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A Virginia woman searching for her biological mother assisted detectives in solving a 40-year-old cold case slaying.
Christine Salley “always knew she had been adopted,” according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office. This month, Salley, 41, discovered her mother was positively identified as one of the victims of a mysterious double murder dating back decades, authorities said.
The remains of Salley’s mother, Pamela Duffey, were found by an archeologist in a “shallow grave” in the California desert in 1980. Her body was found alongside William Everette Lane. Autopsies revealed they’d been beaten and shot. Both victims were naked.
Updated on April 24, 2021 at 8:26 am
San Bernardino County Sheriff s Office
Authorities have finally identified the bodies of two homicide victims who were found buried in the Southern California desert in 1980 and linked to a man imprisoned for murder in Mississippi, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said.
A chain of events that began with a woman using DNA to try to find her biological parents led to the identification of the victims as Pamela Dianne Duffey, born in 1959, and William Everette Lane, born in 1960, a department statement said Wednesday.
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Associated Press
Authorities have finally identified the bodies of two homicide victims who were found buried in the Mojave Desert in 1980 and linked to a man imprisoned for murder in Mississippi, the San Bernardino County Sheriff s Department said.
A chain of events that began with a woman using DNA to try to find her biological parents led to identification of the victims as Pamela Dianne Duffey, born in 1959, and William Everette Lane, born in 1960, a department statement said.
An archeologist found the bodies in a shallow grave in a remote area a few miles east of the tiny community of Ludlow. They were unclothed, had no IDs and had died from a combination of gunshot wounds and blunt force trauma.
An archeologist found the bodies in a shallow grave in a remote area of the Mojave Desert a few miles east of the tiny community of Ludlow. They were unclothed, had no IDs and had died from a combination of gunshot wounds and blunt force trauma.
Coroner s investigators estimated they had been in the grave for six to eight months. Efforts over the years to find out their identities were unsuccessful.
Investigators, meanwhile, identified a person of interest, Howard Neal, a Ludlow resident who left after the killings and went to Mississippi, where he was accused of killing his brother and raping and killing his 13-year-old niece and another girl in 1981.