COLD CASE

California Cops to Announce Arrest in 1973 Murder of 11-Year-Old Linda O’Keefe

Girl was last seen walking home from school 46 years ago.

It’s been 46 years since 11-year-old Linda O’Keefe vanished in California—now Newport Beach police think they’ve caught the man who killed her. Newport Beach investigators and the Orange County District Attorney’s Office plan to announce an arrest in the 1973 cold case Wednesday, with a Colorado man expected to be named as the suspect, according to the Orange Country Register. O’Keefe vanished on July 6, 1973, after she left her house to get a ride to summer school and was last seen walking home that day. Her body was discovered in a ditch the next morning. The Register confirmed an arrest had been made connected to O’Keefe’s death by strangulation and the suspect is expected to be extradited Wednesday. Cops revived the cold case after a social-media campaign last year, and it’s believed that a tool that uses DNA collected from the investigation to predict a criminal’s appearance, as well as fresh DNA evidence, led to the arrest.