Act 1 Scene 6 - The Girls Go Missing

Act 1 Scene 6 – The Girls Go Missing

Susan Davis - Elizabeth Perry 

After leaving the Somers Point Diner on the circle, an off duty special policeman stood outside and watched the girls pull out of the diner parking lot and stop to pick up a hitchhiker - a young man in a yellow pull over, a clean cut young college aged youth - "not a beatnik or hippie." 

On Friday, shortly before the girls entered the Garden State Parkway North at 5:30 a.m., another car – a tan Mustang with three young men in it also entered the Parkway north, but within a mile or so ran out of gas so they drifted to the side of the road. As it was still dark they fell asleep until it got light out, and when they awoke noticed the dark blue Chevy convertible parked on the side of the road about 300 feet - a football field ahead of them.

Then two of the boys hitchhiked the two miles to the Tilton Road exit, got a can of gas and returned to their car. They didn’t hear or see anything suspicious around the Chevy as they passed it.

An hour later New Jersey State Trooper Louis Sturr passed the parked Chevy as he headed south on the other side of the road, drove down to Cape May – mile marker zero, and then traveled north on his routine patrol. Pulling behind the parked Chevy at mile marker 32, he inspected it and had the abandoned car towed. The tow truck driver raised the top of the convertible and took it to Blazer’s Auto on Tilton Road, and then went on a two day fishing trip out of state.

Sturr, the trooper, finished his shift for that Memorial Day weekend Friday and had the next two days off.

When Susan Davis and Liz Perry failed to call home on Friday, their parents contacted each other and began to worry, and when they didn’t show up for the graduation of Susan’s brother from Duke in South Carolina on Saturday, they notified the authorities that their daughters were missing.

But the police at the Jersey Shore didn’t really take much notice of the report of the missing 19 year olds, as they had seen many such cases eventually resolved when the girls showed up after a brief holiday fling.

A thirteen state alarm was issued but the secretary at the Motor Vehicle office in Harrisburg, over the hectic holiday weekend, got the car’s registration number wrong, so the police weren’t looking for a dark blue Chevy with Pennsylvania tags 828-595.

The girls’ fathers, soft drink bottler Walter S. Davis and paper mill executive Ray Perry knew their daughters better than the police however, and after conferring with one another, agreed that they would have called home if they could and something was seriously wrong. So they hired a helicopter that hovered over the Somers Point Circle for a minute before following the trail that the girls would have had to take home, looking to see if the car had an accident, was run off the road and was possibly hidden in the bush but found nothing.

MISSING SINCE LEAVING O.C.

13 State Alert Out for 2 Girls

OCEAN CITY – Police have issued a 13-state alert for two out-of-town girls missing since their supposed departure from this city early Friday morning.

The girls, Susan Davis of 2805 Laurel Lane, Camp Hill, Pa. and Elizabeth Perry of Route 3, Excelsior , Minn., both 19, were reported to have left a local rooming house a 4:30 a.m. Friday headed for the Davis home.

Recent graduates of Monticelo Junior College in Godfrey, Ill., the girls had been visiting this community since Tuesday. According to the landlord, they appeared cheerful when they drove off Friday to join the Davis family for a trip to Durham, S.C. for Miss Davis’s brother graduation from Duke University.

The girl’s fathers, soft drink bottler Wesley S. Davis and paper mill executive Ray Perry, rented a helicopter in Philadelphia Sunday morning and flew over the route the girls would have taken, watching for signs of an auto accident not visible from the road.

Davis, in an interview, said “We feel that there must have been some foul play somewhere or the girls would have called.”

“They are not the type, emotionally or temperamentally, to disappear for four or five days without calling home,” he said.

Local police are conducting an intensive investigation, checking rooming houses, places where the girls might be and questioning people who might know them.

The girls were last seen driving a 1965 blue Chevrolet convertible with a blac top bearing Pennsylvania tags 828-595. Miss Davis is five feet-seven inches tall, weights about 130 pounds and has light brown hair. Miss Perry is five foot eight, about 135 pounds, also with light brown hair.

The helicopter search revealed nothing but Davis said, “We are trying to uncover any clues which may lad to the girl’s return.”

The FBI is interested and is following the case closely thought they are not involved in it yet,” he said. An FBI spokesman said the breau does not have the case yet, nor any jurisdiction.

“We’ve been talking to everybody to try to get some information,” Davis said. “We’ve called all their friends all over the Eastern Seaboard and they have heard nothing.” 

News reports of the missing co-eds caught the attention of the tow truck operator returned on Monday, Memorial Day, and Trooper Sturr when he returned to work and heard about the missing girls, they realized that the car they towed from the Parkway on Friday morning belonged to the missing girls.

Going back to the scene near mile marker 32 on the North bound lane, Parkway maintenance worker Elwood Faunce, Jr. discovered the bodies of the two girls protruding from a thick pile of leaves a few hundred feet into the woods at 1:30 pm on Monday, Memorial Day.

