#LindasStory

On July 6, 1973, 11-year old Linda Ann O’Keefe of Newport Beach, CA was abducted while walking home from school. Her body was discovered the following morning. She had been the victim of a homicide. In 2018, cold case investigators (who had a picture of Linda still hanging on the wall in their office) got a unique idea. They decided to use Twitter to try to help solve her case.

Sources for this episode: 

• 48 Hours - Season 34, Episode 61 - #LindasStory
• Newport Beach Police Department Twitter

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Transcript

On July 6, 1973, 11-year old Linda Ann O’Keefe of Newport Beach, CA was abducted while walking home from school. Her body was discovered the following morning. She had been the victim of a homicide. In 2018, cold case investigators (who had a picture of Linda still hanging on the wall in their office) got a unique idea. They decided to use Twitter to try to help solve her case.

They published a series of Twitter posts written from the young murder victims perspective detailing the last day of her life to get her story out to the world. I’m going to read you Linda’s story from the Newport Beach Police Dept Twitter and then I’ll tell you how this case was ultimately solved.

“Hi.  I’m Linda O’Keefe (or Linda ANN O’Keefe, if I’m in trouble with my mom).  Forty-five years ago today, I disappeared from Newport Beach.  I was murdered and my body was found in the Back Bay.   My killer was never found.  Today, I’m going to tell you my story.”

“I was 11 years old on the day I disappeared.  It’s kinda strange… that year (1973), July 6 also fell on a Friday.  It was a cool day.  Cooler than usual.  The high was about 70 degrees.”

“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.  My piano teacher is giving me a ride to summer school.”

“Time for first period.  Here we go.  School isn’t really my thing. I get Bs.  Cs.  A couple of Ds.  And I *hate* doing my homework.  I’m not too fond of school in general, I guess.  But – not to brag – I’m really good at spelling.  And I love science class.”

“I love the piano.  Before I had piano lessons, I would go to the Hammond Organ Studio in my neighborhood and play their organs and pianos for hours at a time.  I also love painting and crafts.  My mom says I’m ‘artistically inclined’.”

“Break time!  It’s still a little chilly out, so I wrap my green ski jacket a little tighter around me as I head out the classroom door.”

“I’m wearing a dress today… It’s white, with light blue flowers on it, and dark blue trim.  My mom made it.  She makes a lot of my clothes, and my sisters’ clothes.  She’s really good at sewing, and we don’t have a lot of money for fancy store outfits anyhow.”

“Back to class.  Time for second period.  I should’ve had a snack during break…”

“I’m still getting used to the schedule here.  I go to Lincoln Intermediate School… which was a middle school back in 1973, although I hear it’s an elementary school now.  A lot has changed between the last time I was here, and what it looks like in 2018.”

“Along with my homemade dress, I’m wearing dark blue tennis shoes with white trim, and thick white ankle socks.  My hair used to be shorter, but now it is long and brown, and I am wearing it in a ponytail today.”

“Time for another break.  I have a few coins in my bag, so I head over to Richard’s Market.  It’s only a block and a half away, so I can get over there and back in time for my next class.”

“What to buy, what to buy…?  I settle on a pack of gum, and hurry back to school in time for the next period to start.”

Third period.  Halfway there.  Gosh, I wish it was a weekend day today...  Then I could go to the beach.  I LOVE the beach.  This is the first summer that mom and dad let me go by myself, since we live so close.”

“I’m a pretty quiet kid, I guess.  I don’t talk as much as some people, that’s for sure!  People call me shy.  My parents say I’m ‘sensitive’, which I think means that I’m an easy crier.  It’s true.”

“Not all crying is the same, though. The last time I cried-REALLY cried-was a few months ago. We have three cats and one of them died. They told me she had cancer, but I don’t really know what that means. I missed her SO MUCH for weeks and weeks after she was gone.”

“That’s the end of third period.  Mrs. McWilliams has been my teacher all morning, but I’ll have Mrs. Hoover next.  One class with her, and then school is out for the day!”

“It’s time for our last period of the day.  Whew.  I’d so much rather be watching TV right now!  I love TV.  I’ll watch at home, of course… but I also like to go to Fashion Island and watch the big TVs in the stores.”

“Besides mom and dad and me, there are two more in the family.  Both sisters.  My big sister is 18 and has a real job!  She works at a dry cleaners.  She still lives with us, so I get to see her a lot.  My little sister is only 9 1/2.  She and I are really close.”

