Attorney General Marty Jackley makes the following statement in favor of allowing the public to see documents related to an investigation in which the public has questioned the conclusions and actions of state law enforcement:
"I think the public should see what law enforcement had," Jackley said, referring to why the farm was searched [Carson Walker, "South Dakota's Jackley Wants 1971 Evidence Issued," AP via USD Volante, 2014.04.25].
AG Jackley is referring to the evidence that led to searches ten years ago of the Lykken farm near Alcester, searches that led to wrongful charges of murder. AG Jackley is not referring to the evidence and documents in his investigation of the death last October of Richard Benda, former state economic development chief and primary player in the GOED/EB-5/NBP/Keystone XL scandal. Funny how AG Jackley's commitment to open records comes and goes.
If I remember correctly there were about 250 people searching for those two girls. It seems absurd that they missed looking under a bridge half a mile away or that they missed searching that creek all together. That Studebaker was also noticed by a friend behind the barn on the Lykken farm. That is why the searchers did not notice a car in a little creek.
Also, a car may be shaped like a football but does not bounce like a football. A car going off the road at an angle is not going to bounce back under the bridge. If a football lands on one end it bounces backwards. If a car rolls and lands on one end it flops back but the momentum of all that steel means it does not go backwards to roll under the bridge where no one would see it.
Mr. Lykken as known to be a womanizer and that is why the two girls friend sneaked onto the farm and was going to peek in the house to see if they were there. That is when she saw the car. The car was later gone.
if someone from that large search party can remember searching the creek would be helpful in proving that the car was not in the creek right away.
The best time to remember the details of any alleged crime is years later when memories have faded. Twenty or thirty years from now,South Dakotans may well remember NBP as an unmitigated success.
That's crazy, Roger. Crazy. Those girls crashed their car off the bridge on their way to a party. The car sunk below water level, and the searchers didn't find it. For some reason they didn't see any marks on the bridge or telltale signs of a crash in 1971. The initial searchers just missed it.
30+ years later with no sign of the girls, the AG's office simply assumed everything had been thoroughly searched and moved on to more far fetched theories. Hey, didn't that Lykken guy who later raped and terrorized women live near that gravel pit where the party was in 1971? He was only 17, but maybe he was a diabolical murderer who committed the perfect crime. Let's hypnotize his sisterand see if she has some false memories of seeing the girls' bodies on the farm. Let's believe some jailhouse snitch who claims he got a confession and have him get it again on tape.
Fact is, Lykken had nothing to do with the girls' crash. But you can't blame the AG's office for looking at other theories. It's a damn good thing Lykken had a good lawyer, Mike Butler, who had the "confession" tape analyzed and proved it wasn't Lykken's voice on the tape. The justice system worked. Imagine how the AG's office and the justice system would look now if they had convicted Lykken of murder based on hypnotic recollections and a false confession. They ought to send Mike Butler a nice thank you card for bailing their asses out of this one.
Funny how AG Jackley's commitment to open records comes and goes.
All depends on what instructions he gets from republican establishment.
Thorough investigations at the time would have searched the creek and, later, would have run a voice analysis on the phony confession. It's pathetic that private attorneys are forced to do the governments work when investigations are sloppy, piecemeal, and supported by myth, legend, and folklore. It would appear from the decades-long experience of this case and the fresher EB-5 fiasco that the offices of the AG & DCI have systemic problems of being afraid or willfully blind to pursue evidence allowing the science and truth to determine outcomes over "pet theories".
Rorshach, you are absolutely correct. A friend of mine knows the guy who pulled the car our of the creek. When they went back and looked at the bridge abutment, there was a large chunk of cement missing that would have come out right where the car would have hit the bridge. That chunk had to have laid there for years and yet no one noticed it.
Obviously Mr. Jackley is pissed off that the Lykkens had the nerve to ask him for an apology last week, and he's getting back at them by hinting there really was something dark and diaboloical in the records and at the Lykken farm. Typical: if it's a matter of public information (not to mention money), try and get those records; if it's a matter of personal animus, well then everybody's talking.
Initial fallacious "theory" was that the girls took off for California, so probably no real search early enough to see wheel tracks, etc. Next "theory" was that they drove into the Missouri River. Then a few dozen years later and "presto", another "theory", they were murdered. Then another "theory", Lykkens clan had to have something to do with it. Then "cold case" investigations became big TV fads and presto again, promise a jailhouse snitch to prove the latest "theory". Then on the basis of that fallacious evidence, find a favorable judge with no scientific or math education and probably a former prosecutor to decide to prosecute Lykkens on the "theory" that he had to be the murderer needed to fit the "theory" that they had been murdered with no evidence whatsoever to support that.
Enough of that. There needs to be academic, legal and legislative study of what went wrong with this classic ongoing screwup to determine if better systems can prevent such wild "theories" and garden path searches can be prevented....and perhaps a message to media to always question law enforcement instead of blindly supporting the systems no matter how off the track.
Not sure Jackley could find his butt with either hand.
That's the trouble with people who watch too much TV: investigators always find evidence, always figure stuff out, missing people are always found. In reality, many people disappear and are never seen again.
Sure, Anne, but the point here is that state investigators thought they have enough evidence to figure out enough to justify searching the Lykken farm. AG Jackley now wants to show us the evidence that led state officials to that conclusion. That's cool.
But Jackley also says he has enough evidence to conclude that Richard Benda did not die from foul play. Why doesn't he want to share that evidence?
Once again Jackley is being selective about what South Dakotans have a right to know by his contradictions.
This appears to be a search for political headlines in this election year.
The girls were following a car with 3 young men to the gravel pit. They drove past the pit about a mile and noticed the girl's car was no longer visible when they turned around. The creek is very near where they lost sight of the girls. Investigators seemed to doubt the accounts of the 2 young men they bothered to interview. Our sheriff in Clay County theorized that "drug gangs" were responsible. None of their theories required them to muddy their boots.