Criminology - Linda O'Keefe

Episode Date: July 7, 2024

In 1973, 11-year-old Linda Ann O'Keefe was living in Corona Del Mar, California when she disappeared. Linda was attending summer school and walked home from school one day but never made it. Her body was found fairly quickly about ten miles from her home. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance and murder of Linda O'Keefe. A family friend saw Linda that day about an hour after school let out. She was standing next to a van with a man in his 20s or 30s. Linda's case went cold and it took over 45 years and advances in DNA technology for the police to find her killer. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology   An Emash Digital production

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 315 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Mike Morford. How you doing, man? I'm doing good.

It's July 4th week and just relaxing, sort of, you know, not doing too much, recording this episode and then plan to take a little bit of time off. How about you? Yeah, yeah, we're recording a little earlier. than normal to get a head start on the holiday weekend. It does seem like we've had a lot of holidays. They're all grouped up like in this kind of small span of time. And maybe that's because my birthday was in there, my wife's birthday,

but you know, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Fourth of July, just a lot of holidays. Good stuff. Everybody loves our holidays and our time off and relaxing days. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout out. We had Katie O'Connor, good friend of the show, and Liz Adams. So we really appreciate that support. Yeah, thanks so much for that support. It means a lot to us.

And for anyone else that would like to support the show, you can go over to patreon.com slash criminology to get signed up. So we just mentioned the 4th of July. And this episode is dropping on July 6th, two days after the 4th. And hopefully everyone listening had a great 4th of July. The case we're talking about in this episode happened on, July 6th, 1973, 51 years to the day that this episode drops. And for the Southern California family, in this case, what should have been a happy holiday week turned into a nightmare. It's a case that for

years stymied the police, but they refused to give up on it and they finally cracked it. We're talking about the abduction and murder of 11-year-old Linda O'Keefe of Corona Del Mar, California. In 1973, 11-year-old Linda Ann O'Keefe was living Corona Del Mar, California, at 602 Orchard Drive with her mother Barbara, her father, Richard, and her two sisters, 18-year-old Cindy, and her younger sister who was nine and a half. Corona Del Mar is a seaside neighborhood located in Newport Beach, Orange County. It's well known for its scenic cliffside beach views and its local shops. Today, just over 13,000 people call Corona Del Mar home. In 1973, Linda was a middle school student at Lincoln Intermediate School in Newport Beach. She loved animals in nature and was active in the Girl Scouts. Like many other kids her age, Linda didn't enjoy homework and would rather spend time on her hobbies or with friends than sitting in school.

Linda was great at spelling and she liked science class, and she paid attention in class, but she didn't get the best grades. And that summer, she found herself having to attend summer school. on most school days she rode her bike to school and then back home but on july sixth her piano teacher who lived just a few houses down from linda gave her a ride to school so morph did you ever have to do summer school i never did summer school i had some friends that did and i always felt bad for them without having fun but now never did how about you no me neither and i really can't imagine having to to do it because you know, and I think you and I have talked about it before. You can remember even as old as we are that last week, that last day of school.

I mean, it was like the world was opening up and you knew that the summer was going to be great. You were going to get to hang out with your friends and, you know, just do all the things that you wanted to do. I can't imagine any more school past that. Yeah, I know my group of friends, we'd make plans for what we're going to do and we'd all be talking about it. And, you know, a couple of friends that were in summer school would just be sort of quiet. And you could tell they, they were upset that they couldn't be there too. So I really was bummed out that they couldn't go.

Linda got to school okay. And she settled in for the day. After the first period, she stayed on campus. after second period she headed over to Rich's Market, just a block and a half away, where she bought a pack of gum before heading back to school quickly, before the next period. There were just two classes left before the day was done. Classes ended that day at 12.15. Linda didn't feel like walking home, so she went to the school's office to see if she could call her mom for a ride.

The secretary had to follow the policy and wait until a designated, late pickup time to let Linda use the phone. So Linda headed back to Rich's market. She didn't need anything. She just wanted something to do while she waited to be able to call her mom. On her way, she passed her friend Brenda and they talked for a bit before heading on their separate ways. It seems very strange to hear that Linda was able to go off of school grounds because I think today everything we know about schools, they're built to keep kids safely on their ground. and keep, you know, people that are looking to do bad stuff out. And to, you know, let kids go off and go to the store just seems kind of foreign.

But I think it was a sign of the times. I think even back in the 80s, I remember kids leaving. You know, some of them that could drive, would leave and go get lunch and then come back. So, you know, I don't know what the rules are now. Maybe you have a better idea because your wife is a teacher. but I would think that they're not as confident with people leaving school grounds. Well, and it might have something to do with geographical differences as well. I mean, this was described as a campus.

The schools that I attended when I was young, you certainly would not have described as a campus-like atmosphere, especially, you know, at the age of 11, nobody around where I lived was able to kind of come and go in between classes. Yes, people walked to school, people walked home from school, but there was no leaving school in the middle of the day. Maybe the rules were different for summer school. I don't know. But as we've seen in a lot of episodes, right, the time period that we're discussing, as well as the geography. It can mean a lot of different things than what, let's say, many of us experience. Eventually, Linda made it back to the school's office, and this time she was able to use the phone.

