In 1976, This Teen Attended A Wedding But Was Never Seen Again: Then, 8 Months Later, Her Body Was Found Less Than 1 Mile Away
Pamela Jean Bluemel of Lakewood, Colorado, was just 15-years-old in 1976. And late that year, she attended a dual wedding reception for two local couples at the VFW Hall on Balsam Street.
What exactly happened to Pamela following the event on December 11, 1976, sadly remains a mystery. Instead, the Bluemel family never heard from Pamela or saw her alive again.
After Pamela never returned home, her parents eventually contacted the Lakewood Police Department to report their daughter missing. And they apparently suspected that Pamela had run away from home.
8 long months followed the wedding reception, though, and there was no news of Pamela’s whereabouts. Then, on August 18, 1977, investigators made a harrowing discovery.
A young woman’s remains were found underneath a trailer parked behind the Top Notch Motel in Lakewood– which was located less than a mile away from where the wedding reception was held.
And tragically, the remains were too badly decomposed for detectives to immediately identify the victim.
So, they first had to comb through countless missing person reports– mostly of women who had reportedly run away, disappeared while hitchhiking, or been kidnapped.
Authorities were able to narrow their search to about twenty girls who generally matched the description of the body.
Colorado Bureau of Investigation; pictured above is Pamela
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Then, the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office compared the dental records and fingerprints of each missing girl to the body.
This entire process took about two weeks until the identity of the murder victim was finally declared to have been Pamela Jean Bluemel.
Pamela would have turned 16 that July. But, coroners concluded that her life was taken from her an estimated 3 to 6 months prior to investigators’ discovery of the remains.
Aside from Pamela’s identity, though, authorities were not able to determine a cause of death since her body had deteriorated so much. Still, Pamela’s death was considered a homicide and investigated as such.
However, the extent of authorities’ investigative efforts into the fifteen-year-old’s case has not been publicized over the years.
Unfortunately, all we know is that the exact circumstances surrounding Pamela’s death have remained a mystery; and her killer has never been caught.
If you have information regarding Pamela’s whereabouts following the VFW Hall wedding on December 11, 1976, or any other knowledge of her case, you are encouraged to contact the Lakewood Police Department’s Cold Case Unit at (303) 987-7474 or [email protected].
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