ELK POINT, S.D. (AP) — Two South Dakota girls on their way to an end-of-school-year party at a gravel pit in May 1971 drove off a gravel road into a flooded creek and remained hidden until last fall when a drought brought their Studebaker into view, authorities said Tuesday.
State and local officials held a news conference Tuesday afternoon confirming that the 1960 Studebaker unearthed last fall included the remains of Cheryl Miller and Pamella Jackson, both 17-year-olds from nearby Vermillion.
The investigators showed dozens of photographs of well-preserved clothing, a purse and even Miller's driver's license with her smiling photograph.
Attorney General Marty Jackley said classmates who saw the girls before they disappeared and other evidence indicated they had not been drinking. In addition, mechanical tests on the car pointed away from foul play because it was in high gear, he said.
"It's consistent with a car accident," Jackley said.
A fisherman who remembered the 42-year-old case called authorities after noticing one of the car's wheels sticking out of the creek.
The disappearance of the Vermillion High School girls was one of the initial investigations of South Dakota's cold case unit in 2004.
