Pamela Mae Buckley's Missing Photo at NamUs Delayed Match

Author: Shane Lambert

The day of identification finally arrived for the Sumter County Does. They are James Paul Freund and Pamela Mae Buckley.

In a previous blog post, I showed that the identification of James Paul Freund could have been made years ago. The Sumter County John Doe, which was ultimately identified as James Paul Freund, bore a ring with the initials JPF. If James Paul Freund had an online profile with NamUs, for example, I'm sure someone would have looked at the John Doe, noticed the initials matching James Paul Freund's, and noticed that the dates made sense. This would have gotten the ball rolling, I think, into simultaneously solving both the mystery of the Sumter County John Doe and the missing person case of James Paul Freund.

I further submit that the Sumter County John Doe could have been identified in a much more difficult manner -- even without an online profile. I think the initials were all that were needed to produce a lead in this case. This is a topic I wrote about at Websleuths under my handle "UncoolNegated." 

There is a searching technique that can be used in some databases where question marks can be substituted for unknown letters. For example, if you know someone's name starts with a "J" then you can search for "J????" to find all names that start with J that are five letters in length.

The Sumter County John Doe was thought to have JPF as initials. If someone had searched for "J?????" and "P." and "F??????" in conjunction with "Legal Notices" and "presumed decedent" then it would have produced several thousand hits at newspapers.com. The latter terms are ones that commonly appear in classified ads having to do with the estate settlements of missing people who are assumed to be dead. These kinds of classified ads certainly should be studied by those who work on missing person cases because John Does and Jane Does have their names in these kinds of legal notices for sure.

Admittedly, there is hindsight bias in picking a name of five letters for the first name and a name of six letters for the last name. However, James Paul Freund's legal notice regarding his death in absentia was included in the thousands of hits that came up at newspaper.com when I tested my method out. It would have been tons of work to sort through the thousands of hits, keeping in mind that the name-length combinations would have been large. However, the Sumter County John Doe was identifiable through newspaper archive searches even though only his initials were known.

Sumter County Does Fri, Apr 22, 1988 – 38 · Intelligencer Journal (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) · Newspapers.com

Finding James P. Freund this way, I think, might have taken a volunteer who was organized about 40-60 hours of work with luck being a factor in finding a hit quickly. In the case of Pamela Mae Buckley, there was a much simpler method: she simply needed a photo included in her online profiles for her missing person case. 

Let's think about that.

Pamela Mae Buckley is the proper name of the Sumter County Jane Doe. Furthermore, the Sumter County Jane Doe was no ordinary Jane Doe.

This Jane Doe was someone who attracted scores of attention from journalists, unsolved mystery enthusiasts, composite sketchers, hobbyists who work on missing person cases, her coroner, and law enforcement. The Sumter County Jane Doe had many artistic renderings of her likeness produced. Lo-and-behold, these renderings looked like Pamela Mae Buckley.

According to a post at Websleuths by username Gardener1850, Pamela Mae Buckley had her missing person case profiled at NamUs where she was #MP62300. I think that she was added sometime in 2019. The post at Websleuths commented that there was no photo included with the profile. I couldn't verify this because once an identification is made the profile is deleted from NamUs, however, I do generally trust Websleuths on such matters.

If there had been a photo included, I am absolutely certain that someone would have drawn a comparison between one of the artistic renditions of the Jane Doe (or the Jane Doe's postmortem photos) and Pamela Mae Buckley's likeness. I further submit that this likeness would have produced leads because the dates would have been intriguing: Buckley was last seen in the months that preceded the discovery of the Sumter County Jane Doe. I'm sure it all that would have ultimately produced an identity match quicker than the one that came about. 

Furthermore, it would have saved loads of labor.

In the real world, Buckley was identified after her DNA was matched to her place in her family tree. That required a lucky break -- a living relative uploaded their DNA to 23andme. In this process of identification, the closer the living relative is in the family tree, the quicker the match. My understanding is that it takes an educated group of people who know what they are doing a good while to make such matches in some cases and the effort can be painstaking. It is worth the effort but it's a shame when it has to be done to make up for laziness.

