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[This story originally aired on October 16, 2021.]
For almost 45 years, the homicide of 11-year-old Linda O’Keefe haunted the Newport Beach Police Department in California. Her picture hung amongst the faces of different unsolved instances, reminding every new technology of officers of the work they nonetheless needed to do. Could new know-how and social media flip the tide?
Former Newport Beach Police spokesperson Jennifer Manzella had give you the concept for telling Linda’s story on Twitter after lead investigator Sgt. Court Depweg tasked her with bringing consideration to the case.
“Hi, I’m Linda O’Keefe (or Linda ANN O’Keefe, if I’m in trouble with my mom)”, begins the first tweet. “Forty-five years ago today, I disappeared from Newport Beach. I was murdered, and my body was found in the Back Bay. … Today, I’m going to tell you my story.”
There had been few clues to what occurred to Linda, who was final seen by witnesses speaking to a man in a turquoise van after she left summer season college in July 1973; her physique was discovered alongside a nature path the subsequent day. After years of engaged on the case, the detectives finally ran out of leads and the case went chilly. But her picture on the wall of unsolved instances remained a fixed reminder.
“We needed to put Linda’s face out there,” Depweg tells “48 Hours” contributor Tracy Smith.
“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,” says Manzella.
“Now, 45 years later, I have a voice again,” reads one other tweet. “And I have something important to say.”
#LindasStory
JENNIFER MANZELLA [reading tweet aloud]: “Orchid Avenue. That’s the street I grew up on. It’s a small house, and we’ve lived here most of my life. At 8:00 am, I walk out my front door … and have no idea that it will be the last time.”
On July 6, 2018, precisely 45 years after Linda O’Keefe disappeared, the Newport Beach Police Department launched their uncommon campaign for new leads on the chilly case on Twitter.
Jennifer Manzella: When a sufferer speaks, we need to hear.
The final day of Linda’s life — and its tragic finish — unfolded in a series of tweets. It was written from the 11-year-old homicide sufferer’s level of view and gave her a voice that resonated round the world.
Jennifer Manzella: When we ran the numbers, we had seven million impressions.
That’s 7 million individuals who noticed, favored and retweeted #Linda’s Story in accordance with former Newport Beach Police Department spokesperson Jennifer Manzella.
Jennifer Manzella: We had been throughout South America, in Europe … Australia, France … There wasn’t a nook of the world that wasn’t speaking about it.
Jeff Thurnher: I used to be like, “Wow, this is gonna be huge.”
For Linda’s classmates Jeff Thurnher, Brian Weaver, Lysa Christopher, David Wedemeyer, and Terry Briscoe Corwin, #LindasStory introduced buried feelings again as much as the floor.
Terry Briscoe Corwin: Yeah, we by no means forgot her.
JENNIFER MANZELLA [reading tweet aloud]: “I go to Lincoln Intermediate School… A lot has changed between the last time I was here, and what it looks like in 2018.”
Tracy Smith: What was it like studying that Twitter story and primarily listening to Linda’s voice?
Lysa Christopher: I assumed that was the most unimaginable, gut-wrenching factor I’ve ever learn.
Brian Weaver: Chilling. Just chilling.
Terry Briscoe Corwin: As we had been studying it … we variety of did not need that girl to get in the van, , pondering, ohh!!
Jeff Thurnher: Linda ought to have been capable of get residence.
It’s a unhappy irony for the mates who know all too effectively how the story ended. In 1973, they had been all carefree 11-year-olds rising up in the sleepy seaside city of Corona del Mar.
Tracy Smith: What was Corona del Mar like again then?”
Jeff Thurnher: Shangri-la.
Lysa Christopher: It was like Shangri-la.
Brian Weaver: Like, a perfect Utopia.
Lysa Christopher: I mean, you would hop on your bike and you would let the freedom and just the, just the day unfold … And it was magic.
Cindy Borgeson
In these magical recollections of their youth Linda stays frozen in time.
David Wedemeyer: She was actually shy.
Lysa Christopher: Quiet, to herself however candy, very, very variety.
Brian Weaver: I’d simply go her by means of the hallways. She was a cute girl, , and it was like … simply beaming purple as quickly as, , she’d smile or no matter else.
Cindy Borgeson: She was simply a very light, beautiful soul.
Linda’s older sister Cindy Borgeson spoke with “48 Hours” through Zoom.
