Mystery couple murdered in South Carolina, 1976 - #3

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You quoted me but I'm not sure you were talking to me or not. I was the one who did the research on both the ring and the watch so I'm well versed in what you were saying about both of them (exception - the watch *was* expensive according to the expert I contacted, not the most expensive version but certainly quite a lot of money for those days - expensive enough to be a common and nice graduation or Christmas gift).

Maybe you were confused by my reply that you quoted? The ring belonging to Saul Charles Friedenberg that was stolen was referred to as a Sapphire ring - I was expressing the hope that it would actually be found to be a lindestar sapphire like JD's, so that there is more of a connection between that case and this one.



Teresa Larson said:
Marie said:
I'm curious, why can't you post about something like this before you tell Verna?

It'd be nice if they find out the sapphire ring was actually a lindestar and that it has the same initials, but Saul Charles Friedenberg or SCF or SFC don't match. Still something very worth checking out, and considering the ring and watch we really don't have much more to go on other than JD may have been wealthy or came from wealth, or stole them, or he got them at a pawn shop or he traded something for them.

Thinking 'outside the box' is certainly what this case needs.[/quote

It was not a sapphire ring it was a star sapphire - Lindestar ring It was a cheap ring A lot of people had them back then. I even had one myself. There is a picture of the ring in the thread some place. The serial number on the watch was no help either because the company does not have any records of it. That wasn't an expensive watch either so I highly doubt they were traded for drugs etc. I still believe the guy that had possession of the gun that was used to kill them had something to do with their deaths or knows who did it. The police should have investigated him more intensely.
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I hope they do still have the records so we can learn more about the ring and watch he had stolen. Might have been destroyed after the trials, but perhaps they held onto them for appeals. Fingers crossed!

phenolred said:
I also sent it to the Baltimore PD to see if they still have records on the murder.

Records detailing the watch and the ring, and Verna said their investigator, was going to check this out....
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Here's a photo of the ring again.




2-5-John-Does-ring.jpg
John Doe's ring
 
Marie said:
You quoted me but I'm not sure you were talking to me or not. I was the one who did the research on both the ring and the watch so I'm well versed in what you were saying about both of them (exception - the watch *was* expensive according to the expert I contacted, not the most expensive version but certainly quite a lot of money for those days - expensive enough to be a common and nice graduation or Christmas gift).

Maybe you were confused by my reply that you quoted? The ring belonging to Saul Charles Friedenberg that was stolen was referred to as a Sapphire ring - I was expressing the hope that it would actually be found to be a lindestar sapphire like JD's, so that there is more of a connection between that case and this one.

Ohhhh I thought you were talking about JD's ring. I reread this and now see you were talking about the other guy. :doh:
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I need to make a correction regarding my post #4 on page 1. I stated that on the ring "the middle initial "P" is larger than the two outside initials". WRONG! That is incorrect. After looking through my notes I realized that Liz325 had contacted LE and was told that "all the initials are the same size." Liz also posted this information on the previous thread.

I apologize for posting the wrong information (I'm sorry Liz) - I wish I could change my post on page 1 so it doesn't confuse people working on this case, but I can't :(

Anyway, in my opinion this means that the initials on the ring are most likely in the order of First Name, Middle Name and Surname.
 
No problem! :) Happens to me all the time and I figured my post just wasn't very clear.

Also, the research I did is on page one of this thread, and corrected info is on this page - others have also looked into the ring and watch, but I think their info is on the last thread.


Teresa Larson said:
Ohhhh I thought you were talking about JD's ring. I reread this and now see you were talking about the other guy. :doh:
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Marie said:
I need to make a correction regarding my post #4 on page 1. I stated that on the ring "the middle initial "P" is larger than the two outside initials". WRONG! That is incorrect. After looking through my notes I realized that Liz325 had contacted LE and was told that "all the initials are the same size." Liz also posted this information on the previous thread.