Her mom, Barber, was busy. She was right in the middle of her many sewing projects, so she couldn't pick Linda up. This was something Linda and her parents often butted heads about. It was less than a mile and a half's walk home, but most times Linda asked for a ride. Sometimes she didn't get one and had to walk or ride her bike home. Other times, her parents gave in and picked her up, but they voiced their annoyance. Years later, Linda's sister Cindy, who was at home that fateful day, told 9News.com that Linda didn't have her bike and she didn't want to walk home that day.

She heard her mom telling Linda over the phone, just walk home, I'm really busy, just walk home. It's a phone call that would come to haunt the family. In particular, Linda's mom, Barbara. Linda didn't want to walk home alone. The call with her mom was upsetting for her, and she began to cry. She left the office and sat on the curb in front of the school, still crying, angry that she would have to walk. Her classmate, Lisa Christopher, still remembers the last time she saw Linda.

She told CBS News. She was upset, crying, just very, very sad. And then she left the office, and I walked out behind her. I went the opposite direction. After sitting for a while, Linda decided to get going. She got up and started walking toward her home. She left the school and went south. She made it across San Joaquin Hills Road and continued along Marguerite Avenue.

A 19-year-old woman named Janine was driving in the neighborhood with her mom when they saw Linda standing next to what was described as a blue or turquoise van that was parked near the intersection of Marguerite and Inlet Drive, which is directly seen. south of San Joaquin Hills Road. Janine and her mom recognized the girl as Linda O'Keefe because they lived a few houses down from the O'Keefe's. The time was about 1.15 p.m. an hour after school had let out. Janine noticed that the passenger door was wide open, and she got a bad feeling and instantly went on alert, taking note of the white man in his 20s or 30s who was driving the van. She pulled over on San Joaquin Hill's road to try and observe the situation and hopefully get the van's license plate, but it didn't drive past her as she hoped. The van instead went at Marguerite Avenue.

It was gone, and so was Linda. This is the last time Linda O'Keefe was ever seen alive. At the time, although Janine had a bad feeling about the van, she didn't observe Linda screaming or see any signs of a struggle, so she didn't report it to police. As time passed and Linda didn't show up at home, her family didn't immediately panic. Mainly it was because they knew Linda was upset

about not getting a ride. And lately when she was upset, she had been doing little things to act out and express her feelings. These things included kind of dondling on the way home so that she would be late. Maybe to make her parents worry, or maybe to try and prove

that it wasn't such a quick and easy walk, despite what they thought about it. But Linda was never this late, even when she was upset. It had been three hours since her call, home and she still hadn't arrived. Also concerning was the fact that there was no lunch during the summer school session, so she had to be hungry, even if she was mad. She would probably have wanted at least a snack by then. By dinner time, her mom, Barbara, was becoming very worried. And I wonder

more if it was at this point that at least a little bit of guilt started to sink in. For Barbara, over the fact that she didn't go and pick her daughter up. I mean, we all make decisions like that every day. Most of them, thankfully, don't involve kind of life or death scenarios. But when your child turns up missing, you're going to scrutinize every little decision. And you know that guilt is going to seep in. Yeah, and I think as we're going to get into that, guilt would hang over Barbara her, the rest of her life. Not that she was guilty of anything.

You know, she didn't do anything wrong, but she should have been able to let her daughter walk home. You know, we're going to find out that it was somebody else that was responsible for her not making it a home. It wasn't Barbara's fault. And I'm sure there would later be feelings of guilt on the part of Janine as well, probably. not warranted, but that doesn't matter when it comes to guilt. You know, sometimes you feel guilt whether you were really at fault for anything. You know, she sees what she believes to be kind of a strange scenario. But she doesn't call the police. Well, why would she? Nobody seems to be hurt. Nobody is screaming, struggling. She just had a bad feeling. Well, if we all called the police every time we had a

bad feeling, it'd be nonstop calls. Yeah, we've covered several episodes where there were cases involving people that saw women screaming or being pulled in the cars, driving down the road, trying to get out of the car, and they didn't say or do anything. You know, in those cases, you might say, okay, they could have done more. In this case, Janine was paying attention, but at the same time, there wasn't enough there that stood out to her as, hey, something bad has happened. I need to call the police. It was just a feeling she had.

Yeah, I just didn't see anything that really rose to the level, where you would say, oh, wow, I can't believe she didn't call the police. There just wasn't much there. Barber started calling Linda's friends, but no one had seen her since they were at school. When Richard O'Keefe arrived home from work, he took one car to search for Linda, and her sister, Cindy, took their other car and started searching too. They expected to find Linda hanging out somewhere, trying to teach her parents a lesson, but they never found her.

They checked everywhere they could think of, including the Corona Delmar Youth Center, where Linda was a member and a Girl Scout, and the CDM Community Church, even though they hadn't been recently attending. Eventually, they ran out of places to look. The O'Keefe family huddled by the phone at home in case Linda called. She never did. At 6.42 p.m., Linda was officially reported missing to the Newport Beach Police Department. now with help from the authorities, Rich and Cindy,

jump back in their cars to keep looking. Barbara was at home manning the phone. She called dozens of people but received no leads. The area looked a lot different back in 1973 than it does today. There were vast empty fields in the neighborhood that are now filled with apartments and schools. Investigators walk through the fields as other officers and Linda's family, searched on the roads. They also searched a nearby reservoir, but didn't find her, which they thought was good news at the time, thinking that that meant she hadn't injured herself there and needed help.