Cindy Borgeson: She liked Billie Holiday … She liked outdated Blues music. … I had a Blood, Sweat, & Tears album in highschool … And “God Bless the Child” was one of her favourite songs. … Sometimes we might discover her … and she or he’d simply be in mattress studying. … She liked tales. We each actually liked Nancy Drew.
Linda was the center little one and shared a particular bond together with her dad, Richard, a machinist.
Cindy Borgeson: So, he would exit and work on tasks, and she or he would exit and assist him. They had a actual bond. They liked to hang around collectively.
Their mother Barbara was an artist and dealing seamstress.
Tracy Smith: Your mother sewed all of your garments – you and your sisters?
Cindy Borgeson: Most of them … she was a actually gifted seamstress.
Cindy Borgeson
Some of Cindy’s happiest recollections are of household journeys to the nice outside, the place Linda, a Girl Scout and nature lover, match proper in.
Cindy Borgeson: Our household would trip in the Redwoods and we might be camped by a creek … and she or he would simply crouch down and these little … newts and little snakes would simply come proper to her.
Tracy Smith: Do you assume Linda noticed the magnificence in the world?
Cindy Borgeson: Absolutely … And she all the time appeared to see the good in folks.
That made her homicide all the extra horrific and shattered the idyllic life they knew.
Lysa Christopher: How do you make sense of it as an 11-year-old? You cannot even grasp loss of life … You simply knew she wasn’t gonna be there anymore.
What Christopher could not have recognized then was that this unfathomable tragedy would unfold moments after she noticed Linda at summer season college. Linda was on the cellphone together with her mother in the college workplace, begging for a experience residence.
Lysa Christopher: She was upset, crying, simply very, very unhappy. And then … she left the workplace and I walked out behind her. I went the wrong way.
Cindy had overheard her mother’s finish of the name telling Linda she was too busy with work to choose her up from college. Cindy and her Mom would play the “if onlys” again and again of their minds.
Cindy Borgeson: I felt horrible for not insisting that I am going get her. … none of this could have occurred.
At round 1:15 p.m. on July 6, 1973, lower than an hour after Linda had referred to as residence asking for a experience, a mom and daughter noticed her close to an intersection about a mile from her home. She was speaking to a man who pulled up subsequent to her in a van. It was the final time anybody noticed Linda alive.
JENNIFER MANZELLA [reading tweet aloud]: Late tonight the police will speak to a younger girl named Janine. She and her mother are driving up Marguerite proper now, they usually see one thing they will not neglect for a very long time. It’s me. And a turquoise van.
Tracy Smith: If you shut your eyes, you may bear in mind it prefer it was yesterday?
Jandi Pierle: Oh yeah, I do not even want to shut my eyes.
Janine Pierle, who goes by the nickname Jandi, was 19 at the time. She and her household lived a few homes down from the O’Keefe’s.
CBS News
Jandi Pierle: I noticed Linda standing – such as you had been he, about this shut. And the van is true there in the avenue, the door is open.
Tracy Smith: Did you assume hazard?
Jandi Pierle: No … I simply thought it was odd as a result of I by no means see these ladies with out their dad and mom or one of their siblings. They all the time stayed collectively.
Jandi would not notice the significance of what she’d seen till that evening when she got here residence from work.
Jandi Pierle: Because there was police throughout. They had been in the alleys, they had been in the streets … I mentioned to my sister – I mentioned, “What’s going on?” And she mentioned, “Linda O’Keefe is missing.”
Jandi instantly went to inform detectives on the scene what she’d witnessed.
JENNIFER MANZELLA [reading tweet aloud]: “The sun is setting, and there’s still no sign of me.”
By the morning of July 7, the search for Linda had intensified. Around 10 a.m., about three miles from the O’Keefe residence, Ron Yeo, a native architect was biking alongside a nature path referred to as the Back Bay together with his younger son.
Tracy Smith: Was this place pretty hidden?
Ron Yeo: Yes, it was largely those that loved taking a look at birds and the water and the peacefulness. … I regarded over to the facet and mentioned to my son, “this is a good place to find frogs.”
Instead, they made a grotesque discovery.
Ron Yeo: And there was this physique simply nestled proper into this little space right here.
Tracy Smith: I’d think about that picture is fairly clear in your thoughts nonetheless at present.
