On August 9, 1976, trucker Martin Durant found the bodies of a young male and a young female along the shoulder of a remote dirt road in Sumter County, South Carolina. Both had been shot to death. Neither person was carrying any identification.

Drawings of the victims’ faces and features, dental information, and fingerprints were distributed across the United States and Canada, but no matches were found. Over the years, as DNA technology progressed, tests were compared to thousands of unidentified bodies in both countries; in January 2021, investigators finally hit pay dirt as DNA confirmed the pair’s identities.

For over forty-four years, Sumter County officials were stumped as to the identities of the man and woman dubbed Jock and Jane Doe. Investigators hope that with the names of the victims finally known, they will soon know who killed them.

“Jane and Jock Doe”

A vagrant believed he saw the man and woman being dropped off on Locklair Road, a secluded dirt road between Interstate 95 and South Carolina Highway 341 (Lynches River Road). Investigators believe the pair may have been hitchhiking or were killed by hitchhikers who hijacked their car. Each had been shot three times in their upper chests with what is believed to be a .38 caliber or .357 caliber revolver. Police found no eyewitness to the murders.

Approximately two hours before the bodies were found, a man heard a car driving along the dirt road. Shortly thereafter, he heard gunshots, followed by the sound of a screeching car hurriedly leaving the area.

Crime Scene Photograph

A Santee County Campground employee remembered meeting the couple several weeks before their murders, approximately sixty miles from where their bodies were found. He spoke with the man whom he thought had said his name was “Jacques.”

The man said he was the son of a Canadian doctor and that he and his girlfriend were on vacation, en route to Florida. The woman did not offer her name.

The couple became known as “Jacque (or Jock) and Jane Doe.”

Foreign Tourists?

An examination by a forensic dentist suggested both victims had money or had come from a family of means because they had had medical procedures that would have been expensive.

Jock Doe had had extensive dental work including bridges, crowns, and a unique form of root canal surgery not commonly performed in America. It also appeared he had been midway through a complete dental restoration.

Jane Doe had also had extensive dental work as she had fillings in all of her back teeth. In addition, her front teeth were straight.

Oddly, neither victim was wearing underwear when the bodies were discovered. Autopsies found no drugs or alcohol in their systems. Each had recently eaten fruit, or ice cream with fruit, and a man believed he saw the couple eating at a local fruit stand shortly before their murders.

Despite these clues, efforts to identify Jock and Jane Doe proved fruitless.

Mortuary Photographs

Items found on the pair’s bodies also suggested they had a high socioeconomic status.  Jock Doe wore a fourteen-karat gold ring inscribed with the letters “JPF” and an expensive gold Bulova Accutron wristwatch with a Twist-o-Flex band.

Using the serial number, investigators determined Bulova had made the watch in 1968. The company, had, however, destroyed many of its records when it downsized in the early seventies, and it could not be determined from where the watch had been distributed or purchased.

               

Jock Doe’s Watch And Ring

Jane Doe wore expensive wedge-heeled lavender/pink sandals and three expensive costume jewelry rings made of sterling silver. The sandals were Stride-Rite brand; the rings appeared to be authentic handmade Native American or Mexican costume jewelry originating from the Southwestern United States.

• The first ring had an ornate scrolling feather shape with coral and turquoise stones.
• The second ring was a metal band with red, white, and blue stones.
• The third was a black, oblong stone embedded with small turquoise chips.

                   

                            Jane Doe’s Rings                       Similar Shoes To Jane Doe’s

Jock” was a fitting sobriquet, as he had a lean, athletic build, standing over six-feet tall and weighing approximately one-hundred-fifty pounds. In addition to a four-inch appendectomy scar, several scars on his back and shoulders suggested he may have been an athlete as such scars are commonly found on players of contact sports.

The unidentified man had shoulder-length hair, brown eyes, and distinctive bushy eyebrows. The elaborate dental work he received may have been performed outside the United States.

Jock Doe was believed to have been between eighteen and thirty-years-old when he was murdered.