Here's a better idea: when a missing person has their profile added to NamUs, someone gets a photo. If there isn't one readily available then make the photo "pending" and someone needs to make the effort to get one whenever possible. I'm willing to practice what I preach as I'll be using the tag "Photo Search" at this site for Jane Does and John Does with no photo.

The solved case of Pamela Mae Buckley actually reminds me of a scene from Naked Gun, starring Leslie Nielsen. A police lab professor has a wild plan for identifying someone, a plan that just might work. When Nielsen, in character as Frank Drebbin, says the plan is too tenuous, the professor instead produces the subject's wallet.

So, instead of identifying Jane Does using DNA and huge family trees with trained staff laboring away, let's first look at the obvious. Jane Does have composite sketches and those sketches can be matched to photos of missing people sometimes. The trick is that it requires some minor effort to locate a photo of the missing person but I think the effort should be made. 

Anyone who suggests that it shouldn't need to weigh all of the following against the effort of locating a photo: 

• the effort that's put into producing composite sketches
• the effort that goes into amateur investigation by volunteers
• and the effort that a team of trained investigators puts into combing through a Jane Doe's extended family. 

The total volume of this effort wasn't necessary in the Sumter County Jane Doe: Pamela Mae Buckley could have been suggested as the Sumter County Jane Doe from a photo alone and the DNA match could have been made. The amount of effort that was spent on this match could have been much smaller or spent on the many other worthwhile Does that are out there.

Identification of Sumter County Does Highlights Shortcomings of Database Records

Author: Shane Lambert

January 22nd, 2021

The Sumter County Does have been identified. For fans of unsolved mysteries, this has been a very long time coming. For Websleuths and amateur investigators, it's a huge sigh of relief. The male and female murder victims that were found dead in August of 1976 now have names: they are James Paul Freund and Pamela Mae Buckley.

Mon, Aug 9, 1982 – 1 · The Item (Sumter, South Carolina) · Newspapers.com

The case should highlight one glaring fact: the number of missing person cases that do not enter the online and searchable documentary record must be immense. I couldn't find missing person reports for either of the two individuals on the Internet nor in newspapers.com's database, a database that scours an immense volume of historical archives. 

I did find legal notices for James P. Freund but not news articles about his disappearance. The difference is important: more people read the news than the classifieds. The following legal notice pertains to the John Doe in the right gravemarker pictured above.

Thu, Sep 19, 1985 – 52 · Intelligencer Journal (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) · Newspapers.com

The implications of James Paul Freund's and Pamela Mae Buckley's missing person details not entering the searchable archives cannot be ignored by those that work on missing person cases. These were not people on the fringe of society. If they go missing without entering the newspapers in authored articles or the databases like NamUs, then what should be expected of the more marginalized? There must be thousands and thousands of missing person's cases that aren't getting solved simply because no one is taking the time to get the reports into the newspapers or into databases.

That's important to note, especially in the case of James Paul Freund. He had a ring that bore his initials "JPF," a ring that was found on the John Doe. If James Paul Freund had been entered into NamUs, then I absolutely think that he would have been identified a very long time ago. I think that because the mystery of the Sumter County Does is not your standard John/Jane Doe mystery: this one had a huge following. 

Such was the interest in this mystery that I am convinced that someone, like a keener Websleuth, would have plugged the relevant dates into NamUs. You can do that by simply looking for someone who went missing prior to the discovery of the bodies. You select the date of death of the John Doe as the end date  for the search and for a start date you could go back a year if you wanted -- or more if you felt it was needed. While such searches would produce small hundreds of matches, it wouldn't take that long to look for someone with the initials JPF that went missing at about the right time. If James Paul Freund had a NamUs profile, then one-half of the Sumter County Does would have been identified ages ago -- I'm sure of that.

The lesson is clear: if you know someone who is missing that is not entered into your government's online resource for missing people, then that is something you should remedy. While it can take a long time to get these databases up to date, there are people that cross-reference missing person's details with John/Jane Does.

Some people who disappear can't be traced, however, many can. That missing person you wonder about needs to be in the searchable archives to stand a better chance of being found. The case of James Paul Freund shows that: he went unidentified for 44 years and, in my opinion, that could have been much shorter. Freund and Buckley were murdered: what a shame it would be if the murderer lived out his natural life when simple data-entry could have produced a break in the case a long time ago.