Ron Yeo: It is. You know, in any case the time, , it is one of the few issues I can nonetheless bear in mind.
Newport Beach Police Department
JENNIFER MANZELLA [reading tweet aloud]: “They see a young girl’s body … Still in my mom’s homemade dress. I’ve been strangled … this is now a homicide investigation.”
WHO KILLED LINDA O’KEEFE?
JENNIFER MANZELLA [reading tweet aloud]: “The search for Linda Ann O’Keefe is now the search for Linda Ann O’Keefe’s killer. Was It someone I knew? A stranger? The man in the van? There are so many questions.”
Cindy Borgeson: So, I get residence from work round one and there is simply heaps of police vehicles round the home … I stroll as much as the porch and I see my dad simply weeping uncontrollably.
Cindy Borgeson
Linda’s father had been the one to establish her physique.
Cindy Borgeson: It’s not making sense to me. … Looking and seeing my mother sitting in the front room weeping. … The very last thing I imagined was that Linda had been killed. … it was like being punched, like the air was knocked out of me.
Just two days later, extra stunning news: a member of their very own neighborhood was arrested.
Sgt. Court Depweg | Newport Beach Police detective: There was a suspect that got here ahead and tried to confess to kidnapping and killing Linda.
The supposed killer: a younger man named Peter Wooten, who’d simply graduated highschool with Cindy.
Cindy Borgeson: I used to be wanting by means of my senior yearbook … and I bear in mind pondering, “well, he’s odd enough that it’s possible.”
Sgt. Court Depweg: Brought him in for an interview, requested him questions solely the killer would know.
Wooten was held for two days, however nothing linked him to Linda’s homicide, or a van like the one Jandi had seen subsequent to Linda the day she disappeared.
Jandi Pierle: I may inform you proper from the get-go, that wasn’t him.
As it seems, police say Wooten’s confession had simply been a ploy for notoriety.
Tracy Smith: How agonizing for your loved ones – for a second folks thought that he was accountable for your sister’s loss of life?
Cindy Borgeson: Right … People had been offended… My father was livid.
Wooten was launched the similar day Linda’s physique was being laid to relaxation.
Cindy Borgeson: The room was packed out. There was a lot of my mates from highschool, there was Linda’s Girl Scout troop…. It lastly hit me … that it wasn’t simply a unhealthy dream, that it was actually occurring.
Newport Beach investigators went again to sq. one making an attempt to establish a suspect. Under hypnosis, Jandi and her Mom supplied particulars about the turquoise van and the man they’d seen speaking to Linda.
Sgt. Court Depweg: They mentioned he was a white male, he had curly hair, tan pores and skin.
Newport Beach P.D. generated a composite sketch based mostly on that description.
Jandi Pierle: I attempted to offer them a license plate, however after the third time, I simply mentioned, it isn’t working. … I want I may have helped extra.
Terry Briscoe Corwin: Our 11-year-old selves, all of us acquired on our bikes, and all of us wished to assist.
Brian Weaver: We had been wanting for the van.
Tracy Smith: Did you assume perhaps it was someone that you just knew?
Lysa Christopher: Yes.
Jeff Thurnher: Oh, sure.
Lysa Christopher: Everybody’s older brother was underneath scrutiny.
Tracy Smith: Because the concept that he was on the market … to an 11-year-old child will need to have been terrifying.
Terry Briscoe Corwin: It was scary.
With no license plate quantity and simply a sketch, investigators had been greedy at theories.
Sgt. Court Depweg: They had been wanting for a needle in a haystack at that time.
The crime scene supplied few clues.
Several tire tracks had been photographed and examined, however with no automobile for comparability, it led nowhere. Detectives had been hoping the post-mortem would offer some leads, but it surely solely advised a horrific story at the time.
Sgt. Court Depweg: We knew she had died a fairly violent loss of life.
The Orange County Coroner’s Office discovered that Linda had been sexually assaulted, and there have been ligature marks round her neck.
Sgt. Court Depweg: There was a clear indication she had been strangled.
And scratches from Linda preventing for her life.
Sgt. Court Depweg: You can solely think about how horrific it was for her, how scared she was.
The Coroner’s Office positioned Linda’s time of loss of life between midnight and a couple of a.m. That’s about 12 hours since she was seen speaking with that man in the van. And detectives would study that round 11:30 p.m. — whereas the huge search for Linda was nonetheless underway — a girl who lived in the bluffs up above the place Linda’s physique was discovered heard a feminine voice screaming, “Stop! You’re hurting me!” But she by no means referred to as police.
