Ex-Riverside County Man Pleads Not Guilty to Murder, Molestation

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA -- A Colorado man who's accused of sexually assaulting two children in Riverside County during the 1990s and 2000s and sexually assaulting and killing an 11-year-old girl in Newport Beach in 1973 pleaded not guilty today to all charges.

James Alan Neal, 72, is due back in a Santa Ana courtroom June 14 for pretrial hearing.

Neal is charged with murder while in the commission of lewd acts on a child younger than 14 and five felony counts of lewd acts on a child younger than 14, with a sentencing enhancement allegation for multiple victims.

Identifying Neal as the alleged killer of Linda Ann O'Keefe led investigators to tie the defendant to the sexual assaults of two girls in Riverside County, according to Orange County prosecutors. The two victims were assaulted in the 1990s and early 2000s, according to Senior Deputy District
Attorney Matt Murphy, but he provided no other details and the criminal complaint was sealed.

Neal faces up to 82 years to life in prison if convicted as charged.

Neal was booked into the Orange County Jail Monday, March 11. He was arrested in Colorado Springs about 6:30 a.m. Feb. 19 in connection with the strangulation death of Linda Ann. The Corona del Mar girl disappeared while walking home from summer school on July 6, 1973, and her body was recovered the following morning in a ditch.

Neal moved to Southern California with his family from Chicago, Spitzer said, and was a construction worker at the time of the crime. He moved to Florida soon after the killing, but after an unspecified criminal incident there, he changed his name from James Albert Layton Jr. to Neal, Spitzer said.

City News Service contributed to this report.