Excavation trying to locate Watertown woman's remains

Law enforcement officials were sifting through Deuel County clay Wednesday, hoping to solve Watertown’s crime of the 21st century.

Jamie Brooksieck of the Deuel County Highway Department manned the backhoe that did most of the digging of a hole at least 21 feet deep and having a diameter of about 30 feet. Brooksieck and highway department foreman Marty Brown, operating a pay loader, were excavating an old well.

At the bottom, law enforcement officials hoped to find the remains of Pamela Dunn of Watertown and put to rest a missing person case that opened on Dec. 10, 2001, when Dunn failed to report to the Jenkins Living Center where she worked.

Five years later, a Codington County jury found David Asmussen of Watertown guilty of kidnapping Dunn, who had been his girlfriend. He is serving a life sentence at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls.

Dunn’s remains have never been found. Cam Corey of the South Dakota Department of Criminal Investigation and members of the Watertown Police Department and Deuel County Sheriff’s Office have been chasing clues ever since.

A tantalizing lead from a Deuel County resident came in January of 2017. The person said her body might have been dumped in the well now being excavated. It’s about 22 miles east of Watertown, a couple of miles off U.S. Highway 212.

Four previous attempts to locate Dunn’s body there have failed, although officials say they’ve never gotten as deep as necessary. The first attempt brought up the biggest find so far.

One of the Watertown Wastewater Department’s vacuum trucks taken to the site brought up what Corey described as a “conglomerate of hair that was wrapped up in some sort of elastic.” Tests done at the state forensic lab and then the DNA analysis lab in Denton, Texas, confirmed it was human hair but was so badly degraded that DNA identification wasn’t possible.

Since then three other attempts have made to further investigate the well. Task Force One, a group of highly trained Sioux Falls firefighters, Watertown Fire Rescue and Codington County Search and Rescue have tried different means and equipment to locate clues, but damage to the well and debris inside it have thwarted every attempt.

“This is our last resort with this well,” Corey said about today’s work. “This is our most promising lead in at least the 14 years I’ve been looking into this investigation.”

Digging started at 7:30 a.m., and shortly after 11 a.m. the Deuel County workers had uncovered a wooden structure where water was visible. But more careful digging remained, and Watertown police Detective Sgt. Chad Stahl estimated the water could be 9 feet deep.

The officials said eventually dirt removed in and around the site would be placed on tarps and examined closely. Members of the police department, DCI and the sheriff’s office were ready to participate.

Stahl said Asmussen was first apprehended within a few miles of the excavation site. The informant in 2017 said Asmussen visited the wooded farmstead to pick up firewood.

The nearby farmhouse was abandoned in 1986, Stahl said, and the property owner lives in Colorado.