Sgt. Court Depweg: That was devastating to the case.
It’s a missed alternative that Sgt. Depweg and Detective Mike Fletcher say may need altered the total case.
Det. Mike Fletcher: If that decision had been made to the police division it could have solicited a police response —
Sgt. Court Depweg: An enormous police response.
Det. Mike Fletcher: — to that space. With the sources that had been right here that might have put a internet round that space and probably have caught the suspect.
Tracy Smith: And perhaps have saved Linda.
Det. Mike Fletcher: Yes.
Tracy Smith: Was this a solvable case?
Sgt. Court Depweg: I do not know … I feel the detectives again then … did every part that they might for what that they had again in 1973. … There was a lot of unanswered questions.
Questions that may by no means have been answered if not for a forward-thinking criminalist.
Sgt. Court Depweg: Without Jim White, I do not know that we might be sitting right here at present.
Det. Mike Fletcher: We would not be sitting right here.
Newport Beach Police Department
Tracy Smith: How exceptional is it that this little piece of proof survived?
Jim White: This one little screw cap vial with two little swabs in it that lasted all that point.
Tracy Smith: The DNA sat.
Sgt. Court Depweg: For years … It sat in a freezer for many years.
Decades, ready patiently for science to unmask the killer.
JENNIFER MANZELLA [reading tweet aloud]: “My name is Linda O’Keefe. What is his name?”
NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR AN OLD CASE
Cindy Borgeson says her household by no means recovered from Linda’s loss.
Cindy Borgeson
Cindy Borgeson: The grief was overwhelming … The household unity got here undone … there have been no extra household tenting holidays … no extra visits to the museums. There had been no extra seaside journeys … My mom just about remoted in the residence … my dad went to work, got here straight residence.
Linda’s dad and mom would die by no means figuring out who took their daughter; her mom without end haunted by that final cellphone name.
Cindy Borgeson
Cindy Borgeson: I feel it shortened her life … the guilt “if only.” The “if onlys.” “If only I’d gone and picked her up, she’d still be alive.”
Lysa Christopher: As the years roll by you begin to surrender hope. … You assume, “Oh, it’s just going to be an unsolved mystery. They got away with it.”
Terry Briscoe Corwin: It was virtually surreal, like, did it even occur? … Her identify wasn’t even on the web.
But Linda’s image held on the wall of the chilly case unit and generations of investigators had by no means forgotten her identify.
Tracy Smith: Did Linda’s case persist with you?
Jim White: Oh, completely.
Even although DNA hadn’t but emerged as a software at the time of the homicide, Criminalist Jim White had collected swabs of the killer’s semen from Linda’s physique and preserved them, having no concept how they’d assist the case many years later.
Jim White: I knew it was probably essential as a result of there was semen there, however that it could turn into as essential because it was … I had no envision that the testing would turn into as subtle because it grew to become.
DNA testing was first finished on Linda’s case in the late 90s, creating a profile of an unidentified suspect, which was uploaded into the nationwide prison database CODIS.
Sgt. Court Depweg: But there have been no hits.
In October 2017, Sgt. Depweg employed a firm referred to as Parabon NanoLabs that would generate a Snapshot — a composite based mostly on the suspect’s genetic traits.
Newport Beach Police Department/Parabon
Sgt. Court Depweg: We now knew for certain that he was a Caucasian male … we had some figuring out attributes that we did not know earlier than as a result of all we had is a composite from 1973.
If science may give the assailant a face, may it give him a identify? A jaw-dropping arrest in one other case would show it was doable.
In April of 2018, authorities in California introduced that Joseph James D’Angelo, a former cop, was the infamous Golden State Killer accountable for not less than 13 murders and 50 rapes between 1975 and 1986.
It was the first arrest in a case solved by means of genetic family tree – a painstaking course of of discovering family members of an unidentified DNA profile, then whittling it down, till they got here up with a suspect.
Sgt. Court Depweg: We knew, at that time, we acquired a likelihood … we simply did not know the best way to do it.
As it seems, the Golden State Killer’s arrest wouldn’t simply give hope to the Newport Beach Police investigators.
David Wedemeyer: I posted on Facebook about Golden State.