An autopsy revealed that the partially nude girls had been stabbed repeatedly and one of them had been sexually assaulted. The weapons used was not found, and neither were the car keys, but a diver’s watch was discovered near the scene.

Most of the news reports quote New Jersey State Police Sgt. Joseph Kobus, the Public Information officer, and Major Thomas Kinzer appointed Lt. James Brennan in charge of the investigation, and Sgt. James Hart did much of the legwork on the ground. Atlantic County prosecutor Robert N. McAllister, Jr. also assigned a team of detectives to the case.

All of them agreed on two things – the three day delay in discovering the bodies and beginning the investigation made their jobs more difficult, chilling the potentially hot leads they could have developed, and whoever committed this crime would do it again.

The parents of the two girls tried to recall what they had said over the phone calls they made, remembering only that they said they got too much sun, and met some boys on the beach.

The day after the bodies of the two girls were found, Elizabeth Perry’s sister got a post card from Liz post marked Thursday, saying “I’m having a marvelous time, but am eager to see you all again.”

Press of Atlantic City – Tuesday, June 3, 1969

2 COEDS SLAIN NEAR SOMERS PT.

By Jan Katz

SOMERS POINT – The bodies of two coeds missing since Friday after an Ocean City vacation were found Monday afternoon in secluded underbrush off of the Garden State Parkway near here.

The bodies, identified as those of Susan Davis, 19 of 2805 Laurel Lane, Camp Hill, Pa., and Elizabeth Perry, 19, f Route 3, Excelsior, Minn. Were found partially decomposed, just inside the Egg Harbor township border near Mile 30 of the Parkway.

Both girls were students at Monticelo Junior College in Godfrey, Ill.

“Yes, we’re calling it murder,” said Joseph Kobus of the State Police.

Atlantic County Prosecutor Robert N. McAllister said the bodies, one nude and other fully clothed; 

were partially hidden under a blanket of leaves.

The nude body was that of Miss Davis, he added.

He said one of the girls had “indentations” in her stomach and that both bodies “had markings on them.”

The prosecutor said the boedies were found at approximately 1:30 p.m. by Elwod Faunce, Jr. of the Parkway Maintenance Station 6.

He said Faunce made the discovery while searching the wooded area near where the girls’ car was found Friday morning.

McAlister said the car, a 1966 Chevrolet convertible, was discovered at 8:30 a.m. Friday on the northbound side of the Parkway by Avalon Barricks Trooper Louis Sterr about 150 yards from where the bodies were found.

The girls had stayed in the Syben House in Ocean City. Walter Syben, owner of the home, said they left at 4:30 a.m. Friday “to beat the traffic.”

McAllister said the car was abandoned on the parkway shoulder sometime between 7:30 a.m. Friday, when the trooper passed the area on routine patrol, and one hour later, when the car was discovered.

The car was then towed to Blazer’s gas station in Northfield, said McAllister.

Police apparently didn’t connect the abandoned automobile with the disappearance of the two girls until Monday morning when Parkway maintenance men and police began a search of the area.

McAlister sad a jacket found near the bodies bore the name of Susan Davis, and he said the car’s ownership had been traced to Miss Davis.

The bodies were found approximately 20 feet from each other, said Sgt. Kobus. One of them was lying face down and one face up.

They were approximately 20 feet behind a fire break road off the heavily-traveled Parkway.

‘Be Careful,’ 2 Told On The Way to Death

By William Bonvie Press Staff Writer

OCEAN CITY – “My wife told those girls, be careful, be careful!”

Walter E. Syben, who owns a rooming house at 712 Ninth St. here thus described the advice given to Susan Davis and Elizabeth Perry at 4:30 Friday as they were leaving in their car for Miss Davis’ home in Camp Hill, Pa.

“It was Memorial Day and the girls who had earlier planned not to leave until 7 a.m. decided that they might beat the holiday traffic by departing several hours early as Miss Davis planned to attend her brother’s graduation from Duke University.

They never reached their destination. Somewhere around daybreak as they rode up the lonely Garden State Parkway near Somers Point, only a few miles from Ocean City, they encountered their murderer.

The pair had made quite an impression on the elderly Syben and his wife who meet many youngsters as they run a rooming house for girls in the popular resort of teenagers.

“They were very nice and sophisticated. You could tell immediately they came from good families,” he said.

“Very well bred,” he said. “The girls were attractive and very plain in their manner.”

They also apparently became very fond of Syben and his wife during their three-night stay at the rooming house. Syben indicated the feeling was mutual.

“They hugged my wife and kissed us goodbye,” Syben said. “They were quiet and well-behaved.”

The girls also promised to write and tell when they arrived home safely, he said. They also promised to return to the rooming house if they ever returned to the resort.

It was at this point Syben said, that his wife cautioned the girls to be very careful on their trip home.

They replied, “Don’t worry,” and that if they got tired they would pull over the side to rest.

They never had a chance to get tired as their trip abruptly ended less than 10 miles from Ocean City.

Syben said he bought his rooming house four years ago and also runs a farm in Pennsylvania in the 

winter. He said he feels like selling his local place as a result of the incident.