“Finally, school is over.  Like everyone else in the classroom, I’m getting excited about how to spend the rest of my afternoon, or what I want to do this weekend.  I obviously don’t know it yet, but… I won’t get to have a weekend.”

“Usually, I ride my bike to school.  The ride home is easy, because it’s almost all downhill.  But today, I got a ride to school, so no bike.  I’m going to call my mom and see if she’ll pick me up, so I don’t have to walk home.”

“The lady in the school office said I need to wait.  School’s only been out for a few minutes, and my mom hasn’t had time to get here yet, so I can’t use the phone yet.  Adults always have rules for stuff like this.”

“I know my mom isn’t planning to pick me up, so I head back towards Richard’s Market, just to waste some time until I can call her.  My friend Brenda (from third period) skips past me with another girl, and says hi.”

“A turquoise van is driving up Harbor View Road.  Brenda (who has turned around started skipping backwards now) will later tell the police that the van stops next to me a couple times as I’m walking along, but she’s too far away to hear if anyone talks to me.”

“I’m back in the school office, and the lady lets me call my mom for a ride home this time.  It doesn’t go well.  She is busy with a sewing project and tells me that I can walk home.  It makes me upset, and I cry.  I’m an easy crier, remember?”

“Still sniffling, I leave the office.  I know they say I’m lazy, but I just reeeeaaaallly don’t like walking.  My parents get annoyed when I ask for a ride home from school, because it’s such a short walk.  But I hate it.  I wish I had my bike.”

“Even if I wanted to walk home (which I don’t) I wouldn’t leave right now.  I’m still upset about not getting a ride home.  I sit on the curb in front of the school, with my feet sticking out in the street.  I’ll leave soon.”

“Late tonight, the police will talk to a young woman named Jannine.  She and her mom are driving up Marguerite right now, and they see something they won’t forget for a long time.  It’s me.  And a turquoise van.”

“The van is parked along the curb, just before the intersection of Marguerite and Inlet Drive.  The front passenger door is open, and I’m standing right beside it.  Jannine will remember that she sees the driver: a man, white, in his mid-20s or early 30s.”

“Jannine’s mom is suspicious.  It must be a mom-instinct.  As she turns on to San Joaquin Hills Road, she slows down and then pulls over.”

“‘If that van drives by, write down the license plate number,’ she tells Jannine.  But the van doesn’t drive by.  Her heart sinks a bit as she sees the van go straight up Marguerite.  She can’t see how many people are inside.”

“No one is concerned when I don’t come home from school right away.  Or not TOO concerned, anyway.  It’s a different time back in 1973, and kids roam the neighborhood on their bikes for hours at a time.”

“My mom also made the book bag I’m carrying.  It’s red, white, and blue, with stars – and it feels very patriotic after the 4th of July.  My mom made matching bags for all three of us (my sisters and me).”

“My mom made us matching stuff a lot.  We have a photo from when my little sister was just a baby, and all three of us girls are in pink dresses (you can’t tell, because the photo is black and white, but my big sister remembers).”

“I guess you can say that I’m a kinda moody kid.  I’ve been acting out lately.  Little stuff, like not coming home on time… just so that they know I’m upset.  This new bad habit of mine is probably on my mom’s mind quite a bit this afternoon.”

“Mom's starting to get a little worried. She knows I was angry about her not picking me up, but she thought I’d sulk a bit and then come home to eat. It’s been three hours since she heard from me, which is a lot when you’re a young girl with no lunch in her stomach.”

“Let’s see… What else can I tell you about me??  I’ve always been *really* good at tidying up.  Mom says I’m like a ‘little mother’ and always keep my room very neat.  Whenever I clean up, I ask her to come see.  I like hearing her tell me that I did a good job.”

“Mom starts calling around to see if I’m at anyone’s house.  I have several friends in the neighborhood, and friends from school – Cathy, Jim, Stacy, Mona, Mary Lou – but no one has seen me since I walked away from Lincoln Intermediate.”

“When my dad gets home from work, worry turns to action.  We have two family cars.  My dad gets in one, my big sister gets in the other, and they start to look for me.  There’s a feeling that I’m being disobedient, not that anything is actually *wrong*.”

“No luck.  I’m a Girl Scout, and a member of the Corona del Mar Youth Center, so there’s a few places to check.  I stopped going to the CdM Community Church a few months ago, but they check there too, just in case.”

“Everyone returns home.  Everyone but me, that is.”