Linda's mom began to think of every possibility, even that perhaps Linda had run away. The only thing Barbara could think of is that because she was already upset, Linda decided to go on a trip with her friend Kathy. Kathy's parents were going on a trip to Catalina Island. and she had asked to stay over at the O'Keece while they were gone, but Barbara said no. She wondered if maybe they both ended up going on the trip, and some wires got crossed in the two families' communication. The boat belonging to Kathy's parents was identified,

and authorities went to the marina where it was kept, but it was gone. Witnesses in the boat next to theirs had seen them take off, but there were no children with them. This told police that Kathy must have been staying at a different friend's house, which meant Linda was still unaccounted for. Just to double check, authorities from Newport Beach got in touch with the Catalina Harbor Department to inform them of the situation. They would check the boat when it arrived. There was no way to not notice that something was wrong in the neighborhood.

The word got around that there was an all-out search for Linda and Janine, the young woman who had seen the turquoise van that afternoon and who was a neighbor of the O'Keeffe's walked over to their home and knocked on the O'Keefe's door. to tell them what she had seen. Kathy's parents still hadn't arrived in Catalina. So the O'Keece were holding out hope that Linda was on their boat, especially taking into account the news from Janine. This was the best scenario that the man in the van, seen talking to Janine, had nothing to do with the fact she was missing.

But eventually they did talk to Kathy's parents and found out that Linda had not been with them. So, you know, just taking stock morph of the situation. You know, there's the initial worry, which a lot of times pretty quickly turns into panic. The police are called. There are searches. And then there are little things that happen, you know, pieces of information that, let's say the family gets or the police get.

And every time that they get something, what does it do to them? Sometimes it makes them more hopeful. Other times it makes the situation look more dire. And it seems like for the family, all the things they were hoping for just one at a time proved not to be the case. And it seems like it came down to this guy with the van may have had something to do with her disappearing. And that had to be very frightening for the family.

Yeah, my thought is that after learning about this from Janine, that has to be the phone. focal point of the worry. Okay, who is this man? What's going on with this van and how does Linda play into this if at all? But if she does, it doesn't seem good. A strange man in a van, right? That's a scenario that we all heard growing up. And even my daughters have always been leery of kind of the ubiquitous. And kind of the ubiquitous. with this white panel van. Maybe I expose them to a little bit too much, true crime, or maybe I just helped prepare them.

I don't know. Well, it's frightening is you can drive, you know, 10 minutes down the road and see any number of vans, especially back in the 70s, the cargo type van or the ones with no windows on them. Those were all over the place, I think. So, you know, if you start looking for for vans that seem out of place. or seems suspicious, you're just going to see vans all over the place so that that can't help the situation. The next morning, local newspaper headlines were about Linda with headlines like Girl 11 vanishes in Newport. A group of friends looking to study frogs would bring grim news.

They were riding their bikes in the back bay, about 10 miles northwest of the O'Keeffe residents. Today, the area is still an ecological reserve. The group was closely observing the foliage, trying to spot frogs in a ditch along Back Bay Drive, when one of them, a local architect named Ron Yao, saw a human hand. They frantically rode their bikes looking for the nearest phone. Luckily, they spotted a police officer near San Joaquin Hills Road. They took the officer to the body and based on the police briefings about Linda O'Keefe, he immediately realized the body they found was hers. Police would have to break the devastating news to the O'Keefe's that Linda was dead. detectives were called to evaluate the scene.

Linda was still wearing her green ski jacket and the white and blue floral dress her mother had made for her. Nearby, the book bag that Barbara had made for her, one of a matching set of three. For all of the O'Keefe girls, was in the grass beside her body. Her underwear was stained with urine. Orange County Senior Deputy District Attorney Eric Scarborough told CBS News,

you come to the evidence of her underwear and you realize that something very bad happened to her. A woman living in the back bay came forward with information from just before midnight the day of Linda's abduction. She had heard a female voice cry out. Stop. You're hurting me. As she listened closer, there was just silence. She didn't realize exactly what had been happening, just several hundred yards from where she sat in the safety. of her own home.

11-year-old Linda Ann O'Keefe was being assaulted and strangled. We can't be sure just how clear the sounds were this woman heard or how serious the sounds seemed to her when she heard them. But whatever the case, she didn't call police. Many investigators believe a call to the police station

could have saved Linda. By surprising the suspect, they had already been using incredible resources to try and find her for hours by the time she was actually killed. And had they descended on this area quickly, maybe the attack could have been interrupted or her killer caught. And we do often analyze these scenarios, right, where people hear something, what decision do they make?

And a lot of the time, people decide, well, I don't know what I'm hearing. I don't know if it rises to the level of, calling the police. But you would have to say, Morph, that this one is pretty tough. You know, hearing a female cry out. Stop.

You're hurting me. That does not seem like a good scenario. Yeah, at midnight in the darkness, somebody, you know, screaming something like that out, you know, it sounds like it's more than just some kids out laughing, partying or something like that.

It sounds like somebody is actually being physically harmed. So, you know, you wonder why she didn't call police. And we talked about guilt earlier. I wonder if that woman felt any guilt for not calling the police after she found out that she may have been able to stop it or help catch the killer at least. Yeah, I'm sure she did. I would find it hard to believe that she didn't have any guilt. Now, here again, we're talking about people who didn't have anything to do with the disappearance. were the murder.

