🔎 Mysterious Cases: Linda O'Keefe: Killer Discovered 46 Years Later!
The case of an 11-year-old girl who was murdered in a quiet town in California is solved 46 years later!
WHO WAS LINDA ANN O'KEEFE?
Linda Ann O’Keefe was born on May 24, 1962.
She was the middle child in a family of three children and lived in a small, cozy house for most of her life.
The town where Linda lived, in inland California, was small and very safe. It was the type of town where everyone knows each other, and you could leave your door open without fear of being robbed.
The little girl, just 11 years old, was described by her family as a gentle and loving soul to everyone. She loved animals immensely and could play the piano and paint. Months before the case, Linda lost one of her kittens, which made her cry a lot out of longing. Her mother said she was sensitive and cried easily.
Linda was also a Girl Scout and loved walking outdoors, saying she had great memories of always camping near a creek.
At the time, Linda attended summer school at Lincoln Intermediate School in Corona Del Mar, California. She didn't have the best grades because she didn't like school that much, but she loved science classes.
HOW IT ALL STARTED
Linda usually rode her bike to school, but on July 6, 1973, she got a ride from her piano teacher because it was too cold to ride. That same day, after classes ended, Linda didn't want to walk home, so she used the school's office phone to call her mother to pick her up.
However, Linda's mother said she was busy and asked her daughter to walk home alone because it was very close to the school, and again, it was a very safe town; nothing dangerous ever happened there, especially during the day.
But Linda never returned home.
When the girl's mother arrived home that day after work, almost at dusk, she found it strange that her daughter wasn't home, as she should have arrived from school at least around 3:20 p.m.
She quickly called Linda's friends, hoping for some news, but no one knew about her. Around 6:42 p.m., she was reported missing.
INITIAL INVESTIGATIONS
Initially, investigators tried to determine Linda's timeline before she disappeared.
Around 1:15 p.m. on July 6, witnesses reported seeing Linda talking to a white man who had a turquoise van at an intersection. This was shortly after Linda called her mother from school, asking her to pick her up.
The man was described as being in his 20s or 30s. Earlier, when Linda was waiting to use the phone, she went outside for a while. A friend of the girl later told the police that a similar-looking van passed by Linda a few times, as if it was indeed watching the poor girl.
The police stopped the search at midnight on the day she was abducted, resuming it only at 7:30 a.m. the next day.
FINDING LINDA'S BODY
The day after the abduction, July 7, a local architect and his 4-year-old son were walking along a trail about 5 kilometers from Linda's family home when they spotted the girl's remains in a ditch in Back Bay in Newport Beach, California.
Forensic experts concluded that she was sexually assaulted and strangled to death.
That same night, a woman who lived near where Linda's body was found reported hearing screams. She said it was a female voice shouting, "Stop, you're hurting me!".
However, the authorities could not get far with the case. Semen collected from Linda's body was preserved, but in the 1970s, the technology to test DNA was still years away.
And the case, unfortunately, had to be filed away, even after finding the girl's body and the semen on her clothes.
HOW THE CASE WAS SOLVED
Thirty years later, in 2001, the DNA profile developed from the semen sample was entered into CODIS, the national genetic database, but there were no matches.
It remained so until 2018 when the Newport Beach Police launched a social media campaign that brought interest from several people to the case. Then, authorities began working with a private company to use forensic genealogy to trace the suspect's family tree.
In January 2019, the police got a lead that eventually led them to James Alan Neal, who was living in Colorado at the time. He would have been about 20 years old when the crime occurred and lived in Orange County, California, where Linda lived.
Thus, James was placed under surveillance, and a DNA sample was collected, which matched the semen sample profile. In February 2019, James was finally arrested and awaiting trial.
The authorities' efforts to reopen the case, even after so much time, led to an arrest nearly 46 years after Linda's murder.
The technique used to arrest the suspect proved to be extremely useful, with the Orange County District Attorney saying, "I can tell you that, both through traditional DNA and genealogical DNA, we have all the opportunities in the world to solve so many of these cold cases that we never had hope of solving in the past."
JAMES UNFORTUNATELY NEVER FACED TRIAL
Unfortunately, James was never tried because he died at 73 from an illness not disclosed by the police while in custody in July 2020.
If he had been tried, he would certainly have faced life imprisonment, but there was even talk of a death sentence, as he was also suspected of having abused and killed two more girls.
It is sad and revolting to think that even after committing such a heinous crime and destroying three entire families, James lived a quiet life and died before he could be judged.
But this example shows that old cases can still be solved with the technology we have today.
