Linda Ann O'Keefe cold case: Murder, sexual assault suspect dies in custody
07/23/2020 7:23 am PDT
via KTLA:
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (KTLA) -- A man who was arrested and charged in a string of child sex crimes last year after DNA evidence tied him to the 1973 homicide of a Newport Beach girl died while in custody Wednesday, officials said.
James Alan Neal, 73, was transferred to a local hospital May 25 for treatment of an illness and died there at about 5:15 a.m. Wednesday, according to Orange County sheriff's officials. Authorities did not provide details on Neal's illness. He was being held at the Theo Lacy maximum-security jail in Orange.
In February 2019, Neal was identified as a suspect in the sex assault and killing of 11-year-old Linda Ann O'Keefe, a case that had stymied investigators for more than four decades.
TRUE CRIME DAILY: Linda Ann O'Keefe case coverage - TCD
O'Keefe was abducted while walking home from school in the summer of 1973. Her strangled body was later found dumped in a ditch in Newport Beach's Back Bay.
DNA evidence collected at the crime scene eventually linked Neal to the homicide with the help of data from a genealogical website. Neal was arrested Feb. 19 in Monument, Colorado.
Investigators believe he lived in Southern California in the 1970s, when he was known as James Albert Layton Jr. He later moved to Florida and changed his name, officials said. In addition to facing the charge of murder while committing lewd acts on a child in O'Keefe's death, Neal was accused of lewd acts against two Riverside County girls under age 14 in the late '90s and early 2000s.
Neal denied all the charges against him. He could have faced up to 82 years to life in state prison if convicted on all counts.
The DA's office and Sheriff's Department will conduct a review of Neal's death, as is protocol.
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