Police Reopen 35-Year-Old Cold Case Murder of Lakewood Teen

It was 35 years ago -- Aug. 12, 1978 -- when four teenagers from Lakewood drove down to Torrey Pines State Beach in San Diego to surf and party. James Alt, 17, and his girlfriend, Barbara Nantais, 15, cuddled up in sleeping bags and dozed off together on the beach.

By the time the sun rose the next morning, Alt was severely beaten and left for dead. Barbara had been bludgeoned and strangled to death, her young body left mutilated and posed on the sand. James, who suffered serious head injuries, had no memory of the attack.

The San Diego Police Department has never been able to solve the case -- even after a second, similar slaying on the beach years later of a girl who looked much like Barbara, pictured below. It ended up in the department’s cold case files.

But now, new DNA technology might lead detectives to a suspect.

James Alt, now 52, said he has grown frustrated with what he sees as inaction by the San Diego Police Department. The brutal crime has left deep scars Alt - scars both physical and psychological.

Barbara’s family grieved and moved on, but Alt said his entire life has been defined by the attack.

He said he feels guilty for failing to protect his girlfriend, and he constantly feels anxious and angry that whoever killed her -- and nearly killed him -- could still be out there somewhere.

"It's the same song and dance every year,” Alt said. “The clock keeps ticking. ‘We're working on it.’ Working on what?”

Nantais family and Alt last year joined together to push the San Diego Police Department to reopen the cold case, or at least release more information about it to them. Their efforts have apparently paid off as detectives recently began conducting new DNA tests and re-interviewing witnesses.
San Diego police Lt. Ernie Herbert said there have been major advances in DNA technology since the case was last reviewed.

Barbara’s younger brother is Tom Nantais, an attorney in Long Beach. He said his family has moved on from the intensely painful experience of losing Barbara, but Alt’s daily torment still weighs on them.

"For us as a family, until (Alt) gets resolution, it'll be that one nagging door left open that we'd like to be able to shut,” Nantais said. “If he gets resolution, I'll have resolution."

Nantais said he still thinks about Barbara, especially as he watches his own daughter grow up.

"I see that picture of my sister who's (15) years old, and I see my daughter getting older and I just recognize how she just barely had any time on this earth to fulfill her potential,” Nantais said. “She was just budding as a person, as a human being, and she had massive potential. ... That's probably the biggest frustration, is to not see what she would have been.”

Police believe a another killing on the same beach on Aug. 24, 1984 -- almost exactly six years later -- maybe related to Barbara’s death, according to the San Diego Police Department. In that case,

Claire Hough, 14, was killed and mutilated in a similar manner to Barbara.

"I believe somewhere down the line someone dropped the ball and they're not willing to admit it,” Alt said.

Lawmakers push to increase penalties for sex offenders who remove GPS trackers

The number of warrants for paroled sex offenders who are removing their ankle trackers has nearly doubled since California reduced penalties to aid in alleviating prison crowding, officials said this week.

The state's policy change, which sent parolees to county jail instead of state prison for low-level crimes, means offenders only spend a few days in local lockup; if the facility is overcrowded, it could mean no jail time at all.
The consequences of the new law, known as AB 109, has lawmakers, police and residents worried about public safety.

Before the law change took effect in October 2011, an average of 209 criminals violated probation each month; by December 2012, the most recent month available, the average had risen to 346 cases - an increase of 65 percent.

In Los Angeles County, where the Sheriff's Department holds parole violators for their full jail sentence, there has been a 70 percent increase in GPS warrants for sex offenders.
State Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, recently proposed Senate Bill 57, which would increase penalties and enforcement for sex offenders who remove their GPS tracer. The bill so far has passed out of the Senate Public Safety Committee that Lieu sits on, and will now undergo a fiscal review.

"Too many convicted sex offenders are cutting off their GPS monitoring devices because they're convinced little will happen to them, and that must change to make our streets safer," said Lieu, who represents a small slice of Long Beach. "By increasing punishment for this crime, we hope these sex offenders will have second thoughts about roaming freely among the public with zero oversight. " The bill targets sex offenders because they have a "significantly higher recidivism rates when they are not being monitored," Lieu said.

Some of the bill's highlights include a mandatory 180 days in county jail for the first offense of GPS removal, a mandatory one year in jail and parole revocation for second time offenders, and for third-time offenders, felony charges and state prison for between 16 months and three years.

"There are shockingly high numbers of people cutting off their bracelets," Lieu said. "If we don't fix this problem, the integrity of our GPS monitoring system for sex offenders is at risk. "
Stricter penalties is exactly what probation officers in Los Angeles County are urging.

Over the course of three weeks in April, Los Angeles County Probation held the department's largest special enforcement operation of the year. Thirty officers conducted 137 compliance checks and searches of AB 109 felons who have a history of sex offense.

During the three-week operation, children were found in the same residence shared by a convicted pedophile; 21 total offenders on probation were arrested, 14 computer hard-drives and phones were seized and heroine, methamphetamine and marijuana were found, along with a rifle, pepper spray and a PR22 baton.

"If you are a high risk offender out there, get ready, we are going to focus on you," Chief Probation Officer Jerry Powers said in a statement.
Assistant Chief Margarita Perez said more than 61 percent of offenders in Los Angeles County are high or very high risk.

"Only one to two percent of the county's offenders are low risk," she said.
Steven Howell, the lead supervisor for "Operation Tracker," said the county needs to "ensure the safety of children, and ensure that AB 109 probationers are following the law.