I apologize for posting the wrong information (I'm sorry Liz) - I wish I could change my post on page 1 so it doesn't confuse people working on this case, but I can't :(

Anyway, in my opinion this means that the initials on the ring are most likely in the order of First Name, Middle Name and Surname.
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Not a problem..between the thread on the Cold Case forum and this, they're so long and it's difficult to remember what was posted! :)
 
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=420192


rmf from WS has been in contact with a reporter for the National Post of Canada to publish the article. It appears in today's issue. Sumter County Coroner Verna Moore and Sgt. Ray Mackessy from the Sumter County Sheriff's office also assisted in the article. Sgt. Mackessy sent the whole file to the author, Adrian Humphreys. It's a great article with some new photos from the evidence file that show their faces closeup. (WARNING..GRAPHIC CRIME SCENE AND MORGUE PHOTOS)

Let's hope this article can generate some new leads and somebody recognizes them.

rmf asked me to post the link as she is on vacation.

Thank you, rmf, for all the time you spent getting this article out there!
:clap: :clap: :clap:
 
I also wanted to mention that there is finally a photo of the third ring that Jane Doe was wearing that we have never seen before. I tried to copy it here but can't..it's photo #5 in the slideshow in the article.
 
How much do we know about "Lonnie George Henry", the guy arrested for DUI who had the gun that killed the couple in his posession? Seems to me, his family/friends would be an untapped source of possible information.
 
The new photos are really intense. I'm surprised that they would publish them in a newspaper like that. That would NEVER fly here in the US.

I'm glad it happened though - hopefully someone will read it and see the photos and recognize a loved one.
 
Reannan said:
How much do we know about "Lonnie George Henry", the guy arrested for DUI who had the gun that killed the couple in his posession? Seems to me, his family/friends would be an untapped source of possible information.
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I knew I read something in an earlier post about him having problems with alcohol and also being responsible for accidentally killing a co-worker around the same time the Mystery Couple were murdered. I thought I would be up all night trying to find the post but I actually can't believe I found it just by picking a number at the bottom of the first thread and clicking on it! It was post #302 by phenolred which I've copied below. Sounds like he had some major problems.

Sole suspect
About four months after the murders, police in the Darlington County town of Latta arrested Lonnie George Henry for drunk driving. Under the seat of his car they found a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson with the serial number filed off.
Police sent the gun to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division's forensic lab for tests and later concluded that Henry's revolver had killed the mystery couple. Bullets taken from the bodies matched with the weapon.
When officers asked Henry point blank if he was the killer, his polygraph said he was telling the truth. No, he hadn't pulled the trigger. But several other lie detector tests implied he was lying about something, at least, maybe covering up for somebody. Investigators wondered if someone had stolen his gun and whether a relative or friend of Henry's had killed the couple in Sumter.
But case files say Henry did lie about how he'd obtained the gun, first telling officers that he'd bought it from a truck driver. Days after the purchase, Henry told investigators, he discovered the serial number had been filed off. By then, it was too late to return the item for a refund.
SLED recovered the serial number and investigators tracked the gun from its manufacturer to Henry's brother, who said he gave it to Henry as a Christmas present four or five years earlier.
The gun had been bought, stolen and resold several times before falling into the hands of Henry's brother. But he said the serial number was still there on Christmas Eve.
When confronted with the new information, Henry confessed to filing the serial numbers off himself.
It remains unclear why Henry lied if he was innocent. And it also remains unclear if he really was. Case files say Henry was a recovering alcoholic and had also gotten in trouble with the law for a slew of minor offenses.
At the time, his son had recently drowned in the Pee Dee River. He'd also accidentally killed one of his co-workers, by backing a dump truck over him.
Investigative psychologists even wondered if he'd killed the Sumter couple and simply couldn't remember doing it.
 
