A hunter found the bodies a few hours later, minutes before 9 pm. Lying next to each other in a remote clearing, both had been shot numerous times and at close range. The coroner wrote in his report "no sign of sexual assault." The murders became headline news across the nation.
Deer hunting is always easier after rain. The ground is soft, and a country boy can spot tracks easy. That's how Ned came to find the bodies of two girls heading to the Rainbow Family Gathering in West Virginia's Monongahela Forest.
A local boy, he drove around the gate of the Droop Mountain National Battlefield, skirted the margin on an abandoned logging trail and steered toward Briery Knob. Walking along the edges, he noticed something.
Going closer, he spotted two piles of clothes.
Nudging one he found a body still dressed. Dropping his gun, he scampered back to his jeep. The tires kicked up rocks and dirt as he flew down the mountain.
Stopping at The Tipsy Cow Bar & Grill, he called the sheriff's department.
A few minutes later, Sergeant Bob Alkire, a friend from school and now local deputy, rolled up. He struggled as he got out of his squad car. A star linebacker at Little Levels High, the six-foot, three-inch pigskin hopeful gave up the chance to go to college when he got his cheerleader girlfriend, Beulah, pregnant on the back of the church bus. They were second-cousins.
White-faced and panicked, Net found it hard to breathe as he told the fat lawman about the discovery and offered to ride with him to show him the way.
Pulling up beside the bodies, Bob didn't recognize them and knew they weren't locals.
"No need to bother anyone else," Bob said as he rearranged the healthy helping of Red Man in his left cheek. "They're dead. They ain't going nowhere. Besides, they ain't from around here."
Instead of calling for someone with more experienced, the deputy called Thomas at Lantz Funeral Home which sat behind the Sparrow's Nest Bar in Beard Heights. Proudly boasting in their Yellow Page ad, "We offer a wide array of services for your family's needs during times of sorrow," the mortuary and crematorium lived by their motto, "Our Family Serving Your Family."
Together the three bagged the female victims, put them in the back of Thomas' pickup and rode down the mountain barely able to see through the fog which was rolling in.
Jack Frost, yes, his real name, was West Virginia's State Medical Examiner in 1980. When skinny man who favored Bill Nyefirst moved to Morgantown in 1977, he was responsible for 14 counties. The workload would increase to 25 jurisdictions by his retirement, 23-years later.
After Frost retired, authorities discovered hundreds of unfinished investigations. Some of the incomplete autopsies stretched as far back as the early 1980s, and prosecuting attorneys in 21 counties returned 59 questionable cases.
Claiming to be overworked and understaffed, Frost made plenty of errors. The Rainbow Killings would become part of the inefficiency. Frost initially estimated the time of death as 7pm based on the victims' bodies. Rigor mortis had not set in, and Frost would later testify the murders could have been committed as early as 4 pm.
Regardless, several days would pass before the corpses' identity was known.
Kathy, Nancy's sibling, was driving to Pocahontas. She had been busy at school ready for a break. Nancy made a week in the forest with hippies sound inviting. With nothing else happening in her life, Kathy agreed to join her sibling in the woods.
After spending a few days hanging out and waiting for her sister, Kathy decided Nancy had changed her mind, Kathy pulled down her tent, loaded the Pinto and made the trip back to New York.
When she got home, a friend shared a newspaper report with the victim's photographers. One resembled Nancy and Kathy on her way, again, to West Virginia.
On July 8, Kathy identified her sister's body and helped police contact the Durian family.
The killings went unsolved for two years.