“At 6:42 pm, the NBPD receives a call from a house on Orchid Avenue.  Linda Ann O’Keefe is missing.  Four feet tall, 85 pounds, long brown hair and blue eyes.”

“The search begins.  My dad and sister join in again, in their separate cars.  The police get to work, systematically checking the areas between my school and my house.  My mom has made about 40 phone calls by now, trying to track me down.”

“Officers are searching everywhere.  Back then, there were vacant fields south of Pacific View and east of Marguerite.  They search the fields, the reservoir, the neighborhoods, the streets.  Nothing.”

“The sun is setting, and still there’s no sign of me.  My sister thinks I’m going to be in big trouble whenever they find me.  My mom knows I’d never stay out past dark.”

“A new theory – and a new hope.  My good friend Cathy’s parents were sailing to Catalina tonight.  Cathy wanted to stay over at my house, but my mom had said no.  Maybe Cathy and I had both gone with them on the sailing trip?”

“Every police officer in the city is looking for me.  They eventually track down Cathy’s parents’ slip, and see that their boat is gone.  Could I have been so angry that I’d left town with my friend and not told anyone?”

“The officers find some men on a boat in the next slip and interview them.  Yes, the men saw the boat leave a few hours ago.  With six adults on board.  And no little girls.”

“Officers are searching Fashion Island.  The Back Bay.  On foot.  By car.  By helicopter.  Jeeps are used in the places the patrol cars can’t get to.  Still… nothing.”

“The Catalina Harbor Department check the Avalon Harbor for Cathy’s parents.  They haven’t arrived yet, but – when they do – the NBPD wants to make sure that I didn’t run away with them.  My mom hopes that the men on the next boat over were wrong.”

“Jannine knocks on the door of my house and asks to talk to a Detective.  The image of the little girl and the turquoise van is still burning in her mind, and she heard that a little girl who lives here might be missing…”

“A lady in the bluffs above Back Bay hears a female voice outside, screaming ‘Stop, you’re hurting me’.  She listens, but hears nothing more.  She doesn’t know that I’m missing.  That I’ll be dead by morning.  That I’ll be found a couple hundred yards from her home.”

“As midnight draws near, there is little peace for my parents.  My sisters are both asleep.  My big sister has to work in the morning and anyway, she is still certain that I’m alive and well, and in big trouble when they figure out where I’ve been.”

“Cathy’s parents still haven’t turned up in Catalina.  Until they do, there’s still hope that there’s at least one place I could be that the officers can’t find me.  One place that doesn’t involve a passing glimpse of a strange man in a van.”

The searches will continue throughout the night.  Linda’s Story will resume at 7:30 am.

The sun has been up for a couple hours, and the police department is still searching for me.  More volunteers have joined in.”

“When my big sister gets to work, she is shocked to see the headline on the front page of the Daily Pilot: ‘Girl, 11, Vanishes in Newport’.

Linda?  Vanished?  ‘No, no, no,’ she thinks, ‘They must have it wrong.’”

“Tons of people are looking for me.  The helicopter has been scouring the canyons and remote areas of Corona del Mar.  My dad is out looking for me too, with some officers.  My mom is still home, peering through the curtains at all the activity on our quiet street.”

“Less than half a mile from my house, a man is getting on his bike.  He pedals towards the Back Bay, with his 4-year-old son in tow.  He’s due to meet two friends there.”

“A new shift of searchers is gathering at the police department.  Newport Beach Explorer Post 1050, Costa Mesa Search and Rescue Post 198, and a handful of others are joining in to relieve the volunteers who have looked for me all night.”

“The man and his friends meet in the Back Bay and start to tour the area on their bikes.  They are looking for a good place to hold a nature study.  Specifically, they’re looking for a good place to observe frogs.”

“The man is looking in the ditch on the east side of Back Bay Drive, searching for frogs in the cattails.  Instead, he sees something small, and pale.  My hand.  He sees my hand.  He screams, trying to rouse me.”

“His friends come over when they hear him screaming.  Peering through the cattails, they gasp.  They don’t know who I am, of course… or who I was.  But they see a young girl’s body, still in my mom’s homemade dress.  I’ve been strangled.”

“They go for help. They ride along Back Bay Drive, looking for a phone, a person, anything.  Just before San Joaquin Hills Rd, they find a police car. The officer, one of many who've been searching for me, is the first to know: this is now a homicide investigation.”

“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.”

“There will be theories, and a sketch of a ‘person of interest’, but my murder will eventually become a cold case.  NBPD detectives still look at my file, interview people who saw me or knew me, follow leads… but the trails lead nowhere.”

