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[Music] hi I'm Linda O'Keefe or Linda and O'Keefe if I'm in trouble with my mom 45 years ago today I disappeared
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from Newport Beach I was murdered and my body was found in the Back Bay today I'm going to tell you my story
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July 6th 1973 2 days after the 4th of July Linda was attending summer school young girl 11-year-old growing up in
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konad Del marah usually I ride my bike to school the ride home is easy because it's almost all downhill but today I got
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a ride so no bike it was a Friday everyone was excited it was a weekend that you were
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going to hang out with your friends at the end of her school day she called her mother from the office and asked her
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mother to come and pick her up and my mom said I'm really busy you can just walk home and Linda says oh but I'm
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tired can you please come get me and she said Linda just walk home you'll be fine I'm still upset about not getting a
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ride home I sit on the curb in front of the school with my feet sticking out in the street I'll leave
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soon of course she didn't come home and that was around 1:00 her mother believed that Linda had
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possibly gone to a friend's house um and for a few hours wasn't too concerned it was starting to get dark so
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my dad and I got in the cars and we drove around and then they decided to call the police because she should have
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been home by now no one had seen Linda our officers community members searched for Linda throughout the night and until
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the next day a lady in the Bluffs above back Bay he's a female voice outside screaming
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stop you're hurting me she doesn't know that I'm missing that I'll be dead by morning that I'll be found a couple
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hundred yards from her home it was pretty remote you know you feel like you're in the middle of
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nowhere so in some ways was this a perfect place to dump a body yeah couldn't couldn't be
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better it was almost unreal that that 11-year-old a girl my age could be could be killed Lena was last seen talking to
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a stranger in a van near the intersection of margarite drive and Inlet Drive in coron
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Omar they observed what they described as like a turquoise blue van we got on our bikes and rode around looking for
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the van and if we could find the van we were going to find the murderer after years of working the case the detectives
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eventually ran out of leads and the case went cold in our detective Bureau we have a wall got photos of our c Cas
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victims you know Linda obviously drew our attention we needed to put Linda's face out there I went to the public
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information officer for the police department right away she said what about Twitter it was so important for me
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to give a little girl whose life was cut short at 11 years old the opportunity to
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speak again now 45 years later I have a voice again and I have something important to say we knew we were going
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to find thisy Linda is going to help us find this man who did this to her [Music]
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[Music] Orchid Avenue that's the street I grew up on it's a small house and we lived
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here most of my life at 8:00 a.m. I I walk out my front door and have no idea that it will be the last
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time on July 6th 2018 exactly 45 years after Linda O'Keefe disappeared the Newport Beach Police Department launched
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their unusual campaign for New Leads on the Cold Case on Twitter when a victim speaks we want to listen the last day of
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Linda's life and its tragic end unfolded in a series of tweets It Was Written from the 11-year-old murder victim's
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point of view and gave her a voice that resonated around the world when we ran the numbers we had 7 million impressions
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that's 7 million people who saw liked and retweeted # Linda story according to former Newport Beach PD spokesperson
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Jennifer manzella we were all over South America in Europe Australia France there
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wasn't a corner of the world that wasn't talking about it I was like wow this is
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going to be huge for Linda's classmates Jeff therer Brian Weaver Lisa Christopher David weedem and Terry
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Brisco Corwin yeah we never forgot her hash Linda story brought buried emotions back up to the
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surface I go to Lincoln Intermediate School a lot has changed between the last time I was here and what it looks
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like in 2018 what was it like reading that Twitter story and and essentially hearing Linda's voice I thought that was
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the most incredible gut-wrenching thing I have ever read chilling just chilling as we
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were reading it you kind of didn't want that girl to get in the van you know thinking Linda should have been able to
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get home it's a sad irony for the friends who know all too well how the story ended in 1973 they were all
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Carefree 11-year-olds growing up in the Sleepy Beach town of Corona delmare what
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was Corona delmare like back then Shang it was shanga like perfect uh Utopia I mean you would hop on your bike and you
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would let the freedom and just the just the day unfold and it was magic in those magical memories of their
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youth Linda remains Frozen in time she was really shy quiet to herself but sweet very very kind I would just pass
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her through the hallway she was a cute girl you know and and uh it was like you know just beaming red as soon as I you
