contact is a good place to start. Otherwise, you may hear nothing back. It's a good idea to get the name of the person handling the case. That way you know who is responsible for the information you submit.

I had my msg. typed up & ready to go as soon as my phone conversation ended. That way it's fresh in their minds.

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here's the link for submission tips:

Tips before submitting - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community

eeyorelrn said:

Looking back, i do see where they said that... Kinda wierd if it wasnt a national thing that they were sponcering Southern drag racing.... I wish my dad was alive for me to ask about that, hw followed that kind of stuff. Oh well....

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yeah...i suppose it's a money thing & even though it wasn't sold everywhere, it was still popular.

Thanks for the info!

I'm not gonna have much free time for awhile, so if someone else wants to get things started, feel free. If not I'll do it myself once things slow down, but I have no idea when that'll be.

Having come across the post mortem photos of Jock and Jane on the Porchlight website, I must say, IMHO, the drawings and busts that ihave seen on the DOE Network and NCEC (?) look ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like the photos. Granted, it may just be because of psot autopsy repositioning of the facial features, BUT to me the drawings look completely off. Not sure if anyone else has seen them or even thinks the same thing, but I wonder if could be hampering the ID process.... As I said, this is just my OPINION.:waitasec:

I'm starting to think that Jock was a truck driver. I think that if he was Canadian that he probably was from either British Columbia or Alberta, not Quebec. Jock had stopped at a truck stop and was driving cross-country. Why? Maybe he was bringing back beer and other goods from the west coast to the east coast. I don't know. And maybe this had something to do with him and Jane Doe being killed.

eeyorelrn said:

Having come across the post mortem photos of Jock and Jane on the Porchlight website, I must say, IMHO, the drawings and busts that ihave seen on the DOE Network and NCEC (?) look ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like the photos. Granted, it may just be because of psot autopsy repositioning of the facial features, BUT to me the drawings look completely off. Not sure if anyone else has seen them or even thinks the same thing, but I wonder if could be hampering the ID process.... As I said, this is just my OPINION.:waitasec:

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You have hit on a subject that is near & dear to me. These are the hinkiest crime scene photos I've ever seen. And you're right, the official drawings don't fit the victims, and go from bad to worse. Couple that with lost evidence, and a sleuther starts to go hmmmmm.

Add to that a coroner who waits until almost the end of her 15 years in office to exhume the bodies on a case she swears up and down she wants to solve, and a sleuther goes hmmmm again.

This is the only case I know of where the dna samples sent to TX have sat for going on 3 years without being tested.

This is the only case I know of where the UID's bodies were held for a year before burial.

Murdered couple stays at a KOA campground while in route to Florida, then returns back to the same campground en route from Florida, claiming they liked it better there than in Florida. This is what D. Batson said when he reported a year after the deaths that he knew the male victim.

Does this sound fishy?
Why did he wait a year to come forward?
Why did he contact SLED instead of Sumter Co. Sheriff's dept.?

Coroner contacts the owners of the KOA campground for their records, They report they kept extensive records, but alas, their house was burned to the ground, and the records are gone.

Could this have been arson in association with our UID couple's murder?

Who could have possibly wanted to make sure those records disappeared?

Why was there nothing in the case files to show that LE ever followed up on Batson's claim or the Canadian connection?

Why did someone in LE claim that the initials in the ring had worn away so that there was no point in taking a photo of those initials?

Could it be that those initials were different than reported? Could it be they were non existent?

Justthinkin, you have raised some very interesting questions. Granted, I was born in 1976, and have no idea how politics ran back then, let alone in Sumter County, I can attest to the fact that there are A LOT of issues today in several law enforcement agencies in my area, Sumter being one of those areas. While the complaints today have been more about a LACK of LE involvement in Sumter, I can see where the "good ole boy" system could have been in play back then... It still is today in several departments in my immediate area, even though no one really wants to speak of it or acknoledge it. Rumors of corruption and misuse of office are rampent and hard to dispell. Wonder if trying to get some of the local TV stations involved, maybe even going as far as asking a show like "Cold Case Files" to profile the story could do some benefit. It just amazes me that 33 years later, these 2 seem to be missed by no one, and no one appears to be making an effort to ID them without prodding- except for those here on WebSleuths, that seem to care more than LE does.

