WATERTOWN, S.D. (KXLG) — New developments in the Pam Dunn missing person case were announced by the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, Watertown Police Department and the Deuel County Sheriff’s Office at a press conference on Wednesday.
Special Agent Cam Corey, WPD Detective Sergeant Chad Stahl and Deuel County Sheriff Cory Borg met with members of the news media at a location in Rural Deuel County, where a well is being excavated at an abandoned farm-site.
Pamela Dunn was reported missing on December 10, 2001 after she failed to show up from work at Jenkins Living Center. Watertown Police responded to her apartment and perform a welfare check. They could not find her and opened up an investigation.
On October 4, 2006, Dave Asmussen, the former boyfriend of Pam Dunn, was convicted by a Codington County jury of kidnapping her and sentenced to life in prison.
Agent Corey said the investigation into Dunn’s disappearance has always been a priority, saying finding her body has been “at the forefront” of the ongoing investigation.
In January 2017, law enforcement received a new lead that Dunn’s body was in a well in rural Deuel County. Investigators found human hair in the well, but it was too degraded to identify whose it was.
Corey said they have utilized Task Force 1 members from Sioux Falls Fire Rescue along with Watertown Fire Rescue personnel who have gone down into the well. Corey said despite the work of the two teams, they were never able to get to the bottom of the well. He said the current excavation is down about 21 feet as crews continue to work, calling it “our last resort.”
Corey said the well excavation is the most promising lead he has received in his 14 years of working the Pam Dunn case. The excavation will continue at the site as long as necessary. Corey said law enforcement will begin sifting through the dirt looking for evidentiary items soon.
(Troy VanDusen, KXLG, contributed this report.)
