SC SC - Eva Gerline (or Jurlyn) DeBruhl, 15, Catawba, 29 June 1977

[Richard]

Story from the family:

Eva DeBruhl was like many teenage girls her age. There were some ways that she was different also. Eva was a very sweet, loving and beautiful 15 year old girl. She loved to sing gospel music at church. In fact, Eva, her father, and one of her sisters were always invited to other churches to sing together. The three of them even recorded tapes of them singing together. Eva loved singing with her father and sister. And they loved singing with Eva just as much.

Little did they know, going back and listening to the tapes were going to be the only way they were ever going to hear the beautiful girl sing again. On June 29, 1977, Mr. DeBruhl had went to work that morning.

Mrs. DeBruhl worked third shift at a local mill, so she had came in from work that morning and had laid down to rest for a while. With her father at work and her mother lying down to get some rest after work, Eva decided she was going to cut the grass for her parents. She did just that. At some point after cutting the grass, Eva was going to take a bath and make herself a glass of tea.

Mrs. DeBruhl awoke from her nap a few hours later. She looked and looked for Eva but saw no sign of her. She only found the glass of ice sitting on the counter that Eva was going to fill with tea and a bath tub of water that Eva never bathed in. The recliner in the living room was also stretched out as if someone had been stretched out in it watching TV with the PTL Club, a Christian based TV program, playing.

Mr. DeBruhl was home by this time and the two of them searched around the house and called friends to see if Eva was at their home by chance. Eva had always asked her parents about going to a friends house before. She had NEVER just left without telling anyone.

Mr. and Mrs. DeBruhl could not find any trace of Eva so they called the York County Sheriff's Department to report her missing. The Sheriff's department filed a report and performed a search of Landsford Canal State Park.

Still, to this day, there has been no sign of Eva, nor has anyone heard from her. Over the years, Mr. and Mrs. DeBruhl tried many times to have Eva's case re-opened to no avail. Even up to one week before Mr. DeBruhl passed away in 1997, he was at the Sheriff's department trying to get answers into his daughter's disappearance.

... much more at below link...


Source:
Missing Woman: Eva DeBruhl--SC--06/29/1977

LINK:

http://www.projectjason.org/forums/index.php?topic=414.0

 

[Tracer]

I heard a few things... Some people say that the vehicle was a pickup truck...possibly two toned. The mother says she woke after hearing a loud noise which she though was the slamming of a screened door. But maybe the time of the dissapearance is based more on when the grandmother saw the suspect vehicle for the last time...she only lived about 100 feet from the house. A lot of people say the grandmother saw more than she ever told...quoting her as saying "They might come back and get me...". As far as I know, she died years later without ever saying anything more.

 

[Ambercat]

I have been thinking and is it at all possible she had a secret boyfriend? I get the impression she was religious as was her family and sometimes girls from families like that will hide boyfriends and friends from strict parents. Perhaps she went willingly with someone who was a secret whom she thought she was in love with but he had more sinister motives?
I thought maybe she could have staged her dissappearance with someone but that seems too far fetched as I get the impression she may have been sheltered and not street wise enough to do that.

I thought about that, too (that she had a secret boyfriend who she left with). If someone tried to take her by force from her house and her mom was asleep in the house, wouldn't she have started screaming or something of that nature and her mom would have woke up?

 

[Lakeboy]

I thought about that, too (that she had a secret boyfriend who she left with). If someone tried to take her by force from her house and her mom was asleep in the house, wouldn't she have started screaming or something of that nature and her mom would have woke up?

I think you are on to something here. It seems like if she were being abducted she would scream and wake her mother up. Also, it is stated the grandmother saw a man on the porch and he left and returned 10 or 15 minutes later. Why would an abductor show up and then return??? Also, if he were an abductor she would have tried to get help before he returned. It seems like a staged disappearance. The only problem is it seems like at she became an adult she would have contacted her family.

 

[Ambercat]

I think you are on to something here. It seems like if she were being abducted she would scream and wake her mother up. Also, it is stated the grandmother saw a man on the porch and he left and returned 10 or 15 minutes later. Why would an abductor show up and then return??? Also, if he were an abductor she would have tried to get help before he returned. It seems like a staged disappearance. The only problem is it seems like at she became an adult she would have contacted her family.

Maybe it was staged on her part, but the male who she left with was not a good person and deceived then murdered her. There is something bothering me -- when Eva took of her flip-flops, did she put on other shoes? Because I just can't see leaving willingly barefoot. But if she didn't leaving willingly, she would have screamed her head off to wake up her mom? I must be missing something here. :waitasec:

 

[Richard]

Eva left her home very quickly. The story of her drawing a bath, making ice tea, and leaving her shoes/sandals behind just makes me think that this was NOT something that she planned or considered.