Hi eeyorelrn,

Forgot to say, welcome to WS. Great to have another mind at work here! I've never set foot in SC, but I do know small towns and the good ol boy system.
Sheriff Parnell had been in ofc. over 20 years when these murders happened, and he was treading water after the Peg Cuttino case and the railroading of Junior Pierce for her murder. It was as if the mystery couple was anti-climatic to the Cuttino case. The locals were up in arms already, and Parnell had neared the end of his tenure. His nephew , the then coroner had resigned over the Cuttino case. Sadly, TruTvCrime.com has removed the story which is too bad because it provided a great background to this case. I have written the author to notify him the story's been removed, and to find out how to get a copy.

From the chapter, Pee Wee's Playhouse in Outrage: The Peg Cuttino Story, by author Seamus McGraw, and as appeared on TruTv.Com/Crimes
this excerpt:
"Over the years, Gaskins gave at least two accounts of the killing. In one
particularly sordid version, he claimed to have been part of a murder-theft
ring that he claimed was operating with the knowledge of police officials in
South Carolina. The killer claimed that he had been hired by a never named
law enforcement officer to "assassinate" Peg Cuttino. "

To be fair, I should note there are people who claim all that Gaskins learned of the Cuttino murder, he learned from Junior Pierce while both were imprisoned. Then again, if someone in LE had ordered the Cuttino murder, then that person would've wanted to discredit Gaskin's story because of its implications of LE's involvement.

Of interesting note, Mr. McGraw claimed knowledge that Pee Wee was a snitch for LE, but he doesn't say whether that was at the local or state level.

Certainly, there's been little in the way of document releases by LE & the coroner's office on the mystery couple--no autopsy reports, no ballistics, no ME's findings. We have dentals, but now on teeth that have been lost or else that was a story told for someone's amusement. I've never heard of removing the teeth from a victim deliberately. You get the idea.

I found this article on the Internet about DNA being used at the possible crash site of Amelia Earhart. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=8160365&page=1&cid=yahoo_pitchlist

Thought you all might find it interesting. I don't understand why it's taken so long for the DNA samples of Jock and Jane to come back.

eeyorelrn said:

Justthinkin, you have raised some very interesting questions. Granted, I was born in 1976, and have no idea how politics ran back then, let alone in Sumter County, I can attest to the fact that there are A LOT of issues today in several law enforcement agencies in my area, Sumter being one of those areas. While the complaints today have been more about a LACK of LE involvement in Sumter, I can see where the "good ole boy" system could have been in play back then... It still is today in several departments in my immediate area, even though no one really wants to speak of it or acknoledge it. Rumors of corruption and misuse of office are rampent and hard to dispell. Wonder if trying to get some of the local TV stations involved, maybe even going as far as asking a show like "Cold Case Files" to profile the story could do some benefit. It just amazes me that 33 years later, these 2 seem to be missed by no one, and no one appears to be making an effort to ID them without prodding- except for those here on WebSleuths, that seem to care more than LE does.

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I can't for the life of me figure out why no one from either Jock or Jane's family has even came forward to query the whereabouts of them. Even if Jock's father disowned him, the guy must have had friends, associates, co-workers that were concerned about him.

Here's what I think happened: I believe that Jock was a truck driver and either he was "bootlegging" or got caught up in some drug trade or more likely he was an innocent man who was a truck driver that was driving cross-country in the summer of '76. Either Jane was traveling with him or she hitchhiked at some point and he picked her up. It was not uncommon for people to hitchhike back then. I think Jock came from the Pacific Northwest either British Columbia or Alberta. I don't believe that Jane was his sister. More likely she was his girlfriend and they were going to the campground together as a couple.

I suspect that Jane was American although she could have came from Canada as well.

Also, I traveled through Sebring, FL a couple of months ago. It is very rural and I saw lots of cattle there. It looked like more cows lived there than humans.

elliottness said:

I can't for the life of me figure out why no one from either Jock or Jane's family has even came forward to query the whereabouts of them. Even if Jock's father disowned him, the guy must have had friends, associates, co-workers that were concerned about him.

Here's what I think happened: I believe that Jock was a truck driver and either he was "bootlegging" or got caught up in some drug trade or more likely he was an innocent man who was a truck driver that was driving cross-country in the summer of '76. Either Jane was traveling with him or she hitchhiked at some point and he picked her up. It was not uncommon for people to hitchhike back then. I think Jock came from the Pacific Northwest either British Columbia or Alberta. I don't believe that Jane was his sister. More likely she was his girlfriend and they were going to the campground together as a couple.

I suspect that Jane was American although she could have came from Canada as well.

Also, I traveled through Sebring, FL a couple of months ago. It is very rural and I saw lots of cattle there. It looked like more cows lived there than humans.

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Why do you think this? You are guessing now?