Authorities have arrested a man in Oklahoma and another in California in connection to the 1973 killings of two girls in California.
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The families of two California girls found dead in 1973 have waited almost 43 years for answers and justice. Patterson was later briefly examined following his rape arrest but no charges were filed, Durfor says.
California’s Yuba County Sheriff’s Department says federal authorities aided in the Tuesday arrests of 65-year-old Larry Don Patterson of Oakhurst, Oklahoma, and 65-year-old William Lloyd Harbour of Olivehurst, California.
Creek County District Attorney Max Cook says Patterson was denied bond but indicated he would waive extradition to California.
Valarie Janice Lane, 12, and Doris Karen Derryberry, 13, were murdered in 1973..
Now Yuba County authorities will seek Patterson’s extradition to California, though an immediate timeline for that is unclear.
Mary Jane Griego was in high school when the bodies of 12-year-old Valerie Lane and 13-year-old Doris Derryberry were found near Camp Far West Lake, close to Wheatland, California.
Their bodies were found by a dirt road, according to authorities, having been fatally shot by shotguns at close range.
Patterson and Harbour are scheduled to appear in Yuba Superior Court on October 19.
The most the men could face is a life sentence, and the law then provided that they could be considered for parole after serving seven years, McGrath said.
The case went cold decades ago, Yuba County authorities said, until a state forensics lab matched DNA from the two suspects to semen found on Derryberry. Public Defender Brian Davis was appointed Wednesday to represent Harbour and declined comment.
William Lloyd Harbour, 65, of Olivehurst was arrested about 10:35 a.m. during a traffic stop in Linda. He said Lane’s mother is still alive, and other members of both families still live in the area.
Vacek said the girls’ families had little reaction when they were told Tuesday that the death penalty wasn’t an option.
Despite significant investigative efforts, including more than 60 interviews, they produced no successful leads and the case remained unsolved.
“I think they were just kind of overwhelmed with the information they were being provided, so that was just a piece of it”, said Deputy District Attorney John Vacek.
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It took longer to reopen an investigation so old that several of the investigators and the pathologist who conducted the autopsy have since died, McGrath said. Patterson was arrested in 1976 for raping two women and again in 2006 for failing to register as a sex offender, Durfor said.
