The Sumter County John & Jane Doe from 1976

[Woodlands]

Has anyone heard anymore on this case? This was another SC mystery that I do not think has ever been solved.....

[southernmeltdown]

considering where they were found and the dates .they were right in the middle of donald "pee wee gaskins " killing grounds he loved to cruise those highways looking for prey and he had a penchment for torturing and killing hitchhikers...a conservative estimation puts his body count at 40 plus and even on the day he was executed he said bodies he dumped would wash up for years to come.could they have been one of pee wee's coastal kills???

[Geechie North]

I was a cop with the Chas PD way back then, and if they were killed in 1976 (as the original poster says) then Peewee is excluded, having been arrested in late 1975.
But he was the first guy to pop into my mind also while reading this.

[phenolred]

There was one person of interest Lonnie George Henry and if HE didnt Do it them sombody he knows did it because his gun is the one that killed them...

I just wish we could deterime their names so their families can have some closure.


Sole suspect
About four months after the murders, police in the Darlington County town of Latta arrested Lonnie George Henry for drunk driving. Under the seat of his car they found a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson with the serial number filed off.
Police sent the gun to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division's forensic lab for tests and later concluded that Henry's revolver had killed the mystery couple. Bullets taken from the bodies matched with the weapon.
When officers asked Henry point blank if he was the killer, his polygraph said he was telling the truth. No, he hadn't pulled the trigger. But several other lie detector tests implied he was lying about something, at least, maybe covering up for somebody. Investigators wondered if someone had stolen his gun and whether a relative or friend of Henry's had killed the couple in Sumter.
But case files say Henry did lie about how he'd obtained the gun, first telling officers that he'd bought it from a truck driver. Days after the purchase, Henry told investigators, he discovered the serial number had been filed off. By then, it was too late to return the item for a refund.
SLED recovered the serial number and investigators tracked the gun from its manufacturer to Henry's brother, who said he gave it to Henry as a Christmas present four or five years earlier.
The gun had been bought, stolen and resold several times before falling into the hands of Henry's brother. But he said the serial number was still there on Christmas Eve.
When confronted with the new information, Henry confessed to filing the serial numbers off himself.
It remains unclear why Henry lied if he was innocent. And it also remains unclear if he really was. Case files say Henry was a recovering alcoholic and had also gotten in trouble with the law for a slew of minor offenses.
At the time, his son had recently drowned in the Pee Dee River. He'd also accidentally killed one of his co-workers, by backing a dump truck over him.
Investigative psychologists even wondered if he'd killed the Sumter couple and simply couldn't remember doing it.

[Captain Worley]

Originally Posted by phenolred

When confronted with the new information, Henry confessed to filing the serial numbers off himself.
It remains unclear why Henry lied if he was innocent.

Oh, I know why he lied about that. I believe it is a federal crime to remove the serial number from a weapon. Did they charge him for that?

[phenolred]

No I dont believe they did......He died in 1982....I dont think he was ever charged with anything relating to this case. Which makes you wonder did he have "connections" in LE, was this a coverup? I seriously doubt this case will ever be solved as far as the who did it part, BUT the WHO are THEY part is certainly solvable, and I pray everyday that it WILL HAPPEN...

[porchlight]

Still working on figuring out who these two people are. Somebody somewhere knows something.

[Mrs. P]

Originally Posted by porchlight

Still working on figuring out who these two people are. Somebody somewhere knows something.

If I were you I would copy and paste this story to the Canadian city data board. I know there is a Canadian page. Their board may be actually specific to areas as well. I'd post it to every available Canadian board on city data. As the internet expands, and older people are using it more and more, someone in or around these 2 peoples ages, may recognize the people. To me, clues point right to Quebec, somewhere. The clues seem to me to point to French. The name of the man was most likely not JOCk but rather Jacques, the girl not shaving her legs is another practice that tends to be European (France Germany) ..not practiced as much in the US or other parts of Canada. Quebec is heavily French. The initials on the ring are a very good starting point.
As well as the man stating his father was a doctor. And the girls moles on her face.