2 men arrested in California girls' 1973 killings

Date:

9/13/2016

Time:

16:44:00

Source:

Foxnews

Content:

MARYSVILLE, Calif. –  Two men were arrested Tuesday in connection to the 1973 killings of two girls in California in an investigation that went cold for decades until DNA testing linked the men to the case, including an Oklahoma man being held as an unregistered sex offender, authorities said. Larry Don Patterson of Oakhurst, Oklahoma, and William Lloyd Harbour of Olivehurst, California, were taken into custody after newly tested evidence pointed to both of the 65-year-old men, according to a statement from Yuba County sheriffs officials in California. Both men were 22 and living in Olivehurst, where the girls also lived, when the girls were killed. The victims — 12-year-old Valerie Janice Lane and 13-year-old Doris Karen Derryberry — were reported missing by their mothers on Nov. 12, 1973, after they failed to return from a shopping mall in nearby Linda that the girls had visited the previous day. A few hours later, the Yuba County Sheriffs Department was notified that the bodies of two girls had been found alongside a dirt road and identified them as the missing girls. Authorities said the girls had been driven to a wooded area near Marysville, north of Sacramento, and shot at close range with a shotgun. The homicide case remained at active investigation until 1976, when the case went cold following more than 60 interviews but no successful leads, authorities said. Then in March of 2014, Yuba County investigators reviewed the case for evidence that could be retested with newer technology. Evidence collected during the original investigation were reviewed and submitted to the California Department of Justice Forensic Labs for analysis. That December, testing revealed that DNA evidence was matched and identified the two men as suspects — and the case was reopened. The U.S. Marshals Service said Patterson was arrested in Oklahomas Creek County, southwest of Tulsa. Patterson was being held in the local jail on multiple charges involving the deaths, but also was being held as an unregistered sex offender, according to Tommy Roberts, the supervisory deputy U.S. marshal in Tulsa. No other details about the men were immediately available.

Orignial Link :

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/09/13/2-men-arrested-in-california-girls-1973-killings.html?intcmp=latestnews

crawlTime:

9/13/2016 4:32:57 PM