Well, I've finally decided to sit down and post the next part of the ongoing blog about the murder of third grader Debbie Makel in October of 1973. I was planning to post this on or very near the fiftieth anniversary of the still unsolved murder but figured our readers have waited long enough. Yes...its been fifty years since a little girl from the Rices Landing area went missing on a Friday after school and was found not far from her home two days later after a massive search. There are still no answers to the half century old mystery.
I apologize for the delay in Part 4. To say my life has been crazy since starting this blog is a huge understatement. Long story short, I have moved back to my hometown of Rices Landing, Pennsylvania and live about 150 yards from the spot where Debbie's body was discovered. Although I STILL have a short list of folks to talk to regarding their memories, many of the folks involved with the search have passed on. The folks I have on deck to talk to talk with all have vivid memories of that weekend in 1973 and I'm sure will have a lot to share.
I guess a quick recap is in order. I need to stress, again, I am not trying to solve the case. I do not have 'inside information' regarding the case. I will not publicly accuse any person/persons or allow anyone to name a suspect on the blog. I am in no way trying to re-open emotional wounds for members of the Makel family. I'm just a guy telling a hometown story. I do, however, encourage folks to share memories, thoughts and theories regarding the case. I think fifty years is long enough and the case needs to be back in the daylight. The popularity of true-crime blogs and forums on the internet have proved useful in bringing forward information in other cases. Maybe someone will come forward with useful information on this one. I'm still amazed at the amount of folks who live in the area that are unfamiliar with the case.
Part of the reason it has taken so long to move onto part four of this post is that I have wrestled with which way to go and what information to include. I have been very careful about sticking to what I've considered to be facts from the old news archive but it may be time to make a bit of a risky move on my part. By that, I mean including some information that was shared with me by someone directly involved. Now, I know I stated I didn't posses inside information and truth be told, what I have to share isn't anything already known.
Years ago, when I posted the first parts of this blog, I was contacted via email by a person who claimed to be Debbie's cousin. Not just any cousin but the cousin that actually located her body near Pumpkin Run creek not far from her house. This person shared their version of what happened that morning. There were several reasons I have waited to mention this until now, so please follow along carefully as I do not wish to confuse facts at this point.
I received the email to the swpare@gmail.com account which I still use. The email was in my account along with others I had received discussing the case. I went to retrieve it a year or so back (around the time we posted the Update video) and the email, along with several others, were gone. Even 'sent' emails of me replying were gone. I did not delete these. I still have no idea what happened to them as other, older emails still exist in that account. I'm not claiming to be conspiracy theorist but I find the whole situation strange. Web based email accounts are not known for security or reliability so I've chosen not to think too much about it.
While preparing to move, I was going through my stuff and discovered that I had printed the email from Debbie's cousin. I was relieved to find it and gave it another look. There is one issue with the printed version of the email. I printed it while I was at work. At the time, our system prevented us from printing directly from a website. I work in a local hospital and this measure was to prevent staff from printing information from the internet, which may be incorrect and sharing it with patients. I copied and pasted the text of the email, saving it as a Word file then printed it. This inadvertently omitted the headers and email addresses from the text.
So, basically, there is no way to prove this was an email sent to me or who authored it. If the person who sent it gets upset that I shared the information, they could simply claim I made it up. I assure you, I did not. The fact that the writer asks that they remain anonymous has always confused me as they were simply telling their version of what happened, which would be well known by the authorities. No new or revealing information was shared.
If it were my family member that was murdered and left in the woods, I would want as many people as possible to know to raise awareness and help solve the case. Wouldn't you?
Another reason I decided to share the email is that I have been a firm believer in the theory that Debbie's body was not in the area it was found during the previous days searches. Many people have shared this opinion. This is well covered in our videos. Officials believe this is not the case. So, in interest of being as accurate as possible, I've decided to present all sides of the story rather than stick to what I believe is true. I was five at the time and was not there.
The following are the pages of the email as I printed them, I decided not to transcribe them as to not make accidental changes to the text. This also keeps the actual email from being searchable by web browsers as text, allowing them to be edited. If for any reason officials would want this removed from the blog, contact me at swpare@gmail.com (with credentials) and I will be happy to comply. The email as I received it..