Brian Weaver: When Dave posted that … they acquired him by DNA … I’m like, “OK, they got to have something.”
Tracy Smith: Maybe it is Linda’s flip
David Wedemeyer: It’s Linda’s flip.
CBS News
For Linda’s classmates it was the catalyst to as soon as once more attempt to assist resolve the case. They shaped a Facebook group – “Justice for Linda Ann O’Keefe” – and went to the Newport Beach Police Department to have the case reopened.
Terry Briscoe Corwin: Walked proper as much as the counter … and mentioned, “‘This is gonna sound crazy, but … we want to talk about Linda O’Keefe.”
Tracy Smith: You did not know that the police had her image up on the wall?
Lysa and Terry [in unison]: No
And they could not know what Court Depweg had in retailer. That social media campaign that might begin two months later and finish with the DNA composite. Depweg determined to make it public at the finish of #LindasStory on Twitter.
Terry Briscoe Corwin: We had been all collectively on pins and needles ready to see … who is that this man?
Lysa Christopher: Forty-some odd years now we have been racking our brains. Who may’ve finished this?
Tracy Smith: Did any of the Twitter leads pan out?
Sgt. Court Depweg: No. But by placing that storyline on the market … It paid off massive time.
#LindasStory did not yield any substantial leads but it surely caught the consideration of an instrumental ally, CeCe Moore.
CeCe Moore: I had heard about this case manner again in faculty.
Newport Beach Police Department
Moore had simply turn into the chief genetic genealogist at Parabon — the firm that had made that DNA composite.
So, when Depweg requested her if she would present them the best way to apply genetic family tree to seek out Linda’s killer, she was solely too completely satisfied to assist.
Sgt. Court Depweg: We wanted her to mainly maintain our hand by means of this.
CeCe Moore: To even have a chance to assist resolve a case that I had recognized about for … 30 years, , that is a tremendous alternative.
Using the similar strategies as investigators from the Golden State Killer, they uploaded the killer’s DNA profile into a public database referred to as GEDmatch, the place folks voluntarily submit their DNA wanting for members of the family.
Sgt. Court Depweg: That actually opened up our investigative leads. … Now we had been truly figuring out those that shared DNA with our suspect.
Depweg’s investigators and CeCe then needed to work backwards from the suspect’s family members to seek out him.
Tracy Smith: So, you began constructing your tree?
CeCe Moore: I began constructing timber. … The DNA simply provides us a information. … I’m instantly turning to public information, to obituaries, newspaper articles, social media to attempt to piece these households again collectively.
CeCe Moore [pointing to a family tree on a laptop]: So, that is our widespread ancestor manner again in the 1700’s.
Tracy Smith: That’s wild.
Tracy Smith: With this suspect, you had been going, going, going, going, and then you definitely hit a wall.
CeCe Moore: This was a very tough case … so I would like to seek out somebody who descends from every of these widespread ancestors … and we weren’t discovering it.
But whereas one household tree withered, one other firmly took root. In December 2018, a industrial DNA testing firm referred to as FamilyTreeDNA opened up its database to legislation enforcement for fixing violent crimes. It can be a recreation changer.
Sgt. Court Depweg: I bear in mind it prefer it was yesterday … my cellphone rings, and it is one of the higher-level administrators at FamilyTreeDNA … He says actual nonchalant … “I think I have your suspect identified” … And I mentioned, “Oh, you have a close family member match?” And he says, “No, I think I have your guy.”
A PERFECT MATCH
In January 2019, greater than 4 many years after Linda O’Keefe’s homicide, DNA left by her attacker lastly led to a suspect.
CeCe Moore: I used to be shocked … They will need to have misunderstood. It cannot truly be a match.
Sgt. Court Depweg: After all these years, how did we get so fortunate?
The DNA profile that Sgt. Depweg had submitted to FamilyTreeDNA was a good match for James Alan Neal.
Newport Beach Police Department
Tracy Smith: How did the suspect’s DNA find yourself in FamilyTree’s database?
Sgt. Court Depweg: He put it in there voluntarily.
Tracy Smith: What variety of prison thoughts does that?
Sgt. Court Depweg: Luckily for us, not a shiny one.
As luck would have it, Neal had been researching his personal family tree, and even had a public household tree on-line.
