Nancy Santomero was 19 and traveling with 26-year-old Vicki Durian in the summer of 1980, hitchhiking toward the Rainbow Family gathering in Monongahela National Forest. On the evening of June 25, 1980, a college student found both women shot to death at close range in a remote clearing on Briery Knob near Droop Mountain Park, Pocahontas County. Neither carried identification and neither showed signs of sexual assault; the coroner estimated they had been dead about three hours when discovered.

The isolated location and local tension over the upcoming Rainbow gathering complicated the inquiry. Early leads produced conflicting witness statements, a 1983 arrest that collapsed after a recantation, and renewed investigative work in 1991 that led to murder charges against several local men in 1992. Those charges were dismissed, then five men were indicted in 1993 as the case moved toward trial. Key testimony centered on accounts that the women had been picked up along Route 219 and transported in a van; paint chips from Nancy’s clothing were presented but disputed at trial.

Does anyone have memories of Route 219 or the Briery Knob area from that summer, or information about the people who traveled there during June 1980?