(CNN) -- They were 17-year-old high school students driving to a party at a gravel pit. Perhaps they took a wrong turn; perhaps there was foul play. For 42 years, authorities have had no idea how Cheryl Miller and Pamela Jackson disappeared. Now there may finally be answers.

(CNN) -- The 911 call is accusatory. The woman flatly tells the dispatcher she just witnessed several police officers in East Bakersfield, California, beat a man to death. The woman -- identified by the local newspaper as Salina Quair, 34 -- happened upon the scene as she left Kern Medical Center, where the father of four would later die.