So, when Cindy Borgeson acquired a name from Sgt. Depweg, she had no concept investigators had been closing in on her sister’s killer.
Cindy Borgeson: Says, “I’m probably going to Colorado in a month. I’ll be giving you a call.” And I assumed, “OK, I wonder what’s in Colorado?”
Neal, now 72, was a married father and grandfather dwelling in Monument, Colorado. But earlier than Newport Beach Police may make an arrest, that they had to verify their case would stand in court docket.
Eric Scarbrough | Orange County Senior Deputy District Attorney: Cold instances are extremely tough to prosecute. Having DNA is an extremely essential half of the case … But it is actually solely the starting.
Sgt. Court Depweg: We needed to put him in Newport Beach at the moment. We needed to join him to the space.
And they wanted recent DNA from Neal to check to the DNA pattern from 1973.
Sgt. Court Depweg: I checked out Mike Fletcher and mentioned, “you’re going to Colorado.”
In January 2019, Detective Fletcher and his crew arrived in the useless chilly Colorado winter, to look at and wait.
Det. Mike Fletcher: You acquired three detectives from sunny California who at the moment are in minus 6 diploma climate making an attempt to do surveillance. … Where James was dwelling at the time was variety of a rural highway, and it was actually arduous to surveil.
But they quickly found Neal was a smoker with an odd behavior.
Sgt. Court Depweg: Mike referred to as me and mentioned … “Hey, this guy keeps snuffing his cigarettes out and putting them in his pocket.”
Det. Mike Fletcher: At first, I used to be pondering … perhaps this man is onto the DNA facet of issues.
Tracy Smith: I’m picturing you guys, as he is snuffing out these cigarettes and sticking them in his pocket, going loopy.
Det. Mike Fletcher: Yeah … there was a second of that. … come to seek out out, there’s an especially excessive nice for throwing a cigarette out in Colorado.
When Neal lastly flicked his cigarette in the parking zone at a grocery retailer, he had no concept it could value him way over a nice.
Det. Mike Fletcher: It was submitted to the Orange County crime lab and it was a direct match.
Meanwhile investigators had additionally been creating Neal’s prison profile.
Eric Scarbrough: James Neal’s prison historical past runs the gamut from petty crimes to extremely critical offenses. There’s violence. There’s sexual assaults.
In 1966 Neal was caught with an underage girl in his automobile and arrested for delinquency of a minor.
Sgt. Court Depweg: The 1966 case confirmed it … that … this man had been doing this for a whereas. … Linda wasn’t his first. And we knew now we had been coping with a true predator.
Just like Linda, he’d picked her up in Newport Beach.
Tracy Smith: Do you assume this was his looking floor?
Sgt. Court Depweg: I feel wherever he was at … was a potential for a looking floor.
Newport Beach Police found suspected sexual abuse by Neal on 5 different youngsters in different jurisdictions.
Tracy Smith: What was his M.O.?
Sgt. Court Depweg: He clearly preyed on ladies from the ages of 7 to 13. That was his main goal. And he would achieve their confidence shortly.
At the time of Linda’s homicide, Neal lived in Orange County, lower than a half hour drive from the place she was kidnapped in Corona del Mar. And his actual identify was James Albert Layton. But quickly after Linda was killed, he turned up in Florida underneath his new id.
Det. Mike Fletcher: His … new identify popped up … throughout an arrest in Florida two months after Linda was murdered. I feel it leads us to consider that he acquired out of city … to … escape from answering for what he had finished.
But there was no escaping when Newport Beach Police arrived at Neal’s residence in Colorado armed with a warrant for his arrest — captured on police video.
Tracy Smith: What was his demeanor like?
Det. Mike Fletcher: Relatively cool, calm and picked up.
Depweg and Fletcher escorted him to the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office in Colorado Springs.
Det. Mike Fletcher: He began speaking on the drive over.
Sgt. Court Depweg: We began together with his historical past of sexually molesting different ladies. … and he was very open about it. … He had an excuse for it … he mentioned that “Oh, I was drunk” … however he admitted to it.
But when it acquired to Linda’s homicide, Neal was about to get a lot much less agreeable.
SGT. COURT DEPWEG [police interview]: You bear in mind this girl, Jim?
JAMES NEAL: No, sir.
SGT. COURT DEPWEG: Have you ever seen her earlier than?
JAMES NEAL: No. She seems to be like, virtually, like one of my youngsters’ photos.
