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Washington Police Department has confirmed the vehicle pulled from Jack’s Creek on Saturday night (Feb. 10) is connected to a missing persons case from 1982.

Police Chief Phil Rollinson said the VIN number on the engine block confirmed speculations that it could be related to the missing persons case from 1982 when three men – William Clifton, David McMicken and Michael Norman, all of Washington, disappeared on Dec. 10.

Now that the VIN number has been confirmed, the next step is to get DNA results from the North Carolina Office of the State Medical Examiner. Human remains were collected from Jack’s Creek on Friday, Feb. 9 and Saturday, Feb. 10. They were taken to the State Medical Examiner’s office to be compared with DNA samples from known relatives of Clifton, McMicken and Norman.