SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - The 1971 disappearance of two South Dakota girls has been ruled an accident, so South Dakota’s attorney general wants to unseal three court documents from the now-closed criminal investigation.
Attorney General Marty Jackley said last week that Cheryl Miller and Pamella Jackson were killed when their Studebaker drove off a gravel road and landed in a creek. The 17-year-old Vermillion High School juniors were on their way to a party at a nearby gravel pit.
His office filed a motion this week in Union County asking a judge to make public two search warrants and one affidavit supporting a search warrant from 2004 searches at the Alcester boyhood home of a man who was at one point charged with killing the girls.
Authorities said at the time that David Lykken might have been involved in the disappearance of Miller and Jackson as well as three other unnamed people. Lykken is in prison serving an unrelated 227-year sentence for rape and kidnapping.
In 2007, a Union County grand jury indicted Lykken on six murder counts in the disappearance of Miller and Jackson. State prosecutors later dropped all charges after concluding a jailhouse informant lied about Lykken admitting to killing the girls.
The attorney general’s new motion to unseal the documents cites a South Dakota law that allows a judge to seal some documents until an investigation is terminated or someone is charged.
“I think the public should see what law enforcement had,” Jackley said, referring to why the farm was searched.
However, the motion asks that the names and other information on three victims, two of them minors, be redacted.
“There’s been enough concern as to what this did to several families. We’re trying to prevent any further harm to numerous victims in this case,” Jackley said Friday.
The Sioux Falls attorney, who previously represented Lykken, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
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