Composites Of Jock Doe

Jane Doe was believed to been between eighteen and twenty-five-years-old. She also had a slim build, standing five-feet-five-inches tall, weighing between one-hundred-to-one-hundred-five pounds. Her shoulder-length hair was reddish-brown, and her eyes were bluish-gray. The woman’s most distinguishing features were two moles on the left side of her face near her mouth. She also had unusually long natural eyelashes. Unlike her companion, she had no surgical scars.

It was determined Jane Doe had never been pregnant, and her legs had not been shaved in several weeks.

Composites Of Jane Doe

In December 1976, five months after the murders, truck driver Lonnie Henry was arrested for driving while intoxicated in Latta, South Carolina, approximately seventy-five miles northeast of where the bodies were found. A revolver in his vehicle was proven to be the murder weapon of the Sumter County Does.  Henry said his brother, Jim, had given him the gun as a Christmas present several years earlier. It was found to have been stolen before coming into his possession.

Henry claimed that at the time of the murders, he was eighty miles away, visiting his wife, Doris, in the Wadesboro, North Carolina, hospital. He was frequently at the hospital in August 1976, but it could not be confirmed or disproven whether he was there on August 9, the day of the murders.

Several polygraph tests administered to Henry yielded mixed results, suggesting he did not commit the murders but that he may have had knowledge who had done so.

As his alibi could not be disproven and it could not be determined who had possession of the gun at the time of the murders, prosecutors deemed the evidence insufficient to charge Lonnie Henry with the Sumter County Doe murders. He died in 1982. I could not find a picture of him.

The Murder Weapon Is Located

Serial killer Henry Lucas has been mentioned as a suspect in the murder of the Sumter County Does. Shortly before his death in 2001, Lucas told police he had been in South Carolina on August 9, 1976, and confessed to the murders as well as two other murders in Sumter County, those of an elderly woman in 1975 and of a young man in 1983. Authorities are skeptical of Lucas’s claims.

Although convicted of eleven murders, he “confessed” to at least fifty more that were proven he could not have committed.

Henry Lucas

Jock and Jane Doe appeared to be from upper class families. Because of their similar features and matching olive-colored skin, authorities for many years believed the man and woman were related, possibly having been brother and sister. After the couples’ bodies were exhumed in 2007, however, DNA testing showed they were not kin.

Fourteen years later, the DNA revealed the true identities of the Sumter County Does.

Jane And Jacque Are Not Related

On January 21, 2021, over forty-four years after the bodies of Jane and Jock Doe were found, the DNA Doe Project, a nonprofit volunteer organization formed to put names to unidentified deceased persons through forensic genealogy, identified the victims as  James Freund and Pam Buckley.

At Long Last They Have Names;

James Freund And Pam Buckley

Both the twenty-four-year-old Pam and the twenty-nine-year-old James were of American origin, hailing from Minnesota and Massachusetts respectively. Each were reported missing in December 1975, nine months before their bodies were found.  Pam was last seen in Colorado Springs, Colorado, while James was last sighted in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  The pair are believed to have met while hitchhiking across America. James’ middle name is Paul, corresponding to the “JPF” letters inscribed on his ring.

Investigators say they are interviewing multiple suspects and persons of interest in an effort to determine who killed the pair formerly known only as Jane and Jock Doe.

The Investigation Into Their Murders Is Ongoing

James Freund and Pamela Buckley, formerly known as “Jock and Jane Doe” were found shot to death in Sumter County, South Carolina, on August 9, 1976. Their identities are now known, but their murders are still unsolved.

If you have any information on their murders, please contact the Sumter County, South Carolina Sheriff’s Office at 803-436-2111.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/139091766/pamela-mae-buckley

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/139091753/james-paul-freund

Now Let’s Identify Their Killer

SOURCES:

• Charley Project
• Doe Network
• Nam Us
• Sumter County Does Website
• Sumter County, South Carolina, Police Department and Sheriff’s Office
• Unsolved Mysteries