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know she'd smile or whatever else she was just a very gentle lovely Soul Linda's older sister Cindy borgas spoke
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with us via Zoom she loved Billy Holiday I mean she loved old blues music and I had a um Blood Sweat and Tears album in
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high school and God Bless the Child was one of her favorite songs and sometimes we find her and she'
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just be in bed reading you know she loves stories we both really love Nancy Drew Linda was the middle child and
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shared a special bond with her dad Richard a machinist he would go out and work on projects and she would go out
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and help him they had a real Bond they love to hang out together their mom Barbara was an artist and working
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seamstress your mom sewed all of your clothes you and your sisters most of them she was a really gifted seamstress
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some of Cindy's happiest memories are of family trips to The Great Outdoors where
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Linda a Girl Scout and nature lover fit right in and our family would vacation in the Redwoods and we'd be camped by a
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creek and she would just Crouch down and these little noes and little snakes would just come right to her do you
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think Linda saw the beauty in the world absolutely and she always seemed to see the good in
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people that made her murder all the more horrific and shattered the idilic life they knew how do you make sense of it as
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an 11-year-old you can't even grasp death you just knew she wasn't going to be there anymore what Lisa couldn't have
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known then was that this unfathomable tragedy would unfold moments after she saw Linda at summer school Linda was on
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the phone with her mom in the school office begging for a ride home she was upset crying um just very very sad and
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then she left the office and uh I walked out behind her I went the opposite direction Cindy had overheard her mom's
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end of the call telling Linda she was too busy with work to pick her up from school Cindy and her mom would play the
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ifon over and over in their minds I felt terrible for not insisting that I go get her none of this would
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have happened at around 1:15 p.m. on that July 6th 1973 less than an hour after Linda had called home asking for a
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ride a mother and daughter spotted her near this intersection about a mile from her house she was talking to a man who'
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pulled up next to her in a van it was the last time anyone Saw Linda alive late tonight the police will talk
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to a young woman named Janine she and her mom are driving at margarite right now and they see something they won't
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forget for a long time it's me and a turquoise van if you close your eyes you can
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remember it like it was yesterday oh yeah I don't even need to close my eyes Janine who goes by the nickname Jandy
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was 19 at the time she and her family lived a few houses down from the o'keefes I Saw Linda
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standing if you were he about this close and the van is right there in the street
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the door is open did you think danger no I just thought it was odd because I never see those
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girls without their parents or with one one of their siblings they always stayed together
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Jandy wouldn't realize the significance of what she'd seen until that night when
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she came home from work because there was police all over they were in the alleys they were in the streets I said
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to my sister I said what's going on and she said Linda O'Keefe is missing and I said immediately went to tell detectives
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on the scene what she'd [Music] witnessed the Sun is setting and there's still no sign of
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Me by the morning of July 7th the search for Linda had intensified around 10:00 a.m. about 3 miles from the O'Keefe home
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Ron yo a local architect was biking along a nature trail known as The Back Bay with his young
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son was this place fairly hidden yes but it was mostly people that enjoyed looking at Birds and the water and the
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peacefulness and that I looked over to the side and said to my son this is a good place to find frog augs and that's
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instead they made a gruesome Discovery there was his body just nestled right into this little area here I would
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imagine that image is pretty clear in your mind still today it is you know after all the time you know it uh it's
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one of the few things I can still remember they see a young girl's body still in my
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mom's homemade dress I've been strangled this is now a homicide [Music] [Music] investigation the search for Linda ano
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ke is now the search for Linda an O'Keefe's killer was it someone I knew a stranger
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the man in the van there are so many [Music] questions so I get home from work around
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1 and there's just lots of police cars around the house I walk up to the porch and I see
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my dad just weeping uncontrollably Linda's father had been the one to identify her body it's not
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making sense to me looking and seeing my mom sitting in the living room weeping the last thing I imagined was
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that Linda had been killed it was like being punched like the air was knocked out of
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me just two days later more shocking news a member of their own Community was arrested Newport Beach PD detective
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Sergeant Court Dew there was a suspect that came forward and tried to admit to kidnapping and killing Linda the
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supposed killer a young man named Peter Wooten who just graduated high school with Cindy I was looking through my
