Laguna Beach Investigators Identify Suspect In '78 Slaying
LAGUNA BEACH (CBS) — Laguna Beach police announced Wednesday they have identified a suspect in the 1978 slaying of a prominent architect and civic leader.
Convicted murderer Walter Dalie was linked to the fatal stabbing Brent Tobey, 55, through DNA evidence, Laguna Beach police said.
Dalie, 52, is about halfway through serving a 50-year sentence for the 1985 murder of his girlfriend in Newington, Conn.
Tobey was killed on Nov. 20, 1978.
He and a friend had made plans to have dinner to celebrate the conviction that day of Laguna Beach resident James Scramlin for the 1977 murder of their friend Albert Willard.
When Tobey did not show up for dinner, his friend went to his home at 1320 Carmelita St. about 7 p.m. and found him on the floor of his bedroom in a pool of blood. He had been stabbed multiple times in the head and upper body.
Dalie told investigators he knew Tobey, but, it is unsure how well the two men knew each other.
The investigation was revived in 2002, when Laguna Beach Detective Paul Litchenberg submitted several items from the crime scene to the Orange County Crime Lab to seek a DNA match, Kravetz said.
There were no matches until mid-2010, when Connecticut officials loaded some samples into its database, including Dalie's, Laguna Beach officials said.
Dalie grew up in Dana Point and graduated from Dana Hills High School. He was a 19-years-old parolee living in Newport Beach when Tobey was killed, police said.
Investigators are not revealing what Dalie's motive was when he allegedly killed Tobey.
Charges will likely be filed Wednesday and then extradition proceedings will begin.
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