40+ years an 8 yr old girls strangulation and Murder goes unanswered in Rices Landing Greene County

Greene County is a very rural area of South West PA. with its rolling hills and farms plus huge underground coal mines  and now with the Marcellus Gas boom it is busier than ever with activity. Which means plenty of unknown strangers and transient workers traveling thru. One of the few areas of Pa. I have not traveled thru extensively as I only had couple customer down there over years and it takes for ever to get from point A to B most people pass thru Greene County like I do Via I-79.



Maybe it was just such a transient who came thru the small rural town of Rices landing in October of 1973
 who strangled and killed little 8 year old Debbie Makel  and partially buried her 500 yards from her home in
Rices landing along the Monongahela River  where it  is extremely rural PA route 88 a 2 lane road travels thru it on its way to Point Marion and the  West Virginia line. Not a road a normal person travelling would take to west Virginia  as Pa 837  and US 119 to Morgantown are much shorter.  It would be used mostly by locals and the occasional back roads traveler sightseer  . But then again such a rural quiet area would be the perfect place to commit a crime and get away with it especially if  your not from the area. Seems to me they where doing a lot of work on a nearby electric power station could it have been some one working on that project? We will probably never know. This was also right along the Monongahela  river with a history of violence and mystery.






I did some sub contract camera work in the area in late 80's  and even then it was very rural but that's all changed with The Mon valley expressway PA Toll 43 coming thru the area but Rices landing still sits quietly by itself except for fact some one killed this beautiful 8 year old girl and no one has paid the price for it. 
I was just starting High School when Debbie was murdered and I still remember it in the papers .

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