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senior yearbook and I remember thinking well he's odd enough that it's possible brought him in for an interview asked
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him questions only the killer would know Wooten was held for two days but nothing
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connected him to Linda's murder or a van like the one Jandy had seen next to Linda the day she disappeared I could
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tell you right from the get-go that wasn't him as it turns out police say wooten's confession had just been a ploy
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for notoriety how agonizing for your family for a moment people thought that he was responsible for your sister's
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death right people were angry my father was Furious Wooten was released the same day Linda's body was
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being laid to rest the room was packed out there were a lot of my friends from high school there was Linda's Girl Scout
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Troth it finally hit me that it wasn't just a bad dream that it was really happening Newport Beach investigators
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went back to square one trying to ident identify a suspect so about here is the spot where under hypnosis Jandy and her
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mom provided details about the turquoise van and the man they'd seen talking to Linda they said he was a white male he
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had curly hair tan skin Newport Beach PD generated this composite sketch based on
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that description I tried to give them a license plate but after the third time I
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just said it's not working I wish I could have helped more our 11-year-old selves we all got on our
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bikes and we all wanted to help we were looking for the van did you think maybe it was somebody that you knew yes oh yes
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everybody's older brother was under scrutiny because the idea that he was out there right to an 11-year-old kid
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must have been terrifying it was scary with no license plate number and just a sketch investigators were grasping at
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theories they were looking for a needle and a hay stack at that point the crime scene provided few
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Clues several tire tracks were photographed and examined but with no vehicle for comparison it led nowhere
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detectives were hoping the autopsy would provide some leads but it only told a horrific tale at the time so we knew she
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had died a pretty violent [Music] death the Orange County coroner's office found that Linda had been sexually
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assaulted Ed and there were ligature marks around her neck there was a clear indication she had been strangled and
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scratches from Linda fighting for her life you could only imagine how horrific it was for her how scared she was the
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coroner's office placed Linda's time of death between midnight and 2 in the morning that's about 12 hours since she
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was last seen talking with that man in the van and detectives would learn that at around 11:30 p.m. while the massive
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search for Lind was still underway a woman who lived in the Bluffs up above where Linda's body was found heard a
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female voice screaming stop you're hurting me but she never called police that was devastating to the case it's a
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missed opportunity that Sergeant Dew and Detective Mike Fletcher say might have altered the entire case if that call had
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been made to the police department it would have solicited a police response a massive police respon to that area with
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the resources that were here that would have put a net around that area and potentially have caught the suspect and
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maybe have saved Linda yes was this a solvable case I don't know I think the detectives back then did everything that
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they could for what they had back in 1973 there was a lot of unanswered questions questions that might never
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have been answered if not for a forward-thinking criminalist without Jim White I don't know that would we'd be
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sitting here today how remarkable is it that this little piece of evidence survived one little little screw cap
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vial with two little swabs in it it lasted all that time the DNA sat for years sat in a
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freezer for decades decades waiting patiently for science to unmask the killer my name is Linda
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o'keef what is his name [Music] see Linda's story and more of the evidence on Facebook at 48
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[Music] Hours Cindy borgas says her family never recovered from Linda's loss the grief was overwhelming
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the family Unity came undone there were no more family camping vacations no more visits to the
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museums there were no more Beach trips my mother pretty much isolated in the home my dad went to work came
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straight home [Music] Linda's parents would die never knowing who took their daughter her mother
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forever haunted by that last phone call I think it shortened her life the guilt if only the if only if only I'd
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gone and picked her up she'd still be alive as the years rolled by you start to you give up hope you you think oh
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it's just going to be an unsolved mystery they got away with it was almost surreal like did it even
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happen her name wasn't even on the internet but Linda's picture hung on the wall of the Cold Case unit and
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generations of investigators had never forgotten her name did Linda's case stick with you oh absolutely even though
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DNA hadn't yet emerged as a tool at the time of the murder criminalist Jim White
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had collected swabs of the killer seen from Linda's body and preserved them having no idea how they'd help the case
