BROWNSTOWN, Ind. — For half a century, Linda Pack spent her time waiting, hoping for answers as to what happened to her brother, Michael Sewell. Finally, she knows.
"I don't even know how to put it into words. Unbelievable, happy, a bunch of emotions all at once," Pack said.
Her 16-year-old brother Michael Sewell went missing Dec. 18, 1971.
He'd been camping with his friends, Stanley Robison and Jerry Autry. The night before, a fire broke out at the Brownstown cabin they'd been staying in.
Lt. Adam Nicholson, with the Jackson County Sheriff's Department, said the investigation determined Autry and Robison had died.
"And other witnesses that had been at the cabin that night had said that he was also camping, so Mike Sewell had also been camping with Jerry Autry and Stanley Robison. But the investigators had already left the scene and pretty much concluded that there was just the remains of two individuals. But Mike Sewell had never been seen or heard from since," Nicholson said.
With no answers as to Mike's whereabouts, Pack said dozens of people searched the area.
He was never found.
Mike Sewell Disappearance Solved
"We didn't get to have a service for him. We put a memorial plaque down for him, but there's nothing in it. The only thing my mom could do was she got a picture of him and she lit candles, and that's all we got for him. And we just had to learn to live with it," Pack said.
And live with it they did — for the next 50 years.
Then last June, cold case investigators exhumed the bodies of Robison and Autry, with their remains sent to an anthropologist with UIndy.
"She finally sent her report that was scientific certainty that there was three subjects between the two caskets," Nicholson said.
Mike had been there all along, news Nicholson couldn't wait to share with Pack.
"It's hard to explain, really. I mean, just to know you're giving someone information that's life-changing and it's information about something that happened before I was even born. So, it's a great feeling to know how happy they are, to know they finally have the answers they've been wanting," Nicholson said.
After 51 years of wondering what happened to Mike, now finally for her family and for Pack, there's a peace of mind and a sense of relief.
"I'm just glad I got to be alive long enough to know the truth," Pack said.