It really just comes down to the fact of, you know, did they make the right decision? Could they have done more? But, you know, you're going to have that in a lot of cases. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer.

For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Despite it being years before DNA would be used at trial for the first time, semen was collected from the scene,

and a sample is properly stored thanks to criminals Jim White. Years later, his handling of the evidence would help break the case. He went on to tell CBS News, I knew it was potentially important, but that it would become as important as it was. I had no vision that the testing would become as sophisticated as it became. A sketch of Janine's memory of the man in the turquoise van was created and released to the public. It depicted a skinny man who was very tan and had curly hair and droopy eyes.

Police also fine-tuned the description of the van and the man was seen driving. They put out the word that they were looking for a 1969 or newer van with no windows on the left side. it had double doors with windows at the rear and a license plate mounted on the left rear door. A $2,000 reward was offered for information that led to the killer's ID. And the one thing that I will say morph is that you would have to say, Janine had a pretty good eye for detail. I mean, she really took in a lot of detail in what was probably a pretty short amount of time. seeing this van and the man who was supposedly driving it and really was able to relay quite a bit

of good information back to police. I think the one reason she probably was so detailed was that she recognized Linda when she saw her. So she paid extra attention as opposed to maybe if that was just a girl she didn't know, she wouldn't have been, you know, putting as much thought into it. But she definitely took a lot of. lot of detail down in her mind and related to the police. And later on, when we find out what this monster that did this looks like, we're going to find out that she was very accurate.

Well, and I also go back to her, you know, kind of having this bad feeling. I wonder if that, you know, played a role as well. Did she pay extra special attention to detail because of the combination of knowing Linda and this kind of bad slash sinking feeling that she had. And my thought is probably yes. Terry Briscoe Corwin, one of Linda's classmates would later reveal that local children had tried to help with the investigation. He told CBS News, our 11-year-old selves, we all got on our bikes and we all wanted to help.

They all kept an eye out for the turquoise van with. a very detailed description, but no one ever found it. As a side note, you know, a lot of times we talk about cases of a murdered child that result in community residents, not letting their kids go outside, but these children were allowed to ride their bikes around town, even after a child was murdered and amid reports of a man in a van, possibly abducting kids. Perhaps it was proof of how safe people thought that neighborhood was and that this was a one-off situation. Linda's classmate Lisa Christopher told CBS News, you would hop on your bike and you would let the freedom and just the day unfold.

And it was magic. She also mentioned how it wasn't just strangers who were suspected adding everybody's older brother was under scrutiny. And again, here, morph, maybe this is just a sign of a little bit different times. Maybe it has something to do with the area in California where this took place. But most of the time, when we are talking about a tragedy like this one, we're talking also about parents not letting their kids go outside, essentially not letting them out of their sight. This is a very different scenario we have here. And I think probably the kids see it from a different perspective than parents.

You know, kids are sort of innocent. They don't understand. You know, they might know that something happened to this girl, but they don't really understand the danger. Whereas the parents are probably thinking the worst thing. There's some kind of maniac running around in a van and scooping up kids. And you could see why some parents would not want their kids out until that person was caught. but here it seems like overall the kids were allowed out and even they tried to even help find this fan

well i think you're making a great point because you know how does an 11 year old truly understand what type of monster could be out there and when you talk about someone hurting children a serial type predator let's say especially in 1973 i would think that would have been pretty tough to grasp for these young children. Just two days after Linda's body was found, an 18-year-old named Peter Routen was arrested after confessing to the murder. He had gone to high school with Linda's sister Cindy, and they had just graduated together.

Investigators interrogated him on and off for two days, but there was nothing that linked him to Linda or her murder. He didn't have a turquoise van. He didn't resemble the sketch, and he didn't know any of the details her killer would know. It turned out that he was lying for attention and police were forced to release him. That same day, Linda's family said their goodbyes to the 11-year-old.

She was late to rest at Pacific View Memorial Park in Corona Del Mar. Her headstone reads, What is lovely never dies, but passes into other loveliness, stardust or seafone, flower, or winged air. And I can only imagine what an agonizing day it would be to have to lay your 11-year-old daughter to rest. but I also want to talk about, you know, this guy, Peter Wooten, we hear about it time and time again.

People confessing to murders that they apparently had nothing to do with. And to me, you know, this wasn't a scenario where they suspected him. They brought him in and they used questionable police tactics to force him to confess. It sounds like he just came out and said, hey, I did this. And that's just something I cannot understand. I don't know how anybody thinks it's ever a good idea to confess to a murder and get themselves involved in a police investigation.

I don't know what good could possibly come from that. Yeah. And you're also saying that you hurt and killed an 11-year-old girl. For what? Attention? I don't get it. I've never understood. it and I don't think I ever will.

Unfortunately, despite the very specific clues and descriptions police had to work with, Linda's case went cold. Over the years, as DNA use in crime fighting advanced, investigators tested the semen, found on Linda's underwear, and realized that they had the killer's DNA and a profile was generated. It was entered into the CODIS database, but there was no match to any way. in that database. In October of 2017, Newport Beach Police Department,

Sergeant Court Depwick decided to hire Parabon Nanolabs to create a snapshot, which takes a DNA profile and generates an image of what the person might look like. And Morfew and I have talked about Parabon Nanolabs quite a bit, right?

