A 70-year-old man was arrested Friday in connection with a 1983 murder in Southern California, police said.
Michael Larry Manatt, of Huntington Beach, was arrested for the murder of Ronald Gaskey, who police said was killed in his Newport Beach home on Dec. 13, 1983.
The Newport Beach Police Department said in a statement that after detectives conducted interviews and collected evidence from Gaskey’s home at the time of the murder, they were not able to charge a suspect, leading the case to go cold.
It was then reopened in the last few years, police said, and they were able to identify Manatt as a suspect.
It was not clear how police concluded that Manatt was the suspect in the case. A motive in the killing was not specified.
Police said Manatt was placed in the Newport Beach Police Department jail. His bail was set at $1 million. Online court records that could indicate whether he was still in custody could not be found Sunday night. A jailer said by phone that they could not release information about inmates’ custody status.
It was unclear whether Manatt has retained an attorney. An email seeking comment sent to the Orange County public defender’s office was not immediately returned Sunday night.
Gaskey, who was 36 at the time of his death, was found by a former girlfriend after he didn’t show up to work as a construction worker, the Associated Press reported, citing the Orange County Register, which cited a 1983 article by the Daily Pilot. He had been clubbed in the head and the face with a blunt object.
According to the Daily Pilot article, Gaskey was a “highly security-conscience person” and had tried to fortify his home, the AP reported. His door was found unlocked, which neighbors said would have been unusual for him.
At the time, police ruled out robbery as a motive, as Gaskey’s house hadn’t been ransacked, according to the AP.
Huntington Beach is a city about 36 miles south of Los Angeles. Newport Beach is a city in neighboring Orange County, about 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