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decades later I knew it was intentially important because there were seen there but that it would become as important as
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it was you know I had no Envision that that testing would become as sophisticated as it became DNA testing
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was first done on Linda's case in the late '90s creating a profile of an unidentified suspect which was uploaded
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into the national criminal database codus but there was no hits in October 2017 Sergeant Dew hired
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a company called parabon nanolabs that could generate a snapshot a composite based on the suspect's genetic
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characteristics we now knew for sure that he was a Caucasian [Applause] male we had some identifying attributes
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that we didn't know before cuz all we had is a composite from 1973 if science could give the as salent
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a face could it give him a name for over 40 years a jaw-dropping arrest in another case would prove it was possible
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we found the needle in the hay stack in April of 2018 authorities in California announced that Joseph James D'Angelo a
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former cop was the notorious Golden State killer responsible for at least 13 murders and 50 rapes between 1975 and
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1986 it was the first arrest in a case solved through gentic genealogy a painstaking process of finding relatives
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of an unidentified DNA profile then whittling it down until they came up with a suspect we knew at that point we
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got a chance we just didn't know how to do it as it turns out the Golden State Killer's arrest would not just give hope
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to the Newport Beach police investigators I posted on Facebook about Golden State when Dave posted that they
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got him by DNA and I'm like okay they got to have something maybe it's Linda's turn it's Linda's
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turn for Linda's classmates it was the Catalyst to once again try to help solve the
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case they formed a Facebook group Justice for Linda an O'Keefe and went to the Newport Beach Police Department to
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have the case reopened walked right up to the counter and said this is going to sound crazy but we want to talk about
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Lindo Keefe you didn't know that the police had her picture up on the wall no and they couldn't know what court dwag
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had in store that social media campaign that would start 2 months later and end with the DNA composite Dew decided to
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make it public at the end of H Linda story on Twitter we were all together on pins and
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needles waiting to see who is this guy 40 some odd years we have been racking our brains who could have done this did
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any of the Twitter leads pan out no but by putting that story line out there it paid off Big
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Time # Linda story didn't yield any substantial leads but it caught the attention of an instrumental Ally CC
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Moore I had heard about this case way back in college Moore had just become the chief genetic genealogist at parabon
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the company that had made that DNA composite so when dewig asked her if she would show them how to apply genetic
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genealogy to find Linda's killer she was only too happy to help we needed her to
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basically hold our hand through this to actually have an opportunity to help solve a case that I had known about for
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30 years you know that's it's an amazing opportunity using the same methods as investigators from the Golden State
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killer they uploaded the Killer's DNA profile into a public database called Jed match where people voluntarily
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submit their DNA looking for family members that really opened up our investigative leads now we were actually
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identifying people that shared DNA with our [Music] suspect Dew's investigators and CC then
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had to work backwards from the suspect's relatives to find him so you started building your tree I started building
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trees the DNA just gives us a guide I'm immediately turning to public records to
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obituaries newspaper articles soci social media to try to piece these families back together so this is our
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common ancestor way back in the 1700s that's wild with this suspect you were going going going going and then you hit
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a wall this was a very difficult case so I need to find someone who descends from
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each of these common ancestors and we weren't finding him but while one family tree withered another firmly took
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root in December 2018 a commercial DNA testing company called family tree DNA opened up its database to law
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enforcement for solving violent crimes it would be a game Cher I remember like it was yesterday my phone
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rings and it's one of the higher levels uh directors at Family treaty and a he says real nonchalant I think I have your
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suspect identified and I said oh you have a close family member match and he says no I think I have your
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guy what do you think of investigators using social media for help in cold cases in January 2019 more than four
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decades after Linda O'Keefe's murder DNA left by her attacker finally led to a suspect I was just shocked they must
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have misunderstood it right it can't actually be a match after all these years how do we get so lucky the DNA
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profile that Sergeant Dew had submitted to Family Tree DNA was a perfect match for this man James Allen
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Neil how did the suspect's DNA end up in family trees database he put it in there
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voluntarily what kind of Criminal Mind does that luckily for us not a bright one as luck would have have it Neil had