We did an entire season, basically on this type of work. It's hard to be. believe that, you know, this technology has been around as long as it has now. But the thought that you could take DNA and create essentially a picture of what someone might look like is fascinating to me, especially, you know, if you go back to the time frame of when this occurred, they didn't know about DNA, they didn't know about a lot of things. who could have predicted that 40 some years later, you would be able to take a piece of evidence

and do with it or derive information from it that we can now? Yeah, I think it just proves that evidence collection, whether it's 1973 or 2024, it's important to collect the evidence the best you can, store it properly and all that stuff, because you never know what's coming down the road that they'll be able to do in the future. And if you've collected the evidence properly and stored it properly, that they might be able to get some use out of that. So I think that's always been important. But talking about the snapshots, the DNA snapshots that Parabond made,

at the time, that was, you know, groundbreaking. It was neat that they could do that. And obviously genealogy came along. And to me, that sort of overrides that, because now you can go right to the person's family and pinpoint them versus using a picture of what they might look like. I always felt that some of those pictures didn't exactly look like the person when they were caught because they don't know what their hairstyle is going to be. They don't know if they're wearing eyeglasses. They don't know if they're skinny or heavy.

So sometimes I think people can get fooled with the snapshot pictures and they're looking for somebody that looks exactly like that. and often they don't, which is why I'm glad they use the genealogy primarily now. Yeah, I think the genetic genealogy has just taken it to a completely different level. Investigators then tried something outside of the box. On July 6th, 2018, the 45th anniversary of Linda's murder, the Newport Beach Police Department began a series of tweets using the hashtag Linda's story. Almost 70 tweets told the story of her life and death, from her point of view, using information gathered from the investigation, and from those who knew her well.

Jan Manzella, then spokesperson for the Newport Beach Police Department, told CBS News, it was so important for me to give a little girl whose life was cut short at 11 years old the opportunity to speak again. It was her idea to take to Twitter and get Linda's story out to the public. The Parabon's snapshot was also released at this time. It was the last tweet in Linda's story, putting a face out there of the case. killer, hoping someone would recognize him. These tweets were very moving. Linda's classmate Lisa Christopher told CBS News, I thought that was the most incredible,

gut-wrenching thing I have ever read. Jen Manzella said of the social media campaign that Linda's story has been viewed over seven million times. She told CBS, we were all over South America and Europe, Australia, France. There wasn't a corner of it. of the world that wasn't talking about it. Linda's classmates eagerly read the tweets and waited for news of an arrest. Linda's classmate Terry Corwin told CBS News, we were all together on pins and needles waiting to see who is this guy. It would take more waiting. But this question would finally be

answered. And we just got done talking more about advancements in DNA technology. We're here we're talking about the use of social media, which obviously was not around in the 1970s when this occurred, I thought this was a very novel approach. And obviously, many others did as well to be viewed over seven million times. You know, social media has taken some of these investigations in a way that it wouldn't have been possible to take them in before we had this type of technology. And I think when you're a detective working a cold case and there hasn't been resolution, it sometimes pays to think outside the box and try something different, try a new approach.

And it seems like this department was aggressive in their approach trying this thinking outside the box strategy and you know i applaud them for doing that and speaking of social media i go back to when they first circulated the sketch of the suspect and detail of that van i wonder if there was social media back in 1973 if he would have been identified quicker because you know while he well his description the van's description well that was on the news in newspapers not everybody watches the news or, you know, read the papers. Today, almost everybody's on some form of social media. So I think if they would have put that in social media, if it was around at that time, he may very well have been identified quickly. Yeah, that's a great point. Just the fact that

you can get something out there to the masses very, very quickly is I think what makes social media a pretty powerful tool or can make it a powerful tool in crime fighting. But I do applaud, you know, this innovative approach because if you think about a cold case, you know, by definition, you are somewhat stuck. So to use some type of innovative technique or, you know, as you said, something outside of the box, I think that's a great average. avenue to take. Sergeant Court Debway called Linda's sister, Cindy, on February 19, 2019, to tell her that a man had been arrested for Linda's murder. It was a call she'll never forget.

She told CBS News, I was so excited. I felt, I wish my parents were here to hear this news. Cindy told CBS News, you know, I had never really thought they would actually find the individual. Their parents lived the rest of their lives, never quite the same. Speaking to nine news, Cindy said of the pain her mom specifically experienced, she did feel guilt and remorse. And she added, and my dad's overwhelming feeling was anger that someone took his girl. Cindy explained the entire family was changed by their loss. The family unity came undone. There were no more family camping vacations, no more visits to the museums.

There were no more beach trips. My mother pretty much isolated in the home. My dad went to work, came straight home. Cindy also felt immense guilt for not popping up and going to pick Linda up herself that faithful day. She was sitting with her mother when Linda called and knew she would have to walk home. They both felt that if they had just gotten the car that day, that none of this ever would have happened.

And Linda would still be here. And I think there are a number of things that you can take away from, you know, what Cindy said to various outlets. You know, first and foremost, I think, is just the level of guilt. that people within the family were experiencing or did experience over the rest of their lives. And then I think the other thing is just how completely this changed the family unit. She mentioned it. There were no more family vacations, no more beach trips.

The entire family changed the day that Linda O'Keefe went missing. and then probably even more so after it was discovered that she had been murdered. According to CBS News, Newport Beach Police Chief John Lewis announced that investigators used forensic DNA testing and an online genealogy website to identify the suspect's DNA as being consistent with DNA left at the crime scene. Orange County was fresh off solving the infamous Golden State Killer case, which they were part of, they knew firsthand that investigative genealogy worked. So they wasted no time. In deploying it, it led them to their suspect.