“When you see something like this happen, it takes all the fun out of the business,” he added.

Slain Girls ‘Not Type’ For Pickup

By Jon Katz – Press Staff Writer

ABSECON – Susan Davis and Elizabeth Perry were not the type of girls to pick up unknown hitchhikers, the head of the State Police squad investigating their murders said Saturday.

“From what I know about them, it doesn’t appear they would pick up someone they didn’t know,” said Lt. James Brennan.

Police remained for the ninth day with few clues on the killers of the two 19-year old coeds slain on Memorial Day in the underbrush off the Garden State Parkway. The intense manhunt across South Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania continued.

DINERS QUIZZED

Early Sunday morning State Police questioned scores of patrons in the Somers Point Diner in still another attempt to find witnesses who saw the two girls leave the diner shortly before their deaths.

Four investigators spent more than two hours at the diner in a pre-dawn interrogation and showed 

diners recent photographs of the two slain girls.

Brennan said Saturday night however that police had “no luck” in the questioning and were widening their search for the murder weapon, believed to be a knife.

The girls were last seen alive at the diner shortly after they left an Ocean City vacation to join Miss Davis’ family in Philadelphia.

Brennan said inquiries at the diner were aimed at locating witnesses who saw the girls leaving in their blue 1966 Chevrolet convertible.

The girls were found 200 feet off the Parkway just north of Milepost 31. Miss Davis was nude. Miss Perry clothed.

The police official said that many persons questioned “have not been totally cleared” of implication in the slayings.

“We are still checking leads,” he said.

Brennan also said Saturday that Miss Davis had taken several pictures during their vacation, including 

some of Miss Davis and “two male friends.”

NOT SUSPECTS

He said the boys had been questioned and were not suspects.

Police still have been unable to find keys to the car, found abandoned the morning of May 30 and towed to a Northfield garage.

The car remained in the garage until Monday, June 2, when police connected the automobile to the missing girls.

Slain Coed ‘Hot Line’ Is Set UP

The New Jersey State Police have set up a special telephone line through which they will receive any information concerning the movements of two coeds murdered last Friday, May 30, near Mile 30 of the Garden State Parkway’s northbound lane.

The police are especially interested in talking with witnesses who saw the girls leaving the Somers Point Diner at approximately 5:45 a.m. Friday, or saw the girls entering the woods adjacent to the Parkway shortly thereafter.

They have appealed for any information concerning the case.

The special telephone number is 646-2088. All sources of information will remain confidential.

The girls, both 19 are Susan Davis of Camp Hill, Pa., and Elizabeth Perry of Excelsior Minn.

Susan is described as being 5 feet 7 inches tall, 130 lbs, and Elizabeth 5 feet 8 inches tall, 135 lbs.

Both girls had light brown hair, and were driving a light blue 1966 Chevrolet convertible with the top 

down.

Coed Deaths

By Stephen Prisament Press Staff Writer

ABSECON – State Police have received a number of “substantial leads” in their search for the killer of 

two 19-year old girls slain May 30 by displaying recent photographs of the coeds at the diner where they were last seen alive.

Det. Robert Saunders would not elaborate on the nature of the “leads” obtained when officers questioned more than 200 persons at the Somers Point Diner, showing pictures of Susan Davis of Camp Hill, Pa. and Elizabeth Perry of Excelsior, Minn. The two girls stopped at the diner for breakfast after leaving an Ocean City rooming house at 4:30 a.m. the day of the murders.

Saunders said an underwater search for the murder weapon may begin today in the murky waters surrounding the area where the bodies were found about 200 feet from the Garden State Parkway near Milepost 31.

MAY SEARCH CREEK

Saunders said that Detective Lt. Jams Brennan, who is in charge of the investigation, had conferred early Sunday with a scuba expert from Trenton on the feasibility of diving in Patcong Creek, which ranges “from a couple of feet to 24 feet deep.”

“There is a very good possibility we might,” Saunders told reporters at a Sunday evening press conference. He said that much of the water is shallow and foggy and “It’s a question of whether we will be able to see anything.”

He said that Mario Patters, assisting investigating officer of the State Police, will arrive early this morning to conduct the investigation.

About 12 troopers currently are working on the case with more than 75 available. A six-mile search of the murder area revealed no clues, he said.

 “I’m optimistic about the case,” Sanders said. Asked if the reconstruction of events that took place the morning of the murders has advanced, he said that “a few days ago we had the girls in the diner and at this moment we still have the girls in the diner.”

Two girls Sunday answered the police plea to report any knowledge of the dead girls’ activities that morning and Saunders said they had seen the murder victims at “about 5:30 a.m.” evidently not after 

they left the diner.

“We have nobody in custody, either protective or otherwise,” Saunders said, answering queries about the more than 100 persons questioned about the murders and the more than 20 who wer given lie-detector tests.

The girls, stabbed a total of nine times, were discovered last Monday, three days after they were last seen. Partially covered with leaves, one body was nude and the other fully clothed.

The girls were returning to the David home in Pennsylvania.