South Dakota Cold Case Knocked Wide Open - Missing Teens Car Found After 42 Years

SPINK, SD -After hours of work Monday night and Tuesday, a car that may contain clues to the 1971 disappearance of two missing Vermillion teens is in police possession. It's what they found in the car that is the biggest discovery.

Cheryl Miller and Pamela Jackson were last seen driving to a gravel pit where they were going to join a party in May of 1971. Tuesday night, investigators finally removed the car from a creek, and they found bones.

Despite numerous searches over the years, it wasn't until Monday morning that a man stumbled across the car they were last seen driving upside down in Brule Creek just North of Spink, South Dakota.

But the process was grueling, investigators spent hours digging around the car and picking out what's inside including human remains and other items.

Meanwhile, neighbors and community members watched and waited.
"I heard at coffee that the mother and the father of one of the girls was here yesterday. So, It'll give them some closure any how knowing where she's at and they can take her home and have a funeral or whatever they want to do," said Harley Salberg of Beresford, South Dakota.

The car was found Monday when someone walking by saw tires sticking out. The license plate on the car matched the one that was on the Studebaker Lark the two girls were last seen driving to a party at a nearby gravel pit.

James Haneklaus lives just a couple hundred feet from the pit and says almost every year, Pollman Excavation drains water out of the pit and straight into the creek.

"The pump is over that way, probably right over there and there's a tan panel and that's where we turn on the pump and is actually coming out of the water and we pump it out of there. That actually holds the beginning of the pipes and so that way we can suck it all in to the pipe and then pump it into the creek," explained Haneklaus.
It pumps 10,000 gallons of water out per minute and Haneklaus thinks the force of the water may have something to do with the sudden appearance of the car.

"I think it got dug up a little bit under the car so they could find it and when they fixed the bridge too, underneath the bridge I think that may have had a little to do with," he said.

The car is being stowed away for now in case it needs to be tested for more evidence. The human remains and other items are being taken to a lab in Sioux Falls where technicians will test them to recover any DNA.

The investigation is ongoing and Union County Sheriff Dan Limoges says he wants to focus on the facts instead of speculating about what happened for now.

No word yet on when the DNA results we'll be finished.

[kalikasurf]

For 42 years no one thought to look in the water next to where they disappeared???? Really??? Great detectives back then, huh?

[jerseyjoyride]

I heard this story a while back, but this is the best video I've seen of the actual car and where it was found.
It does make me wonder how many cars are out there that simply went off the road on the route they were known to have driven.
It would be interesting to know how many people out there disappeared, and their cars were never found as well.

[trikerider]

To bad the reporter spent so much time on how the water was drained and not enough time on the story of the missing girls. Probably a lot of detail was edited out in this short clip though.

[gabrielsteiger]

It shouldn't have been found by accident. They knew the road she was driving on. Any water should have been drug with grapples along the entire route. It's pretty inexcusable for them to have only found it now.

[acuteteacher]

I have a sister who had a head-on collision with an 18-wheeler in 1971. She had multiple injuries that she has had to deal with ever since. She got married and had children and now has grandchildren but her injuries have caused her problems her entire life. I was 10 and she was 17 when it happened. I just thought: what if she had been missing all these years instead? How horrible that would be! I pray for those families.

[carrera]

These kinda videos remind me of Adventures With Purpose and the amazing work they do!

[phillipmontano]

The family drove across that bridge many times over the the years not knowing that the car was right there buried under layers of mud

[shellycalvert]

It's unbelievable how something as big as that car, right off the side of the road and bridge, isn't seen nor found for 40 yrs. Those poor girls and especially their families;(

[intrepid]

This just happened again in Saginaw County MI. This Tuesday.
A 70's Buick sedan was found in a pond, also with human remains in it.

[miriamsamaniego]

Wow! As I watch this, it’s 2021, and 50 years since they went missing. The poor elderly parents that were there the day before the excavation. So terribly sad.

[saveamerica]

They didn't look very hard. Especially if they were following ppl to a party, they had to have a clue to where they could of ended up.

[jusablesyn]

That seemed to have been sloppy detective work...

[sheilamobley]

Being from South Dakota. I am surprised I am alive. The drinking in the middle of nowhere. I think that is why I am so hard on my kids now!

[davequick]

42 years and the farmer never saw the car in his ditch..

[horsewithnoname]

I can't believe that for 40 years now one noticed a car in the lake, even in times of droughts, when the water levels are lower!
I have also seen several of these videos where cars were recovered from lajes solving decades long mystery disappearances. They really make the police, sheriff and fire departments involved in the searches at the time, look really incompetent or careless.

[community]

So they were following a car and suddenly weren't there anymore and no one thought to look into the small body of water - there is just something fishy about this story. Why didn't the boys turn around and go back and look for the car? Almost sounds like somebody ran them off the road in a rage and left them there in the water to die.

[chrisdooley]

It’s almost criminal the level of negligence that search effort had. Any water on her known route should’ve been dredged and dragged from day one. Terrible bumble smh

[mildridj]

So tragic. Just out to have a little fun. May they now R.I.P.

[Vampirebear]

There's no such thing as "closure" :-( The pain of loss never goes away.

[kategordon]

Thoughts and prayers especially for the families.