In the quiet expanse of Sumter County, South Carolina, a grim discovery was made on the morning of August 9, 1976. Along a secluded dirt road, the bodies of a young woman and man were found by a trucker, their lives cut short by multiple gunshots. For 44 years, their identities would remain a mystery, the woman known only as Jane Doe and the man as Jock Doe.
It was not until January 2021 that the world would learn their names: Pamela Mae Buckley, a 24-year-old female, and James Paul Freund.
Pamela, originally from Minnesota, had been reported missing from Colorado Springs, Colorado, in December 1975. She and Freund were found to have been shot multiple times with a. 357 caliber revolver in what investigators believe was an execution-style killing, with fatal wounds to the upper chest and neck. The motive for their murders remains unknown, and their relationship to each other was not immediately clear to authorities, though it is believed they were traveling together. They were found without any identification, leaving law enforcement with a perplexing case that would span decades.
The initial investigation yielded few leads. The case grew cold, and the unidentified couple was buried in a local church cemetery. However, law enforcement did not give up hope. In 2007, their bodies were exhumed for DNA analysis in the hopes that advancements in forensic technology could finally put a name to the victims. This effort eventually paid off, and in 2021, through the work of the DNA Doe Project, their identities were confirmed as Pamela Mae Buckley and James Paul Freund.
With their names finally known, the Sumter County Sheriff's Office reopened the homicide investigation. While no arrests have been made since the identification, a person of interest had been identified years prior. A man named Lonnie George Henry was arrested in 1977 for driving while intoxicated, and the revolver in his possession was determined to be the murder weapon. However, there was insufficient evidence to charge him with the murders, and he died in 1982. Another name that surfaced in connection with the case was that of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, who claimed to have been in South Carolina at the time of the murders, but his confessions were often unreliable. The case remains open, with investigators hopeful that the identification of the victims might bring forth new leads and finally bring justice for Pamela and James.
