A 14 year old girl's remains are found in a hilly, wooded area of North Dakota On April 7, 1972, after an argument with her mother, 14-year-old Caucasian female Lora Jean Dugan walked out of her family's home in Huntley, Montana. She caught the school bus but, instead of attending classes, handed her books to a friend and walked off toward Interstate 94. Lora told her friend she planned to hitchhike, possibly to Lame Deer, Montana, or as far as St. Paul, Minnesota. This was the last time she was seen alive.
Her family expected her to return after a couple of days, as she had run away briefly before, but as time stretched on with no word, they reported her missing.
Weeks later, on April 30, 1972, a rancher checking his cattle discovered a body in a hilly, wooded area approximately three miles southwest of Medora, North Dakota, about 250 miles from where Lora was last seen. The body was found under a cedar tree near a cattle path, clad only in a jacket. A cross necklace Lora always wore was found dangling from a branch nearby. Due to the condition of the remains, identification was not immediate. Dental records were used to formally identify the young girl as Lora Jean Dugan in early May.
An autopsy revealed the grim details of her final moments. Lora had been stabbed once in the abdomen, but this was not the fatal wound. The cause of death was determined to be strangulation. Marks on her wrists indicated that her hands had likely been bound at some point. While there was no definitive evidence of sexual assault, investigators and her family have long believed it was a component of the crime. The timeline established by the investigation placed her death sometime between April 7 and April 21, leaving a significant gap in which her whereabouts and the sequence of events leading to her murder are unknown.
Despite investigations over the years, the murder of Lora Jean Dugan remains an unsolved cold case. Law enforcement has never officially named a suspect, and no arrests have ever been made. In the years following the murder, the Billings County Sheriff at the time stated he believed he knew who was responsible—a truck driver who was later convicted for a series of murders involving hitchhikers. The sheriff felt the man fit the profile perfectly, but there was insufficient evidence to press charges in Lora's case. Decades later, her case was revisited by cold case detectives, but it continues to be without resolution.