72-year-old James Allen Neal. He was arrested in Monument, Colorado, and extradited to California to face five charges of sexual assault of a child younger than 14 and one count of murder, while committing or attempting to commit sexual assault upon a child. Cindy said of the arrest speaking to CBS News, my hope is that it brings hope to other families that haven't had a resolve yet. Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer confirmed Cindy's hope, saying, I can tell you through both traditional DNA and through genealogical DNA. We have every opportunity in the world to solve so many of these cold cases

that we never had hope in the past of solving. C.C. Moore, Parabon's chief genetic genealogist, who has now played a role in solving many cases, was familiar with Linda's case, having grown up in the area. She told CBS News, I had heard about this case way back in college to actually have an opportunity to help solve a case that I had known about for 30 years. You know, that's an amazing opportunity. So just who was this James Allen Neal? Neil had been arrested multiple times for various offenses and moved states more than once. His birth name was actually James Albert Layton Jr. Before he began using James Allen Neal, arrest records go back as far as 1959.

When he was arrested twice for burglary, as a minor, he was housed at the California Youth Authority until he was paroled in July 1961. In October 1962, he was arrested again. He was still a juvenile, so he returned to the youth authority and received a light sentence. He was paroled in August 1963. Just over two years later, he was arrested for burglary again, but the charges were later reduced to petty theft and then dropped all together. In 1966, when he was 19, he was arrested for delinquency of a minor. after he was stopped in Newport Beach with an underage girl in his car.

He was also arrested that year for burglary. He had robbed the business in Santa Anne at the previous year, getting away with about $40 and a TV worth $90. According to the OC Register, he told probation officer David R. McMillan as he waited for his sentence. I want to make up for all the hurt I have caused myself and my parents, especially my mother. He received probation due to time served,

despite the objection of Officer McMillan, who thought he should be sent to the Vacaville Prison in Northern California. Probation Officer McMillan wrote in his report, Layton has not been able to relate well with other students, family members, or inmates. He will ultimately benefit more from a state prison sentence. Unfortunately, his warning was ignored. Over the years, James had worked at many different jobs, including cooking, delivering flowers, and moving furniture, but he couldn't keep a job for more than five months at a time. He worked at a state palace in Louisville, Kentucky for only four or five days and did iron

construction in San Diego for just one week. In 1969, he was arrested for stealing from the gas station he worked at in Denver. By this time, he was married and had a child on the way. For this, he was sentenced to serve time at the Mountain Parks, work project. He escaped in April 1967. He was arrested the same month in California, but escaped from custody and fled to the Yukon territory. He was eventually

caught and sentenced to serve three to ten years in prison. In July 1971, he was released on parole, but he didn't clean up his act at all. It was wall out on parole. James Alan Layton began using the name James Alan George Layton. That's when he randomly cross-pass with Linda O'Keefe. He was 27 years old and living in Newport Beach with family members when Linda died. Photos of him around this time look a lot like the composite sketch based on the man Janine saw talking to Linda. Compared to many sketches we've seen of suspects, this one is

eerily similar. Janine may not have been able to get the license plate number that day, but she definitely remembered his face, and it turns out gave a very close description. Almost immediately after killing Linda, James fled across the country to Florida, where he changed his name to James Allen Neal, and he was arrested on September 9, 1973 in Marion County, Florida. He doesn't seem to have spent any time in jail for that arrest because he was arrested in Denver again in 1974 for violating his parole only to be paroled the next year. He completed this parole in 77 and moved out of Colorado. From 1977 to 2014. He had seven different addresses in Riverside County, California.

Two of them were PO boxes. The other five were spread across at least four cities. Neighbor Jeffrey Malki, who lived next door to Neil for five years in San Jacinto, California, told the O.C. Register. Nothing he said, made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It's amazing how you really don't know people. Neil moved back to Colorado. settling in monument with his daughter in 2016.

He also has a rap sheet in Missouri and Oklahoma by the time of his arrest. He was not only a father, but also a grandfather. We talked about how this guy was tracked down using DNA and genealogy in the family tree DNA, a public genealogy database. But what's most amazing is he was tracked down because he had uploaded his own profile to the database while searching for his roots. It seems he clearly wasn't very paranoid about advances in DNA and genealogy in solving cold cases.

So more of I think there's a couple of things here to talk about. You know, one of the things that really jumped out of me is just how much this guy moved around the country. Now, you could say, you know, he was restless. he was looking for jobs. You can hypothesize a lot of different things. You could also make the case that this guy was moving around because he was doing a lot of bad things.

And there's some credence to that based on his criminal record, his rap sheet. And then I think, you know, that leads me into the second thing that jumped out of me, which is, you know, here's a guy doing a lot of stuff, getting caught. for a lot of stuff, but never really seeming to spend a lot of time in jail or prison. And that's something we see quite a bit up from, you know, the 60s and 70s. Yeah, it's clearly not a case of where he never committed a crime and he was a good citizen and then made this one awful mistake. This guy had a record dating back to when he was a kid, basically.

And it's always disturbing when you see somebody that's got that long a record. It's a clear pattern that they're a bad person. They belong behind bars. And here he is free to kill this little girl. And what's scary is all this moving around he did, how many other victims might there be of his out there someplace? Even if they survived, he could have abused girls, raped girls. They might have gotten away. They might still be out there.