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been researching his own genealogy and even had a public family tree online so when Cindy borgas got a call
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from Sergeant Dew she had no idea investigators were closing in on her sister's killer he says I'm probably
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going to Colorado in a month I'll be giving you a call and I thought okay I wonder what's in
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Colorado Neil now 72 was a married father and grand father living in Monument Colorado but before Newport
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Beach police could make an arrest they had to make sure their case would stand in court cold cases are incredibly
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difficult to prosecute Orange County Senior Deputy district attorney Eric Scaro having DNA is an incredibly
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important part of the case but it's really only the beginning we had to put him in Newport Beach at that time we had
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to connect him to you know the area and they needed fresh DNA from Neil to compare to the DNA sample from
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1973 I looked at Mike Fletcher and said you're going to Colorado in January 2019
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detective Fletcher and his team arrived in the dead cold Colorado winter to watch and wait you got three detectives
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from sunny California are now in minus 6 degree weather trying to do surveillance where James was living at
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the time was kind of a Rural Road um and it was really hard to surveil but they soon discovered Neil was a smoker with
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an odd habit Mike called me and said hey this guy keeps snuffing his cigarettes out and putting them in his pocket at
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first I was thinking well maybe this guy's onto the DNA side of things I'm picturing you guys as he's snubbing out
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these cigarettes and sticking them in his pocket going crazy yeah there was there was a moment of that come to find
00:28:54
out there's an extremely high fine for uh throwing a out in Colorado when Neil finally flicked his cigarette in the
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parking lot at a grocery store he had no idea it would cost him far more than a fine it was submitted to the Orange
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County crime lab and it was a direct match meanwhile investigators had also been developing Neil's criminal profile
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James Neil's criminal history runs the Gambit from Petty crimes to incredibly serious offenses there's violence
00:29:26
there's sexual assaults in 1966 Neil was caught with an underage girl in his car
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and arrested for delinquency of a minor in the 1966 case confirmed it that this guy had been doing this for a while
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Linda wasn't his first and we knew now we were dealing with a true Predator just like Linda he picked her
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up in Newport Beach do you think this was his hunting ground I think wherever he was at was a potential for a hunting
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ground Newport Beach PD discovered Ed suspected sexual abuse by Neil on five other children in other
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jurisdictions what was hismo he obviously prayed on girls from the ages of 7 to 13 that was his primary target
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and he would gain their confidence quickly at the time of Linda's murder Neil lived in Orange County less than a
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half hour drive from where she was abducted in Corona delmare and his real name was was James Albert Leighton but
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soon after Linda was killed he turned up in Florida under his new identity his new name popped up during
00:30:38
an arrest in Florida uh 2 months after Linda was murdered I think it leads us to believe that he got out of town to
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escape from answering for what he had done but there was no escaping when Newport Beach police arrived at Neil's
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home in Colorado armed with a warrant for his arrest captured on police video what was his demeanor like relatively
00:31:02
cool Cal and collected Dew and Fletcher escorted him to the El Paso County Sheriff's Department in Colorado Springs
00:31:10
he started talking on the drive over we started with um his history of sexually molesting other girls and he was very
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open about it he had an excuse for it he said that oh I was drunk but he admitted
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to it but when it got to Linda's murder Neil was about about to get a lot less agreeable you remember this girl Jim no
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sir have you ever seen her before no it looks she like almost like one of my kids pictured
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but but you don't remember this little girl you don't remember picking this girl up on the side of the road I've
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never picked up any kids ever over a 3our cat and mouse game Neil refuses to take the bait even when confronted with
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his DNA on Linda's body single Source male guess who yours this is 100% match I can't explain that so you're telling
00:32:08
me just miraculously your seing God on her it must be miraculous because it wasn't
00:32:13
me he understands DNA he knows you have his DNA and yet still he says to your faces he just can't bring himself to to
00:32:20
say the words and even though Neil had admitted to molesting other girls he can't admit to murder I am not going to
00:32:28
admit to something I didn't do I would never kill anybody in One Eerie moment Neil is left
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alone with Linda's photo when he looks at her face and offers a twisted apology I'm sorry baby but it wasn't
00:32:44
me there's something about the phrasing of that that is just so creepy how does that strike you I'm sorry baby but it
00:32:52
wasn't me it's almost familiar he recognizes her but he still wants to distance himself in the crime this is
00:32:59
him acting Jim you've had 45 years to convince yourself that you did not do this it's time to take responsibility
00:33:08
for what you did to this little girl I didn't I don't need to be responsible for something I didn't do Neil refuses
00:33:16
to take any responsibility but detectives already had what they needed I didn't do the evidence in this case
00:33:23
speaks for Linda louder than James Neil never could deny he wasn't involved you did do it Jim no I didn't and you're
00:33:33
being arrested for the murder of Lindo o' Keefe I'm sorry I didn't do it you're being arrested for abducting her
00:33:40
sexually molesting her and then murdering that 11-year-old girl oh God the Newport Beach police had their
