Cold case of 1971 revisted, after car was spotted in creek with human remains

Pamela Jackson (left) and Cheryl Miller (right)

In 1971, Cheryl Miller and Pamela Jackson were on their way to a party at a gravel pit. The two seventeen girls never showed up to this party. The high school girls were never found. It was speculated that there might have been foul play involved. Maybe the girls just took a wrong turn. The real answer will never be known, since the car they were driving was found, only a half mile away from the original destination, in a creek. Only the car was turned upside, and has been sitting at the bottom of the creek for forty-two years. The license plate number and hubcap directly matches the one the girls were driving. It has been said that skeletal remains were found. The timing is especially sad, since Pamela Jackson’s father died last week at the age of 102. His funeral was last Saturday, and the car was found Monday. The reason authorities weren’t able to see the car until now is because the dry weather in South Dakota has slowly been drying the creeks out. But this raises a question; why wasn’t the vehicle found right after the disappearance?  Why didn’t authorities check the creeks around the intended destination? Was the car there this entire time, or was it recently put there? The forensic team has to do some serious digging to make sure the ending to this cold case is legit. A fisherman spotted the 1960 Studebaker Lark in Brule Creek. The car is covered in mud, and it’s going to take a very long time peel the layers. This case has been opened and reopened many times before, but the answer was never there. State prison inmate, David Lykken, was charged in the case six years ago. The chargers were dropped, though, after authorities learned the confession was false. The true answer to this terrible disappearance has still not been uncovered. Last week, two cars were found in the bottom of a lake in Oklahoma. Each car had human remains in it. There is speculation that one car may have belonged to a teen who vanished with two friends in 1970, only one year before Pamela Jackson and Cheryl Miller. The other car might be linked to another cold case involving the disappearance of a man in the 1960’s. These sudden appearances of cars with dead remain inside poses many new questions. Are they somehow all linked?

The car was found on the bottom of Brule Creek near Beresford, South Dakota.