But he could also have other murder victims. I think that's very frightening. Well, yeah, extremely frightening. And then I think, you know, lastly, you kind of have to talk about this guy uploading his own DNA profile as part of an effort to, you know, do some ancestry type work. You would think that would be the last thing you would want to do if you knew that you had gotten away with this heinous murder for so many years. So either he had no idea what police were capable of doing with that information, or he was just so confident because it had been such a long time. And I have to think he uploaded that profile prior to just DeAngelo getting arrested,

but I'll bet when he saw that DeAngel was arrested and identified and how he was arrested because of the DNA database, he probably said, oh shit. Well, you know, you and I have talked about that a lot. How many people started, you know, shaking in their boots after realizing what police now had available to them? And my assumption is that there were a lot of people who had to be very worried after many, many years of feeling like they were untouchable.

And we've seen it. we've seen so many cases be solved that really frankly people thought would never be solved before his arrest investigators from california went to colorado to follow james neal around and try to gather dna so they could be 100% sure he was their suspect they noticed him putting his cigarette butts in his pockets after he smoked which made them think that he knew that his DNA could put him in prison and that seemed to be at odds with the fact he had uploaded his profile to the database. It turns out Colorado just had a very strict littering law and he apparently didn't want to risk the fine or the interaction with law enforcement. Eventually, they did grab his DNA

during their stakeout and it confirmed what police already knew, that he was indeed Linda's killer. According to CBS News, they left him alone in the interrogation room with a photo of Linda. He whispered, I'm sorry, baby, but it wasn't me. As he clasped his hands, he. He clasped his hands. hands together, almost as if in prayer. Due to the Linda's story tweets, investigators were able to seize all of Neal's electronic devices and search them to see if he had followed the case or the tweets. Instead, they found evidence of child pornography, which only led to more charges.

He was also hit with new charges in March of 2019 that included three counts of lewd acts on a child committed in Riverside County between July 1995 and July 2000, as well as crimes against another child between March 2002 and March 2004. If he had been arrested in 1973, James would have faced as little as seven years to life. He was now facing a maximum sentence of 82 years to life in state prison. And we already knew that. that this guy was a monster, you know, just based on what he did to Linda O'Keefe,

but then you see all of this other stuff come out and look at all of the bad things that he did over the years. He was a real bad monster. Yeah, I go back to the pattern of, we see what he is, we see that he's got more victims that come out of the woodwork here,

and he seemed to target younger people, children. So, and that makes me go back and think again, how many other victims are there out there that we don't know about yet. And it's hard not to think about the what is, right? What if he had been caught in 1973? You can think about all of the people's lives that would have been changed. People he wouldn't have been able to harm. It's tough to play that what if. But if. It's tough to play that what game, but it's also hard not to. John Kellner, Chief Deputy District Attorney in the 18th Judicial District, said what was on everyone's mind, telling nine news.

Anytime you have a suspect that pops up with charges like that, somebody that wasn't on anybody's radar, so to speak, you're going to take a look at it. In other words, could this predator have even more victims? Sergeant Court Debweg told CBS News, he obviously preyed on girls from the ages of 7 to 13. That was his primary target, and he would gain their confidence quickly. Police were left to wonder if James Neal had more murder victims out there, or if him killing Linda O'Keefe was his only murder. As we mentioned, his DNA profile wasn't in CODIS,

so if he has any other murder victims, a link to James Neal hasn't been connected yet. Justice would never come for Linda O'Keefe, at least not in the form of her killer serving his sentence while awaiting trial. Neil, already elderly when he was arrested for her murder, became ill in May 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic was raging through prisons at the time, just like it was in the outside world. Neil was tested for the virus, but his test indicated that he was negative for COVID. According to CBS News, upon arrival in California, after his extradition, Neil claimed he had a history of smoking,

suffered from hypertension and had past diagnosis of hyperlipidemia spinal stenosis and pulmonary fibrosis, as well as chronic back pain. He was taking amatryptylene and gabapentin and admitted to feeling paranoid and depressed. Prior to his hospitalization in May to 2020, James Neal had been treated multiple times for weakness, chest pain, and shortness of breath. He was treated for pneumonia mid-month before being diagnosed with lung cancer. Surprisingly, despite the timing, it wasn't COVID, but rather his former three-pack-a-day habit that finally got to him.

On July 22nd, 2020, James Allen Neal died at Anaheim Global Medical Center. This was a crushing disappointment for everyone involved. Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement, The death of James Neal, prior to putting him on trial for Linda's rape and murder, robs the O'Keefe family of the justice they so deserve, and deprives the law enforcement officers of the satisfaction that they finally got their culprit. Classmate Terry Corwin said to CBS News of Neal's death, I was glad that he was still alive so that he could be punished.