00:33:50
man but would James Neil still get away with murder [Music] before the rest of the world heard about
00:34:12
James Neil's arrest Cindy got the call from Sergeant Dew that brought her family Saga full
00:34:20
circle said are you sitting down and he said we arrested him this morning and I remember like the day the Linda's body
00:34:29
was found everything slowed way [Music] down I was so excited I felt I wish my parents were here to hear
00:34:42
this news James Neil now 72 years old was arrested by our detectives yesterday at 6:29 a.m. Pacific time in Colorado
00:34:51
Springs for the murder of Linda ano Keith on February 20th 2019 the Newport Beach police department and the Orange
00:35:00
County district attorney held a joint press conference to share the news he's being charged with murder and two
00:35:08
special circumstances uh kidnapping and an act during the murder of a luden lascivious act upon a Child
00:35:18
under the age of 14 Linda's classmates were overcome with emotion shocked happy elated and angry
00:35:31
he took this girl's life and went on to live his life I was glad that he was still alive so he could be
00:35:38
punished this is the kind of case that you know you're going to do everything you can to hold it defended accountable
00:35:46
but accountability looked very different in 1973 and Eric scarbro would have to work
00:35:52
with the laws in the books at the time the crime occurred in 1973 Mr Neil would have only been facing s
00:36:00
Years to Life when you hear seven years it blows your mind however thanks to the information
00:36:07
Unearthed by Newport Beach PD's investigation the da could up the ante by bringing in Neil's other alleged
00:36:15
sexual assaults on children so you could pull cases from other counties to establish hey this is his pattern of
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behavior that's exactly what we were going to do and they found even more evidence thanks to Newport Beach PD's
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viral Twitter campaign even though it hadn't led directly to a suspect # Linda story allowed them to get search
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warrants for all of Neil's electronic devices to see if he'd followed the case they didn't find any searches about
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Linda but what they found was just as disturbing evidence of child pornography copious amounts of that to go through
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the Orange County DA ultimately combined Linda's case with charges for two other
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young girls Neil had allegedly sexually assaulted between 1995 and 2002 in Riverside County California those cases
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had never been prosecuted and were still within the statute of limitations if Neil was convicted on all three it'd be
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enough to put him away for the rest of his life there was other information we had
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that unfortunately was out of Statute and we weren't able to charge it but we do know that there were other victims
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out there Neil's family declined our requests for interviews and never made any public
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statements about the charges against him during his arraignment in Orange County
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Superior Court Neil pleaded not guilty on all counts now Eric Scarboro would have to make jurors feel a sense of
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urgency on the decades old case how do you bring this case alive to a jury that's the real challenge of the
00:37:55
Cold Case but really what it comes down to is finding ways of using that evidence including the DNA to tell the
00:38:04
girl story evidence like Linda's school bag found a few feet away from her body her
00:38:10
mother had made it for the 4th of July and its contents a perfect time capsule of her harrowing last moments a
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half-eaten orange a little toy school supplies and art supplies her socks and urine stained underwear
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what does that tell you this tells you about what happened to her in her last minutes this is the backpack of
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virtually any 11-year-old you might find today and then you come to the evidence
00:38:40
of her underwear and you realize that something very bad had happened to her she was scared terrified that
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information is essential but a jury would never get to hear it in the summer of 2020 James Neil
00:38:54
died of natural causes in custody there's no doubt in my mind he would have been
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convicted the biggest heartbreak the story ended so bizar just as it began we are hoping to see the end of this guy
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standing before a jury and being convicted so David you're the one who put the Facebook page up justice for
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Linda was this Justice for Linda in some way but truly Justice no but I think it's
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closure closure and relief for Linda's sister who says she forgave Neil before she even knew his name I couldn't carry
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that pain in my heart obviously God is protecting me from a trial that would have been traumatic because for years we
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thought what did they do for 12 hours together what happened with Linda's case officially
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closed her photo no longer hangs among the unsolved at Newport Beach PD but she'll always live among Cindy's
00:40:00
precious memories of a more innocent time there's a portrait it's the only family portrait we ever had
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done when their family was still whole my mother looks like jackieo my dad looks typical dad in the
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60s and the three of us girls are just smiling beaming from ear to ear what do you take from Linda's story to
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be grateful for every day the good and the bad and grateful for the unexpected friends along the way this whole support
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group of people that knew her that are now friends of mine and their support and their encouragement and all of it
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was really fantastic she mattered and I really like to think and hope that our efforts help just a little
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bit thank you to my family friends and schoolmates who never gave up hope thank you to the generations of investigators
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who worked on my case because of you my story didn't end in July [Music] 1973 the final hours of Hollywood
00:41:28
therapist Amy Harwick former fiance Drew KY opens up about love and loss I just started crying I couldn't even stand up
00:41:36
when I heard that she got murdered right away I thought oh it's got to be that guy 48 hours Saturday on CBS