It looks like James grew up in a pretty military household. His father was a WW2 medic (veteran) who served in the Philippines and as well as a car salesman later on. James was an only child as well, growing up with both of his parents. His father died when he was 20 while serving in Germany for the US Army.
Firstly, I'm so happy I am not the only person who felt drawn to these people and their story. I felt a bit silly, but this story is really hard on the heart.
I went on ancestry to see if the two had siblings or living parents. It seems James may have had it pretty rough. His parents married in 1948, so his dad may not have been his biological father. In 1966, his dad, Adam Freund, suddenly died of a heart attack. According to the obituary for Adam Freund, James' mother appears to have been married before to a Coates (maiden name is Brandenburg). In the span of 1966-1976, his mother lost a brother, a husband, a father, and a son. She had married a younger man after being widowed, ended up in California, and was divorced by 1976. With James divorced and having no siblings, it all seems so sad, like he didn't have a place to call home. It's also so sad that this case was solvable because it was, in essence, solved by WS before the announcement. It's heartbreaking that his mother passed relatively recently without knowing or that his daughter never knew what happened as she was growing up.
Who knows...maybe he wasn't even involved in his daughter's life much. Maybe he wasn't even in touch with his own mother. I know people like that. Maybe he and Pam made up a backstory because they were involved in something illegal. Thirty seems like a strange age to go off on a hitchhiking adventure. I just know that I would like to know more about their story. I'm just so genuinely heartbroken that two young, beautiful people experienced such horrific last moments.
Does anyone know more about the driver who had the gun? Is he still alive? It's not likely that he possessed a gun with scratched-off serial numbers that happened to have murder two people very recently and didn't have something to do with it. Is there speculation his brother was involved? There is so much information, and I only just heard about the case last year.