Newport Beach police called him a killer. So why has he been set free?

More than a week after Newport Beach police announced they’d found and arrested a suspect in a four-decade-old homicide case, the man has been freed and county prosecutors say they don’t expect to charge him.

On Dec. 6, the Newport Beach Police Department announced in a social media post that it had arrested 70-year-old Michael Larry Manatt, from Huntington Beach, in connection with the killing of Ronald Gaskey in 1983.

Gaskey’s girlfriend found him dead in the upstairs hallway of his Newport Shores home, the Orange County Register reported at the time, after he didn’t show up for work with his family’s construction company. Authorities said he was beaten with a blunt instrument, but there were no details about a suspect, the newspaper reported.

In recent years, Newport Beach detectives reopened the investigation and “read through numerous reports, studied evidence, and completed additional interviews,” the department said in announcing Manatt’s arrest.

Detectives took their evidence to a judge, who signed off on an arrest warrant, and police took Manatt into custody “without incident,” the department said.

But more than a week later, Manatt is out on bail and the Orange County District Attorney’s office has not received a case file from police.

“Nothing has been submitted to us and we do not expect anything to be submitted,” said Orange County district attorney spokesperson Kimberly Edds.

It’s unclear whether Manatt has retained an attorney.

A spokesperson for Newport Beach police said there were no updates on the case and referred to the Dec. 10 news release announcing the arrest. It remains unclear whether Manatt is still a suspect in Gaskey’s killing. .