CA CA - Barbara Nantais, 15, Torrey Pines State Beach, 13 August 1978

TedMac

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I found this murder victim's name mentioned several times in other victims threads, but could not find one for her. Mods: If there is one open, please eliminate this one.

After 37 years with few answers, San Diego Police Department (SDPD) detectives may finally have a break – and a person of interest – in the brutal cold case of a 15-year-old San Diego girl killed and mutilated on a beach.
On Tuesday, SDPD Lt. Manuel Del Toro and other investigators met with loved ones of murder victim Barbara Nantais to give an update on her decades-old cold case.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/l...322205442.html?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_LABrand
 
Here is an article from 2013 about running DNA tests for this case and a similar one. A breast was mutilated on each girl. :(

The baffling murders of two teenaged California girls years apart on the same popular beach have been reopened with DNA tests ordered by police, according to KFMB.
On an August night in 1978, Barbara Nantais, 15, was strangled to death and disfigured by attackers at Torrey Pines State Beach in San Diego.
Six years later, 14-year-old Claire Hough was found strangled and mutilated at the state park famous for its high cliffs, Fox News reported.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...tml?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

According to this article from June 2015, there is a link between the two cases.

http://www.cbs8.com/story/9518002/evidence-links-two-cold-case-murders-at-torrey-pines

Here is Claire Hough's thread. The plot thickens.
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...-Criminologist-Suspect&highlight=Claire+hough
 
This article from 2011 about Barbara's boyfriend is tragic. I hope her killer and his attacker will eventually be arrested, but I'm not sure it will bring him peace. Poor man.

Alt had no memories of the attack. He toyed with suicide. For years, people told him it was a miracle that he survived ---- that he must have lived for a reason. Alt always told them to shove it. The laid-back surfer dude became paranoid and angry. He gave a name to the violent thoughts, anxiety and depression that flooded his mind: the dark-and-twisties. When Alt finally sought help in 2006, a psychiatrist gave it a different name: severe post-traumatic stress disorder. The trauma had gone untreated for so long, it became a part of him.
He got into fights and was arrested for assault. When he was younger, if someone said something that made him mad, he'd shut them up. Plain and simple. Today, he rambles, shifting from zenlike calm to tears to rage. He can't seem to keep his thoughts in order.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...sive-a-deadly-night-that-has-lasted-33-years/
 
"Somebody they've interviewed before I definitely can say that, but I can't say who it is it's someone who has been a suspect in the past and someone with a criminal record that's the good news. I'm just not at liberty to disclose what it is," victim's sister, Lorraine Thall said.

Police originally thought Nantais's death was related to another murder on the same beach in 1984.

Detectives have now ruled out any link between the two cases."

http://www.cbs8.com/story/29831999/new-possible-leads-in-1978-cold-murder-case
 
I'm quoting my previous post after doing a little more reading. The linked story I bolded below saying that there is a link between Claire's case and Barbara's is actually from 2008. I wonder why the MSM chose to run it again in June 2015, after Claire's case was supposedly solved in 2014 and Barbara's murder can't be linked two the two dead suspects (one was in prison and the other was living in NM). One of the suspects was a criminalist for SPDP, whose DNA was linked to Claire's murder. There may be a possibility his DNA cross-contaminated the evidence, although SPDP denies that. He committed suicide last fall and his wife is suing SPDP for falsely accusing him, leading to his suicide. See Claire's thread for an exhausting (I mean exhaustive :)) discussion of that.

So I wonder if the 2008 story linking the two cases ran again in June 2015 to give subtle support to her claim.

Here is the story from October 2014, saying they are not linked.
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...-tatro-hough-nantais-dna-murder-beach-police/

This is all very strange IMO.

<snipped for clarity>

According to this article from June 2015, there is a link between the two cases
.

http://www.cbs8.com/story/9518002/evidence-links-two-cold-case-murders-at-torrey-pines

Here is Claire Hough's thread. The plot thickens.
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...-Criminologist-Suspect&highlight=Claire+hough
 
Some more girls that were murdered in the same area around the same time. http://zodiackiller.fr.yuku.com/reply/146089/The-San-Diego-Honeymoon-Murders#reply-146089


There seems to be implication that "Victor" may be the Zodiac Killer in your posts on the other site and other WS threads. Respectfully, this guy is still alive and runs businesses in San Diego and New Mexico. I've never seen him viewed as a serious contender for ZK or any other murders, even though his past is interesting. Connecting Brown to him seems irrelevant IMO. Personally, I think we are going where we ought not per TOS. JMO


Are you saying she is connected to Barbara's murder? Or Kevin Brown?
 
The case was just featured on 48 Hours:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-torrey-pines-beach-murders-blood-in-the-sand/

Jim Alt only had eyes for 15-year-old Barbara Nantais. They were the all-American couple. Jim, the surfer, had been dating Barbara, the cheerleader, for nine months...

On the weekend of Aug. 12, 1978, Ralph and Judy Nantais left town to visit friends... Almost as soon as Barbara's parents left, she and Alt hopped into a station wagon with Rick Selga and his girlfriend. They all drove off to the beach...

Around 9:30 p.m., the friends called it a night. Selga and his girlfriend decided to sleep in the station wagon and Alt and Barbara went down to the beach for some privacy. "We zip the sleeping bags together, and crawled in them and went to sleep. She was in my arms. That's the last thing I remember," said Alt.

