#LindasStory | Full Episode | Forensic Files

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

The “voice” of 11-year-old Linda O’Keefe goes viral in the search for her killer. "48 Hours" contributor Tracy Smith reports. Watch more full episodes of "48 Hours" on Pluto TV.

True crime. Real justice. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

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Brief Summary

Linda O'Keefe's 1973 murder case is revisited, leading to the arrest of her killer James Allen Neil in 2019 through DNA evidence.

Key points

Linda O'Keefe's Disappearance. On July 6, 1973, 11-year-old Linda O'Keefe went missing after a phone call to her mother.
The Search for Linda. The search for Linda intensified after her disappearance, leading to a tragic discovery.
The Impact of Linda's Murder. Linda's murder left a lasting impact on her family and community, haunting them for decades.
Advancements in DNA Technology. Decades later, advancements in DNA technology reignited hope in solving Linda's case.
Justice for Linda. Linda's classmates formed a Facebook group to help reopen her case and seek justice.
DNA Breakthrough. A DNA match leads to the identification of Linda O'Keefe's murderer, James Neil.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I have a voice again and I have something important to say.

Linda's story is shared 45 years later.

3:25WatchSep 3, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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