SGT. COURT DEPWEG: But you do not bear in mind this little girl? You do not bear in mind selecting this girl up on the facet of the highway?
JAMES NEAL: I’ve by no means picked up any youngsters, ever.
Newport Beach Police Department
Over a three-hour cat-and-mouse recreation, Neal refuses to take the bait, even when confronted together with his DNA on Linda’s physique.
SGT. COURT DEPWEG: Single supply, male. Guess whose? Yours. … It’s a 100% match.
JAMES NEAL: I am unable to clarify that.
SGT. COURT DEPWEG: So, you are tellin’ me — simply miraculously your semen acquired on her?
JAMES NEAL: It should be miraculous as a result of it wasn’t me.
Tracy Smith: He understands DNA, he is aware of you could have his DNA, and but nonetheless he says to your faces —
Det. Mike Fletcher: He simply cannot carry himself to say the phrases.
And despite the fact that Neal had admitted to molesting different ladies, he cannot admit to homicide.
JAMES NEAL: I’m not gonna admit to one thing I did not do. I’d by no means kill anyone.
In one eerie second, Neal is left alone with Linda’s picture, when he seems to be at her face and gives a twisted apology.
Newport Beach Police Department
JAMES NEAL [talking to Linda’s photo]: I’m sorry child, but it surely wasn’t me.
Tracy Smith: There’s one thing about the phrasing of that that’s simply so creepy. How does that strike you? “I’m sorry baby, but it wasn’t me.”
Eric Scarbrough: It’s virtually acquainted … He acknowledges her, however he nonetheless desires to distance himself from the crime. This is him appearing.
DET. MIKE FLETCHER [police interview]: Jim, you have had 45 years to persuade your self that you just didn’t do that … It’s time to take accountability for what you probably did to this little girl.
JAMES NEAL: I did not – I do not must be accountable for one thing I did not do.
Neal refuses to take any accountability, however detectives already had what they wanted.
Eric Scarbrough: The proof on this case speaks for Linda louder than James Neal ever may deny he wasn’t concerned.
SGT. COURT DEWPEG: You did do it, Jim.
JAMES NEAL: No, I did not.
SGT. COURT DEWPEG: And you are being arrested for the homicide of Linda O’Keefe.
JAMES NEAL: Well, I’m sorry, I did not do it.
SGT. COURT DEWPEG: You’re being arrested for abducting her … sexually molesting her, after which murdering that 11-year-old girl.
JAMES NEAL: Oh, God.
The Newport Beach Police had their man, however would James Neal nonetheless get away with homicide?
JUSTICE FOR LINDA?
Before the relaxation of the world heard about James Neal’s arrest, Cindy Borgeson acquired the name from Sgt. Depweg that introduced her household’s saga full circle.
CBS News
Cindy Borgeson: He mentioned, “are you sitting down?” … And he mentioned, “we arrested him this morning.” And I bear in mind, like the day Linda’s physique was discovered, every part slowed manner down … I used to be so excited. … I felt — I want my dad and mom had been right here to listen to this news.
CHIEF JON LEWIS | NEWPORT BEACH PD: James Neal, now 72 years outdated, was arrested by our detectives yesterday at 6:29 a.m. Pacific Time in Colorado Springs for the homicide of Linda Ann O’Keefe.
On February 20, 2019, the Newport Beach Police Department and the Orange County District Attorney held a joint press convention to share the news.
DA TODD SPITZER: He’s being charged with homicide and two particular circumstances … kidnapping … and … an act throughout the homicide of a lewd and lascivious act upon … a little one underneath the age of 14.
Linda’s classmates had been overcome with emotion.
Lysa Christopher: Shocked, completely satisfied, elated, and offended … He took this girl’s life and went on to reside his life.
Terry Briscoe Corwin: I used to be glad that he was nonetheless alive. … So that he might be punished.
Eric Scarbrough: This is the variety of case that you are going to do every part you may to carry the defendant accountable.
But accountability regarded very totally different in 1973. And Eric Scarbrough must work with the legal guidelines in the books at the time the crime occurred.
Eric Scarbrough: In 1973, Mr. Neal would have solely been dealing with seven years-to-life.
Tracy Smith: When you hear seven years?
Eric Scarbrough: It blows your thoughts.