It is hard to say just how she - or anyone - might react when confronted by a person with a weapon, or who simply strong arms her out of the house and into a vehicle. IF that is what happened.

It is quite possible that the person who took her had spoken with her earlier and presented himself as a perfectly nice and safe guy who was looking for directions, or assistance in finding his dog, or some other seemingly completely innocent reason. Seeing him again, she could have been at ease coming out to see the "found" puppy... only to find herself inside his car and traveling away from her home.

 

[Ambercat]

Eva left her home very quickly. The story of her drawing a bath, making ice tea, and leaving her shoes/sandals behind just makes me think that this was NOT something that she planned or considered.

It is hard to say just how she - or anyone - might react when confronted by a person with a weapon, or who simply strong arms her out of the house and into a vehicle. IF that is what happened.

It is quite possible that the person who took her had spoken with her earlier and presented himself as a perfectly nice and safe guy who was looking for directions, or assistance in finding his dog, or some other seemingly completely innocent reason. Seeing him again, she could have been at ease coming out to see the "found" puppy... only to find herself inside his car and traveling away from her home.

You are right in that no girl is going to leave home without shoes. Maybe if she was really really scared, she couldn't make noise at all.

 

[Richard]

Three months from now, June 29th, will mark the 35 year anniversary of Eva's disappearance.

 

[Ambercat]

I noticed an unidentified white female between the ages of 15 and 20 from South Carolina who was recently listed on the Doe Network and NamUs and I wonder if she could be Eva?
https://identifyus.org/en/cases/9998
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/856ufsc.html
Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of information but these are the circumstances of the unidentified person --

This is a purged medical examiner case from South Carolina. The ME gave it to an anthropologist in 1992. Upon retirement, the anthropologist gave it to the county of origin, which was Chaleston County. We do not have any law enforcement or autopsy information or the anthropological report, so we therefore do not know when the ME originally got the case, date or year of death, or the original condition to estimate postmortem interval.

Samples have been sent for DNA testing, but the testing is not complete.

 

[annegrete]

Very interesting case. My thoughts:

1. Eva has this planned. The bath, the tea, and the flip flops are all a ruse to get people thinking she was kidnapped. She left with someone she trusted, but he had other motives.

2. Maybe the abductor first came by, spoke with Eva, told her something like he was collecting for charity or anything else that would be perceived as "good-hearted". Eva tells him she has some other things to do, and she'll come back later. She thinks that he'll return, she'll give him some money for his charity, and she'll then take a bath and have tea. However, he returns and abducts her.


ARTICLES
JUL 3, 1977
LAW SEARCHES....
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...RLssAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HBMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3337,460351

JUL 11, 1977
...BLACKMAIL...
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...1YciAAAAIBAJ&sjid=haoFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4198,990137

Feb 16, 1980
SEARCH BEING RESUMED FOR MISSING TEENAGER
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...YQiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0qkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4718,6214657

FEB 16, 1980
BODY NOT THAT OF MISSING...
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...oIsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=r80EAAAAIBAJ&pg=5273,2834557


Aug 1, 1984
LUCAS SAYS HE KILLED IN SC
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...=NmAsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=j84EAAAAIBAJ&pg=2635,67315


Aug 20, 1984
...DRIFTER MAY HAVE KILLED 10 IN NORTH, SOUTH CAROLINA
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...pJJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PAwNAAAAIBAJ&pg=2722,6430533

OCT 23, 1984
COUPLE DEDICATED....
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...oVJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4AsNAAAAIBAJ&pg=2591,7811174

APR. 17, 1985
LUCAS' CONFESSIONS AREN'T PANNING OUT...
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...ZaFJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=xgwNAAAAIBAJ&pg=955,5485217

JUL 3, 2001
BONE MAY HELP SOLVE CASE....
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...SiRaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=60sNAAAAIBAJ&pg=5554,998809

 

[Richard]

Interesting stories about Serial Killer Henry Lee Lucas stating that he killed in South Carolina about the time Eva DeBruhl disappeared.

Lucas confessed to hundreds of murders all across the country, then recanted on them before he died in prison.

I think that a better candidate for suspect in this case would be Fred Howard Coffey, Jr. He lived in Charlotte, NC at the time - only a short distance north of Eva's home in SC.

 

[Richard]

Bumping case up...

 

[aloudy]

I live near Catawba. I'm wondering if the reservation was searched/what the protocol is for Indian lands. There are so many wooded areas and farmland that there is no way it was all covered.

 

[Gardener1850]

She vanished 40 years ago in York County at age 15. Eva Debruhl is still missing

ROCK HILL Forty years ago Thursday, a nightmare started for the DeBruhl family. It lasts to this day.

