Suspect in 1973 Newport Beach child murder dies in custody

The suspect arrested last year in the cold-case killing of a Newport Beach girl died Wednesday in police custody.

James Alan Neal, 73, was an inmate at the maximum-security Theo Lacy jail in Orange for the 1973 sexual assault and strangling death of Linda O’Keefe, 11. He was transferred to a local hospital on May 25 because of an unspecified illness, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said. He died in the hospital early Wednesday morning.

The sheriff’s department said there appear to be no suspicious circumstances, and Neal wasn’t showing symptoms of COVID-19, but the sheriff’s department and Orange County district attorney’s office will investigate Neal’s death as a matter of protocol.

“The pursuit of justice is never-ending, and in this case the hunt for a child rapist and murderer lasted more than 46 years and transcended generations of law enforcement officers,” said Orange County District Atty. Todd Spitzer in a statement. “It was not if but when we would find the killer of 11-year-old Linda O’Keefe, and when that day finally came in 2019 as a result of advances in investigative genetic genealogy, we thought we were one step closer to justice for Linda and her family. The death of James Neal prior to putting him on trial for Linda’s rape and murder robs the O’Keefe family of the justice they so deserve and deprives the law enforcement officers of the satisfaction that they finally got their culprit.”

Neal was identified as a suspect in O’Keefe’s slaying and arrested last year in Colorado. DNA was not yet a forensic tool when O’Keefe died, but police were able to test bodily fluids and blood left at crime scenes at the time for proteins that helped provide clues and narrow a list of suspects. A medical laboratory was able to use the DNA from the O’Keefe crime scene in 2018 to generate a snapshot of a possible suspect.

O’Keefe vanished on her way home from summer school on July 6, 1973. Her body was found the next day in reeds near the Back Bay.

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The Newport Beach Police Department boosted the case in 2018 with a series of Twitter posts written in the girl’s imagined voice during her final hours, and released a computer-generated portrait of a suspect based on the DNA. The big break came early last year, when police turned to a privately run genealogical database where the public can submit DNA for ancestry research.

Neal, also known as James Albert Layton Jr., was living with his family in the Newport Beach area at the time of the slaying. He moved to Florida shortly after the killing and changed his name, authorities said. He later moved to Colorado.

Local prosecutors also charged Neal with committing lewd and lascivious acts on two girls younger than 14 between 1995 and 2004 in Riverside County.

“It was our intention to see James Alan Neal stand trial and answer for the murder of Linda Ann O’Keefe. Linda’s story deeply touched the hearts of our community,” said Newport Beach Police Chief Jon Lewis. “Through the tireless efforts of generations of our investigators, we hope we have been able to bring a measure of closure to Linda’s family, friends and loved ones.”

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