Wow. Thanks Liz! This case haunts me. I live in South Carolina, and would love to network with others in anyway possible to help with this case. Review of courthouse documents that are not electronic, or whatever. This Lonnie Georgia Henry guy has got to be investigated further. So does the co-worker he supposedly ran over. My ghoulish and jaded mind is hearing cover-up to silence a witness. Henry hold the key to solving this case IMHO. I can't believe he wasn't arrested.
 
So...
They find him holding the weapon they determine was used in a double homicide.
They give him a polygraph (Which we all know are completely infalible) ask him if he's the killer.
He says no.
apparently they respond, "Well,thats good enough for us!"
They cut him loose and they apparently did little or no follow up in any sense of the word.
Am I the only one having trouble wrapping their frontal lobe around this?
 
kline said:
So...
They find him holding the weapon they determine was used in a double homicide.
They give him a polygraph (Which we all know are completely infalible) ask him if he's the killer.
He says no.
apparently they respond, "Well,thats good enough for us!"
They cut him loose and they apparently did little or no follow up in any sense of the word.
Am I the only one having trouble wrapping their frontal lobe around this?
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No, you're not the only one. After I read that article phenolred posted the first time I was dumbfounded that they let him go, and didn't pursue him any farther as a suspect. I also think it's possible that someone who knew Lonnie Henry took the gun either with or w/o Henry's knowledge. Even though Henry is dead now and they don't think they will ever be able to prosecute this case, maybe it wouldn't hurt to interview Henry's remaining family, friends, acquaintances and ex-co-workers to see if they can get ANY new information.
 
Awesome article so much new infomation and new pics !!!! YEAH thanks RMF for all the hardwork and dedication!!!

ALso, I think with these new pics at new angles they do look like they could be related to me know, I really never thought so before, but with the semi profile views their noses look alot alike to me....
 
phenolred said:
Awesome article so much new infomation and new pics !!!! YEAH thanks RMF for all the hardwork and dedication!!!

ALso, I think with these new pics at new angles they do look like they could be related to me know, I really never thought so before, but with the semi profile views their noses look alot alike to me....
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I agree with the new pics it does sort of make them look more alike.. It is a great article but I was NOT prepared for those photos when I looked at the article at 6:30 that morning! As another poster remarked, they are quite intense.

Thanks to you too, phenolred, for finding that article on Lonnie Henry. It is good to have some sort of background information on him other than what was mentioned in the Crime Library story.
 
How closely has an adoption angle been explored? Maybe they were siblings who were originally adopted as small children, and after going through the turbulent times of adolescence, they drifted away from the adopted family. Could that explain why no one has ever reported them as missing?? Most families I know who have adopted children would react the same as biological families and scream from the mountain tops that their child was gone. Just trying to think outside the box here as to "why" we don't have any good leads from missing persons reports. They just don't seem like your typical drifter that falls through the cracks of society, and they DO look like siblings to me.
 
I went back to the old thread to refresh my memory and I found this from an old newspaper article.
About a PI in Virginia his name Wolfgang I wonder if he is still working on this. But what I really found interesting was the info on the girls ring. This article says there were markings inside, but I have also heard there were NOT markings. If there are markings I would love to know what the are or what they look like so we could pursue that.


Wolfgang Stihl,
Stihl says the rings were probably handmade, and he hopes to use symbols on the inside of the bands to identify the artist and perhaps identify places where the girl bought the jewelry.


 
phenolred said:
I went back to the old thread to refresh my memory and I found this from an old newspaper article.
About a PI in Virginia his name Wolfgang I wonder if he is still working on this. But what I really found interesting was the info on the girls ring. This article says there were markings inside, but I have also heard there were NOT markings. If there are markings I would love to know what the are or what they look like so we could pursue that.


Wolfgang Stihl,
Stihl says the rings were probably handmade, and he hopes to use symbols on the inside of the bands to identify the artist and perhaps identify places where the girl bought the jewelry.
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i PM'd you two phone numbers I found in VA for someone with that name...:blowkiss:
 
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