This may not mean much to anyone else, but...

[Sapphocrat]

...I need to share it. The victim was my classmate, and while we weren't close, my then-gf and my best friend were very close to her... so I was the one left to prop up the two then-most important people in my life throughout a devastating tragedy, as best I could (not an easy or familiar thing when you're just 17), and went through the Rosary, the funeral, the reception at the house, and then years of frustration over dashed hopes, and dead-end leads... and even got to know the bereaved mother in the process.

This case has haunted me, in a way I can't begin to describe, for 28 years. What made it even worse was that Laura's parents died without ever seeing it resolved -- and, even more tragically, her mother (who was a kind, sweet woman) died in a fire ten years ago.

Many of us had a very good idea who did it (just through the rumor mill) -- and we were right.

It looks like the suspect is going to be extradited back to California, and if so, I have every intention of observing the trial. (This is one time that, if I get a jury summons, they'll reject me on the spot.)

God bless those cold-case detectives...

Arrest made in murder of (Los Altos, CA) resident 28 years ago

<snip>

A police SWAT team - joined by investigators from Santa Clara County - arrested Loveland resident Scott Schultz Aug. 23 for the murder of Laura Beyerly of Los Altos.

Not many people in Los Altos may remember Beyerly. The Los Altos High School student was active and social, but her disappearance in March 1978 didn't make much of a ripple - at least not as it would today.

Local newspapers, including the Town Crier, gave her story limited coverage. Police, suspecting she had run away, didn't investigate her case until Beyerly had been missing for months. She had been known to hitchhike and had run away from home in the past, but her mother vehemently insisted this time, it was different. When her body was found more than a year later in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the investigation of her murder didn't lead to an arrest. ...

<snip>

No particular attention was paid to her former boyfriend, Schultz, who was 17 when Beyerly disappeared. But when the case was reopened, Schembri saw increasing evidence bringing Schultz, now 45, to his attention.

Beyerly had just broken up with Schultz when she disappeared. Her mother reported a fraught, middle-of-the-night phone call between the pair. Witnesses reported seeing Beyerly talking to him before she disappeared from the high school parking lot. And her body was found off an isolated logging road near property owned by Schultz's uncle. ...

<snip>

More:
http://www.latc.com/news/news2.html

[frogmarch]

1. Sapphocrat... I hope

that once the trial is over and the killer is brought to justice, Laura's friends, including you, can find peace. It's a shame that her parents didn't live to see the perpetrator caught. If Laura had other relatives, I hope they too find some solace knowing the crime has been solved.

What a horrendous tragedy Laura's murder was, and how difficult trying to come to grips with it must have been, especially for someone as young as you were at the time. All the years of anguish waiting for some kind of resolution to it all, only to be let down time and time again, must have been very hard on you and everyone else involved.

Thank you for sharing the good news with us that Schultz has been caught. I agree that the cold case detectives are to be commended!

The article said that some of the case materials had been misplaced, and that some had even been lost. (Geez!) It sounds as if had it not been for the skill and dedication of the cold case squad, the arrest might never, ever, have happened. I'm so glad for the sake of everyone who knew Laura and loved her, that the mystery of her death has at last been solved.

[livetohike]

2. I hope the trial is quick and you and Laura's remaining family

and friends will have justice and peace.

It's horrible to know this guy has lived his life over these past thirty years while Laura's loved ones grieved her disappearance and death.

Did you know him in High School?

[BlueIris]

3. Woah. Another cold one put away. So to speak.

And yeah, you gotta love the cold case guys. They work so hard.

By the by, of course your story and your TC info matter to us, especially because they are of a personal nature to you. Thanks for sharing your experience with us, especially because it represents yet another place where justice is filtering into our still largely unjust world.

[XanaDUer]

4. Sapphocrat

:hug:

Thank you for sharing this here with us.

[myrna minx]

5. Sapphocrat, I am so glad that you and your friends will be

able to find peace after all of these years. :hug:

[flamingyouth]

6. Wow, Sapphocrat, that's amazing

I'm so glad that they've arrested him.

I too had a friend who was murdered in 1978 (at age 15) and her murder is still unsolved. I hope that someday the killer will be brought to justice as well. I know that haunting feeling, I feel it too.

[Sapphocrat]

7. Ten months later...

First, thank you all, so very much, for your words of support. You don't-- no, actually, you do, I think -- know how much your support means to me.

Today, I learned the nightmare is partially over. Only "partially" because he's not going to get more than two years. :mad: :nuke: :banghead: :cry:

But at least he caved. At least he 'fessed up. Sort of.

Small consolation, but...

Man held in '78 slaying of girlfriend pleads guilty to manslaughter

The man whom Santa Clara County investigators tagged for the 1978 slaying of his Los Altos High School girlfriend might spend as little as two years in prison, prosecutors confirmed Thursday.

Under a plea bargain with a two-year sentencing cap, Scott Schultz, 46, agreed to a voluntary manslaughter conviction Wednesday before Superior Court Judge John Hastings. He made no admission of any behavior involving Laura Anne Beyerly.

. . .

Beyerly's friends believed for years that Schultz was responsible for Beyerly's death and pressed on Santa Clara County officials to re-open the case, which they did. After more than a year of investigation, prosecutors issued a warrant for Schultz' arrest. He was living in Loveland, Colo., in August 2006 when police knocked at his door.

Some of Beyerly's jewelry was found in the house.

Beyerly was an only child whose father died four months after her body was found. Her mother, once an active and warm figure in the couple's neighborhood, withdrew and rarely left the house. She died in a fire there in 1995.

A bit more:
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_6141425?nclick_check=1

And Laura's picture:
http://www.mercurynews.com/portlet/article/html/render_gallery.jsp?articleId=6141425&siteId=568&startImage=1

What else can I tell you? Laura was a gifted synchronized swimmer. She was hassled for dating a boy who wasn't white. She was labeled things she wasn't. She was beaten up in the girls' restroom because she was an easy target, and she wasn't the type to tell, much less fight back. She didn't know how to fight back. She didn't deserve it. She was mild, and unassuming, and never hurt a soul. Her parents adored her. Her mother, especially, was an absolute saint. None of them deserved any of it.

She was just 16 fucking years old.

It isn't fair. People die, people are murdered, yes. But this... this plea bargain is not justice. I don't want him to die -- no matter what, I will never advocate state-sanctioned murder. But it's not fair. He robbed her of an entire lifetime -- maybe 50 years' worth or more -- and he robbed her parents of all the time they should have had left with her. He killed her parents, as sure as he killed her.

What I feel is so insignificant compared to that. But I also know he robbed hundreds (thousands?) of her friends and classmates of countless hours of sleep. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know my nights will still be haunted.

I take very little -- but still some -- consolation in the fact that now, we at least know what we always knew.

Guilty plea of voluntary manslaughter with "no admission of any behavior". What the hell is that supposed to mean?

In the end, it means nothing.

[foreigncorrespondent]

8. I'm so sorry for this!

That is one of the biggest problems with being able to plea bargain. You really do get the lucky end of the straw for crimes committing while the family and friends of the person/s you murder suffer for the rest of their lives!

:hug:

[Sapphocrat]

9. Ta, cobba.

:hug:

[flamingyouth]

10. Two years?!?!

I'm so sorry. That's so awful. It just seems wrong. :(