Another classmate, David Weddemeier, who created the justice for Linda Ann O'Keefe Facebook page, said it was not truly justice, but I think it's closed. And I could see more of how this would be a real letdown in a way for many of the people involved. You know, there's this amazing revelation that they figured out who committed the murder of Lindo Keith. And it turns out this guy is still alive. But he ends up dying before they get the chance to take him to trial. It's amazing that so much time passes, they finally get the technology to try.

track this guy down and then he kicks the bucket so soon after he's arrested and never, you know, is held accountable ultimately. And we see that in a lot of cases. Sometimes these guys die almost immediately after being arrested or they died just before they were identified and escaped justice that way too. So, you know, it's unfortunate that so much time passes that by the time these guys are identified,

they might be dead already or in really bad health. But I think the other thing that really ticks a lot of people on is, yeah, it's great that the person was ultimately identified. But then you think back about, you know, how this person got to live their life for so many years while Linda O'Keefe's life was cut short at the tender age of 11. That really makes a lot of people mad. I know it makes me mad. I mean, this guy was a father. He was a grandfather. He had experiences.

He got to live his life. Now, how good of a life it was that I don't know, he was still committing a ton of crimes and all of that. It's just unfortunate that it took as long as it did to solve the case. But on the other hand, you know, this is a case that could have never been solved. So, you know, there's, there's good and bad. in how some of these cases are playing out. Despite wanting to see her sister's killer go to prison.

For what he did, Cindy admits that not having to go to trial was somewhat of a relief because it meant she would be spared. Having to hear the horrible details of what Linda experienced, she explained that Linda's ordeal was always on her mind, telling CBS News, what did they do for 12 hours together? What happened?

The answer to that is probably something she doesn't want to know. For all these years, Linda's picture had been hanging in the cold case unit at the police department. No one there ever forgot who she was and how important it was to solve her case. And every generation of investigators since 1973 took her case to heart. It took over 45 years to catch the killer, but they never gave up. Cindy told the L.A. Times in 2019, she would have been 57 this year. I wonder sometimes what kind of life she would have lived. Would she be married, have a family?

Probably. She added, I don't dwell on that because that wasn't her outcome. As we mentioned, not only Cindy, but her mom as well lived with regret for years for not picking her up that fateful day in 1973. They felt guilt perhaps when they shouldn't have. The only person guilty in this sad case was the monster known as James Allen Neal. And I think if you're the family member, member of a victim, especially of a victim whose life is lost at the young age of 11.

How could you not, morph, think about, you know, what would she look like now? What would she have gone on to do? Would she have a family, kids, you know, what kind of job would she have had? I don't know how you wouldn't think of those things. Not to mention the fact that your thoughts of her are going to be in your mind. a lot, but especially around the holidays, right? Linda's not here to celebrate her birthday, Christmas, Thanksgiving, you name it. And then you add in this regret of, well, what would have happened if we'd have gone and picked

her up? You really get a sense of what this family went through and continued to go through and probably many of them still do today. And I don't know what Cindy felt or the rest of her family may have felt like when this guy was finally identified, but I'm trying to put myself in their shoes. If I found out that the person that did this had a history of crime and especially crimes against children and a lot of other things, burglaries, everything else that he could have been in prison for, I'd be so angry that this guy was free to be out when he was out to kill him. and you know it's sad that a lot of times especially back then some of these guys got out after super long rap sheets that included violent crimes and they were free to be out on the streets and you know it's not fair for a family like linda's uh that linda crossed paths with somebody like this

yeah i'm right with you i think i would be very upset as well now i understand it some of what he did he did as a juvenile and you're going to be sentenced accordingly. But at a certain point more as an adult, you know, when you're racking up this rap sheet, when does it come into play that you're just an habitual offender? It seems to me it was it was almost back then like your rap sheet didn't accumulate. If you know what I'm saying. Like it people didn't take into a case. how many times you had done this stuff.

And I hate to use the term slap on the wrist, but it just seems to come up in so many cases. Yeah, we know you're a bad guy. Okay, here's a slap on the wrist. Do, you know, six months, a year, 18 months or whatever. And then go back to doing what you were doing. And you can make the argument that some of his crimes weren't violent, you know, it could have been burglaries or other.

minor things and some of it like you mentioned while he was a you know a juvenile but it's these other crimes that we find about that just demonstrate how dangerous this guy was that he targeted children specifically and that again not to harp on it but i i just keep wondering how many other victims are out there whether they lived or didn't live how many other victims of his are out there someplace Well, I think for a person like this, knowing the rap sheet that we do know about, I think it would be naive to think that this guy didn't commit many more crimes than what was actually known. I think this individual was a serial predator. And he wasn't going to stop. We know that he committed crimes into the 2000s later in life.

So you're right. I have no idea what the true number of victims could be, but it could be staggering. You know, we talked about the number of different states that this guy lived in. Yeah, California, Colorado, Florida. I think Missouri maybe at one point. Yeah. There's a thought in my mind that this guy was a very prolific serial predator.

Now, I don't know how many murders he could have committed, but there's no doubt in my mind that he harmed a lot of people. And when you think about that age range that we talked about, that seemed to be his target, what did we say it was? Six to 13? That's a scary thought. it really is yeah and it's you know one way another he's off the street now and you know i don't think many people are you know sad that he's gone no no not not a guy like this but that's it for

our episode on linda o'keef and there's just no doubt james allen neal was an absolute monster and the other thought i had morph was that you know are we going to learn years down the road more about his crimes, right? They obviously have his DNA. Will there be some matches to older crimes as DNA related to those cases gets put into the database? I think we'll have to wait and see. Yeah, absolutely. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating, leave a review. Also, keep telling your friends, that word of mouth about the podcast. really helps us out. If you want to find us on social media, we're on X with the handle

criminology pod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com slash criminology podcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion in fans. So that's it for another episode of criminology. But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.