“But now, 45 yrs later, I have a voice again. And I have something important to say. There is a new lead in my case: a face. A face that comes from DNA that the killer left behind. It’s technology that didn’t exist back in 1973, but it might change everything today.”

“My name is Linda O’Keefe. What is his name?”

#LindasStory was seen, liked, and retweeted nearly 7 million times all over the world. It got people talking but it did not generate leads to solve the case.

However, Linda had been sexually assaulted and a very forward thinking investigator in 1973 had semen swabs collected. They were stored in a freezer for decades with the hope that one day science would catch up.

In the late 90’s, investigators entered the DNA profile into CODIS - the national database but there were no matches found. This is a little shocking - it means the killer was not convicted of any other major crimes. 

In 2017, detectives on the case heard of a new way to analyze DNA. Parabon Nanolabs was able to generate a “DNA snapshot” - which shows likely characteristics of the DNA contributor and what they may look like. Investigators were able to confirm the perpetrator was a caucasion male, with likely blue or green eyes, blonde or brown hair, and probably had no freckles. 

Then in April of 2018, police in California used genetic genealogy to catch the notorious Golden State Killer. Genetic genealogy is basically taking a sample of DNA and uploading it to ancestry databases to find distant relatives of the contributor. From there, a genealogist can build a family tree and try to determine who possible suspects may be - people who were the correct age and at the correct location when the crime was committed.

A group of Linda’s former classmates heard of this advancement, and went to the NBPD and asked them to reopen the case. They didn’t know at this time that NBPD already had the concept of Linda’s twitter story ready to be published.

Although the Twitter posts did not lead to any viable leads, it did catch the attention of Cece Moore - the chief genetic genealogist at Parabon - the same company that created the composite of Linda’s killer. Cici helped the NBPD upload the DNA sample they had to GedMatch to try to find family members of the killer and they began building family trees. 

In December of 2018, Family Tree DNA opened up its database to law enforcement. What came next is something nobody could have anticipated. Linda’s killer actually uploaded his own DNA to this database to research his family's heritage. 

James Alan Neal, now 72 was a married father & grandfather living in Colorado. Detectives still had a lot of work to do on this case to secure a conviction. They needed to tie Neil to the Newport Beach area in 1973. They also needed a fresh DNA sample to confirm their match.

Investigators sent a detective to Colorado in January of 2019 to surveille Neil and try to attempt to surreptitiously collect a DNA sample. As the detective watched Neil, they noticed Neil was a smoker but would put his cigarettes out and place them in his pocket. They thought maybe Neil was onto them. As it turned out, there’s a large fine associated with throwing cigarettes on the ground in Colorado. Finally, one day, Neil flicked a cigarette out in a grocery store parking lot. The detectives swooped in and collected it. It was confirmed to be a match.

After this, detectives started looking into Neils criminal past which was extensive - spanning from petty crime to serious violent offenses including sexual assault of a minor in 1966 in Newport Beach. He was suspected of sexually assaulting 5 other young girls in other jurisdictions - aged between 7-13.

Detectives discovered in 1973, Neil was living in Orange County - less than a half hour from where Linda was abducted. 

His real name was James Albert Laton - but soon after Linda’s killing - he was living in FL under a new name.

NBPD posted this tweet - again from Linda’s perspective: “On Tuesday, February 19, 2019, detectives from the NBPD arrested this man - James Alan Neal, DOB 7/28/46 - in Colorado Springs, CO for murder.  My murder.”

When confronted with Linda’s photo after police arrested him, he denied ever seeing her or even picking up any child at any time. Police told Neil his DNA was a 100% match and he still denied involvement in the crime. However, he did admit to molesting other young girls. Neil’s denial didn’t matter in the end because the evidence against him was so strong.

He was charged with murder, kidnapping, and a lewd and lascivious act of a child under the age of 14. Unfortunately, the court system would have to work with the laws that were in place in Colorado in 1973 when the crime was committed - and under these laws, Neil would only be facing 7 years to life. The district attorney on the case chose to include information about Neil’s past crimes in court to establish a pattern of behavior. They were able to also charge him with 2 other crimes that occured in CA which were still within the statute of limitations. If he was convicted of all 3, he could be put away for life.

Neil pleaded not guilty on all counts. In the summer of 2020, Neil died of natural causes while awaiting trial. It’s unfortunate that Linda’s case would never have it’s day in court - but at least the case was finally solved and her family didn’t have to go through the pain of a trial.