The next morning, Alt woke up cold and alone and wet -- he was covered in blood.
 
Just watched the 48 Hours program and remembered there were thread(s) here for these cases. Interestingly enough I was in San Diego at the time of both of these murders, had just started UCSD in the Fall of 1978, spent time at Torrey Pines, and never heard of either of these cases. They weren't widely publicized in the news...
 
The start of this thread begins with video of Barbara's sister saying that police have a new lead (named Christopher Ream). This was told to the family by Detective Del Toro. It seems clear that he was deliberately misleading the families and surviving victim to placate them. It was an old suspect that SDPD investigated long ago with no substantiation. The following year, Del Toro was again present at the meeting with the families and surviving victim. He was essentially told that due to firsthand knowledge that he sometimes does not tell the truth, his comments during the meeting were not worth hearing. The SDPD team then instructed him to leave the meeting. Annual meetings are made in an attempt to promote ongoing investigation and are VERY heated due to the investigation being very poorly run, from the start. One SDPD admitted to the investigation looking like it was run by "the Keystone Cops."

Today I am writing a fresh set of notes regarding what is known conclusively and what has been reported (not always the same thing) and that is how I stumbled onto this group.

Both the Hough and Nantais murders have many conclusive and reported similarities that seem to be either a serial murderer or a copy cat. Outside of these possibilities it is difficult to see how the similarities could accurately be labelled as coincidences. The SDPD has said there is no link between the two BUT I think it is questionable whether this means they can't link the two or that they have CONCLUSIVELY eliminated the possibility of a link. Those are two ENTIRELY different positions. (I have noticed that in this case, if the SDPD says something, you should think very carefully about rather there could be more than one interpretation of that statement. Misleading statements seem at times to be deliberate.) Additionally, if SDPD keeps saying there is a link, it casts a shadow on whether they have actually solved Hough's murder.
Saying there is no link, helps them look better. (Please don't think I am always anti-PD, I am truly the opposite. It is, in my eyes, only the SDPD, in this case, who look quite poorly behaved, from first responders to those still somewhat investigating to Chief Zimmerman.) Here are the case similarities:
  • Age: Hough 14, Nantais 15
  • Appearance: similar; both shapely, attractive, caucasion, long brown hair
  • Location: Torrey Pines Beach, killed a few hundred yards apart, murdered and left in the same location
  • Time frame: Same time of year (Hough Aug. 23/24, 1984; Nantais Aug. 12, 1978) August, after dark
  • Both: beaten, strangled, sand in mouth, sexually assaulted, mutilated (both mutilations include breast)
I should add that because there is a surviving victim in this case, Jim Alt, seeing this case solved would mean a great deal in his life. He is the one who keeps asking the SDPD to either keep investigating or turn the case over to another unit. Their yearly report adds up to very little in the way of action. Every "websleuth" is greatly appreciated.
 
The start of this thread begins with video of Barbara's sister saying that police have a new lead (named Christopher Ream). This was told to the family by Detective Del Toro. It seems clear that he was deliberately misleading the families and surviving victim to placate them. It was an old suspect that SDPD investigated long ago with no substantiation. The following year, Del Toro was again present at the meeting with the families and surviving victim. He was essentially told that due to firsthand knowledge that he sometimes does not tell the truth, his comments during the meeting were not worth hearing. The SDPD team then instructed him to leave the meeting. Annual meetings are made in an attempt to promote ongoing investigation and are VERY heated due to the investigation being very poorly run, from the start. One SDPD admitted to the investigation looking like it was run by "the Keystone Cops."

Today I am writing a fresh set of notes regarding what is known conclusively and what has been reported (not always the same thing) and that is how I stumbled onto this group.

Both the Hough and Nantais murders have many conclusive and reported similarities that seem to be either a serial murderer or a copy cat. Outside of these possibilities it is difficult to see how the similarities could accurately be labelled as coincidences. The SDPD has said there is no link between the two BUT I think it is questionable whether this means they can't link the two or that they have CONCLUSIVELY eliminated the possibility of a link. Those are two ENTIRELY different positions. (I have noticed that in this case, if the SDPD says something, you should think very carefully about rather there could be more than one interpretation of that statement. Misleading statements seem at times to be deliberate.) Additionally, if SDPD keeps saying there is a link, it casts a shadow on whether they have actually solved Hough's murder.
Saying there is no link, helps them look better. (Please don't think I am always anti-PD, I am truly the opposite. It is, in my eyes, only the SDPD, in this case, who look quite poorly behaved, from first responders to those still somewhat investigating to Chief Zimmerman.) Here are the case similarities:
  • Age: Hough 14, Nantais 15
  • Appearance: similar; both shapely, attractive, caucasion, long brown hair
  • Location: Torrey Pines Beach, killed a few hundred yards apart, murdered and left in the same location
  • Time frame: Same time of year (Hough Aug. 23/24, 1984; Nantais Aug. 12, 1978) August, after dark
  • Both: beaten, strangled, sand in mouth, sexually assaulted, mutilated (both mutilations include breast)
I should add that because there is a surviving victim in this case, Jim Alt, seeing this case solved would mean a great deal in his life. He is the one who keeps asking the SDPD to either keep investigating or turn the case over to another unit. Their yearly report adds up to very little in the way of action. Every "websleuth" is greatly appreciated.
Welcome to Ws CauseUnRelated, thanks for the awesome and helpful first post!
 

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