Episode 144: The Torrey Pines Murders

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In 1978, 15-year-old Barbara Nantais was brutally murdered on Torrey Pines State Beach in San Diego, California, while camping with her boyfriend, Jim Alt, who was severely injured but survived. She was beaten, strangled, sexually assaulted, and mutilated. The case went cold due to insufficient evidence. Six years later, in 1984, 14-year-old Claire Hough, visiting from Rhode Island, was found murdered on the same beach with similar injuries—strangled, sexually assaulted, and mutilated. In 2012, DNA evidence linked Claire’s murder to Ronald Tatro, a convicted rapist, and Kevin Brown, a former San Diego Police Department criminalist. Tatro died in 2011, and Brown died by suicide in 2014 before charges were filed, amid claims of possible evidence contamination. Despite similarities, police concluded the murders were not connected. Barbara’s killer remains unidentified, and both cases remain unresolved, leaving lasting grief for the victims’ families.

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