September 9, 1982. A
young woman is reported missing when she doesn’t arrive for work at Eskaton
Monterey Hospital (now Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula). She is a twenty six year old nurse in the
prime of life with a promising career, a supportive family and a brand new fiancée. She is also a river rafting guide who friends
describe as “enthusiastic about everything,” and as someone who lights up a
room when she walks in. Later that same
day of September 9th, the young woman’s station wagon is found in
the center median of Highway One.
Beneath a pile of blankets, the young woman’s dead body is found, raped
and strangled. The young woman’s name
was Sarah Lucy Dane and she was my Aunt.
Suspicion immediately centered on Sarah’s brother-in-law,
William Perkins. The night before her
murder, Sarah’s sister Meraud “Roadie” Perkins had told Mr. Perkins that she
was filing for divorce. Angered by her
declaration, Mr. Perkins allegedly threatened to do something that would put
him in jail for a long time. He was
known to have been away from his home during the time of the murder and didn’t
arrive for his job at 5 A.M. that morning.
In fact, he didn’t arrive on the job site until noon. However,
when police investigated the crime in fall of 1982, they did not find enough
evidence to prosecute Mr. Perkins for the murder. Two long years would pass before the case
would be re-examined by a new investigator.
In September of 1984, the evidence in Sarah’s case was
re-analyzed by state justice laboratories.
It’s not entirely clear why the case was re-opened, but certainly the
tireless efforts of Sarah’s mother Sally Dane to ensure that the police
continued to pursue the case played a part.
As a result of the re-analysis, William Perkins was again arrested. While he was being held, Perkins had a
fateful conversation with his cellmate, Joseph Neuhaus, where he confessed to
the rape and murder. On February 5,
1985, Perkins was tried and convicted of rape and murder. Shortly
after the trial, authorities learned that the man who testified as Joseph
Neuhaus had lied about his identity and was actually a man named Marty Joe
Nuttall. This revelation threw the
conviction and sentencing of Perkins into jeopardy, however the judge in the case
decided that the conviction would stand and Perkins was sentenced to 25 years
to life for First Degree Murder.
All of this information was passed along to me recently by a
member of the family who was close to Sarah Lucy. Unfortunately for me, I never got to have a
relationship with my Aunt. That seems
strange to say since she lived only about three hours’ drive from me for the
first twelve years of my life. But that has been part of the sad legacy of
the broken family left behind by my grandparents’ divorce. I met my grandfather only three or four times
before he died in 1979, and no one on “our side of the family” was close with him
or his daughter by his second wife. This is yet another family member I get to
meet only through the memories of others.
I feel a responsibility to remember these relatives and pass along what
little I can of them so others can remember them a bit, too.
Facts for this post were taken from articles from the
Monterey Peninsula Herald regarding the murder case and trial from 9/24/1984,
10/25/1984, 1/29/1985, 1/30/1985, 2/5/1985, 2/27/1985, and 3/14/1985