Eva Debruhl, 15, was outside her home in rural York County southeast of Rock Hill on June 29, 1977. She was mowing the lawn. She disappeared.

“She vanished into thin air,” said Eva’s sister, Tami Settlemyer. “From the very beginning we knew something was terribly wrong.”

A glass of iced tea was untouched on a table. Her grandmother saw a white man on the porch, and a four-wheel drive vehicle, approach the house twice that day. But nobody ever found that man, or who he was, or anything else about him or Eva. Debruhl’s father was a mechanic - men approaching the house was routine.
Nobody ever found Eva. She has never been spotted. Not once.
A teenaged girl was gone.

Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/news/lo...ndrew-dys/article158061824.html#storylink=cpy
​

 

[dogperson]

I was just thinking about Eva's case this past week. I was checking to see if she might be a victim of South Carolina killer Pee Wee Gaskins, but he was arrested prior to the date Eva disappeared. At one time Henry Lee Lucas claimed to have been her killer, but I have my doubts about many of his confessions.

It sounds like a man came by the house, perhaps to see Eva's dad as the grandmother thought, then got to thinking about Eva after he left and decided to go back. He already knew her dad wasn't home and he may not have known her mom was at home asleep. Then I guess he either took her by force and put her in his vehicle, or maybe he pulled a weapon on her, or maybe he somehow convinced her to get in the vehicle.

 

[Lemania]

I went to school at Castle Heights where Eva went. She was 2 years ahead of me so summer of my 7th and her 9th. I remember this happening and I vaguely remember Eva. She had long hair and glasses and I would see her in the hall now and then holding her books. Not much of a memory I know, but I was in my first year of junior high. I have an old year book packed away I will have to drag out. I think one of the photos of Eva is from that period. Rock Hill at that time was much more rural. The Catawba River was the place to go to hang out and there were very few developments, just old time river houses. Dumping a body there at that time may have never been found. There was also the river bottoms where you could go for miles.

We also had Hell's Angels and the Outlaw biker gangs in the area on Cherry Road with a bar they hung out at. The scuttlebutt back then was she was a religious girl who had an older boyfriend that no one knew. And she ran away. Like I say, all old remembered gossip, true or not. Finding her on here and reading the circustances after all this time made me sad. We girls always felt safe and would hang out late at night that summer in the neighborhoods and never worry about serial killers.

I hope she ran away and I wish she would let people know she is alive. That is a hopeful thought.

 

[Ambitioned]

Not sure exactly where they lived but I have driven along Neelys and Reservation Rd. many times to avoid the traffic on 5. The area has a lot of old money and new money. There's a lot of older modular homes and newer modular homes as well as new home communities with HOAs, etc. As the poster above me stated the community was much more rural all those years ago. I'd love to think she ran away but the probability is remote, IMO. Very tragic for the family. :cry:

ETA: I found out where she lived. That area is still very woody. Did they ever bring in tracking dogs?

 

[WildHeart]

I wonder if they ever considered Larry Gene Bell for this? We know he was active in Charlotte (which is near this area) in the late 70's (Denise Porch is a possibility, Priscilla Blevins too) and Sandee Cornett in Charlotte in 1984, then in Columbia in the mid-80's where he was finally caught, convicted, executed.

 

[Ambitioned]

I wonder if they ever considered Larry Gene Bell for this? We know he was active in Charlotte (which is near this area) in the late 70's (Denise Porch is a possibility, Priscilla Blevins too) and Sandee Cornett in Charlotte in 1984, then in Columbia in the mid-80's where he was finally caught, convicted, executed.

Wouldn't surprise me. I wonder if his whereabouts were checked for that day Eva disappeared. He tried to abduct a woman on Cherry Rd. in 1975 which is 9 miles from where Eva lived. He had a green car then but that means nothing. Perps switch cars or borrow them.

"I noticed the guy sitting in the green Volkswagen," Sauls said of that February 1975 morning. "I walked across the parking lot, and he got out. He said, 'Let's go to Charlotte and party.' I said no, and he grabbed me and spun me around. He stuck a knife at my stomach. I started screaming."

Dale Sauls Howell

As for Eva being a runaway I just can't see it. She loved her family, was active in church, and always informed them of her whereabouts. To me it seems more likely the perp came to the house for her father and talked to her through the screen door. She was probably bubbly and informed him he was at work and mom was sleeping. And that dad would be home at such time. He saw it as a chance to abduct her and came back. As for her not screaming it's easy to prevent that. "You make a sound and I'll kill your whole family." MOO.

 

[Richard]

The 40 year anniversary of Eva's disappearance has just passed.