MALAD - Arrests are likely in the cases of three murdered girls whose skeletal remains were found near Malad in the 1980s, Oneida County Sheriff Jeff Semrad said.

Semrad said "substantial new information" has come to light in the abductions and slayings of Patricia Campbell, 15, and Tina Anderson, 12, who disappeared from a crowded 1978 Pioneer Day celebration in Alameda Park. Anderson was identified through dental records and DNA testing is now being conducted to confirm some of the bones were Campbell's. A third teenage girl's remains found nearby are still unidentified.

Semrad credited the breakthrough to a series of Journal stories which revived the cold cases last summer as well as good police work by Bingham County and Blackfoot authorities who are helping with the investigation.

"These investigators bring over 60 years of combined experience and training to the table," Semrad said. "I feel very fortunate that Sheriff Dave Johnson and Chief Dave Moore are so willing to assist us with this case."

Semrad declined to give a timeline for any arrests or to elaborate about the new evidence, but he said Blackfoot Lt. Paul Newbold and Bingham County Detective John Olmstead have been particularly helpful.

Authorities from several Southeast Idaho police agencies met at a November summit at the Bannock County Sheriff's Office to discuss the cases and share information. The result was a multi-agency task force which continues to meet an a monthly basis.

"After a meeting on January 11, the investigators and I feel future arrests are probable," Semrad said Wednesday.

Anderson and Campbell disappeared July 23, 1978. Hunters found the Oneida remains in a remote gorge near Malad in Oct. 1981. Skull fragments belonging to the Jane Doe were discovered at the site five years later by another group of hunters.

Earlier reports that the Oneida County Sheriff's Office never made the discovery of the Jane Doe public were unfounded. Former Oneida County Sheriff Lee Pfeiffer said he released the information to the media in 1986.

"I still think of the cases," Pfeiffer said of Anderson, Campbell and the Jane Doe. "I would like to see this resolved for the families involved."

Semrad has maintained throughout the renewed investigation that with so many people in Alameda Park that day, someone had to have seen who abducted Anderson and Campbell.

Possibly the first big break in the case came from Campbell's sister Melissa Whitman, who told Semrad she remembers the girl's hanging around a young man wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt and a large ring. After the revelation, the sheriff asked for the public's help identifying the suspect. He requested anyone with photos or home movies from the park that day bring them to his office for analysis.

And while authorities have speculated the Oneida murders are connected to the killings of two other Pocatello teens, Linda Smith and Cindy Bringhurst, both 14, Semrad says he is not looking for a serial killer.

Smith was dragged from her home on North 8th Avenue in June, 1981 as her younger brother watched helplessly and Bringhurst vanished from a baby-sitting job on the West Bench in June, 1983. Both girls' remains were later found near Pocatello.

By Casey Santee

Journal Writer