However, because of the information unearthed by Newport Beach P.D.’s investigation, the DA may up the ante by bringing in Neal’s different alleged sexual assaults on youngsters.
Tracy Smith: So, you may pull instances from different counties to ascertain, hey, that is his sample of habits.
Eric Scarbrough: That’s precisely what we had been going to do.
And they discovered much more proof because of Newport Beach P.D.’s viral Twitter campaign.
Even although it hadn’t led on to a suspect, #LindasStory allowed them to get search warrants for all of Neal’s digital gadgets to see if he’d adopted the case. They did not discover any searches about Linda, however what they discovered was simply as disturbing.
Det. Mike Fletcher: Evidence of little one pornography … copious quantities of that to undergo.
The Orange County DA finally mixed Linda’s case with costs for two different younger ladies Neal had allegedly sexually assaulted between 1995 and 2002 in Riverside County, California. Those instances had by no means been prosecuted and had been nonetheless inside the statute of limitations. If Neal was convicted on all three, it might be sufficient to place him away for the relaxation of his life.
Eric Scarbrough: There was different information we had that sadly was out of statute and we weren’t capable of cost it. But we do know that there have been different victims on the market.
Neal’s household declined “48 Hours”‘ requests for interviews, and by no means made any public statements about the costs towards him. During his arraignment in Orange County Superior Court, Neal pleaded “not guilty” on all counts. Now Eric Scarbrough must make jurors really feel a sense of urgency on the many years outdated case.
Tracy Smith: How do you carry this … case alive to a jury?
Eric Scarbrough: That’s the actual problem of the chilly case. … But actually what it comes right down to is discovering methods of utilizing that proof, together with the DNA, to inform the girl’s story.
Newport Beach Police Department
Evidence like Linda’s college bag discovered a few ft away from her physique — her mom had made it for the Fourth of July – and its contents, a good time-capsule of her harrowing final moments.
Tracy Smith: A half-eaten orange, a little toy, college provides and artwork provides, her socks and urine-stained underwear. What does that inform you?
Eric Scarbrough: This tells you about what occurred to her in her final minutes. … This is the backpack of just about any 11-year-old you would possibly discover at present. And then you definitely come to the proof of her underwear and also you notice that one thing very unhealthy had occurred to her.
Tracy Smith: She was scared.
Eric Scarbrough: Terrified. … That information is crucial.
But a jury would by no means get to listen to it. In the summer season of 2020, James Neal died of pure causes in custody.
Sgt. Court Depweg: There’s little question in my thoughts he would’ve been convicted.
Lysa Christopher: The largest heartbreak. … The story ended so bizarrely, simply because it started.
Jeff Thurnher: We had been hoping to see the finish of this man standing earlier than a jury and being convicted.
Tracy Smith: So, David, you had been the one who put the Facebook web page up … “Justice for Linda,” was this justice for Linda?
David Wedemeyer: In a way, however really justice, no … however I feel it is closure.
Closure and reduction for Linda’s sister, who says she forgave Neal earlier than she even knew his identify.
Cindy Borgeson: I could not carry that ache in my coronary heart … clearly God is defending me from a trial that might have been traumatic. … Because for years we thought, “what did they do for 12 hours together … what happened?”
With Linda’s case formally closed, her picture now not hangs amongst the unsolved at Newport Beach P.D. But she’ll all the time reside amongst Cindy’s valuable recollections of a extra harmless time.
When their household was nonetheless complete.
Cindy Borgeson
Cindy Borgeson: There’s a portrait … it is the solely household portrait we ever had finished. … my mom seems to be like Jackie O. … and my dad seems to be … typical dad in the 60s.
And the three of us ladies are simply smiling, beaming from ear to ear.
Tracy Smith: What do you are taking from Linda’s story?
Cindy Borgeson: To be grateful for every single day … the good and the unhealthy.
And grateful for the surprising mates alongside the manner.
Cindy Borgeson: This complete help group of those that knew her … at the moment are mates of mine and … their help and their encouragement and all of it was actually incredible.
Terry Briscoe Corwin: She mattered. … And I actually prefer to assume and hope that our efforts helped simply a little bit.
JENNIFER MANZELLA [reading tweet aloud]: “Thank you to my family, friends, and schoolmates – who never gave up hope… thank you to the generations of investigators who worked on my case… Because of you my story didn’t end in July 1973.”
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story by The Texas Tribune Source link
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