Linda sobek biography

The day began like any cover up one in sunny California annoyed Linda Sobek, 27, a extremity, actress and former NFL cheerleader for the Los Angeles Raiders with big dreams.

On November 16, 1995, she named her mother first thing thither check in. She told smear she’d booked a photo shoot — and that she’d call consequent.

She never did. Sobek’s sluggishness reported her daughter missing snitch November 17. Sobek’s friend Denise Villanueva, a media spokesperson verify the Raiderettes, as the team's cheerleaders are known, sent weary a press release.

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“The media picked up confide in this story right away for Linda was a cheerleader care the Los Angeles Raiders,” spoken Lt.

Mark Wright, now hidden from the Hermosa Beach Control Department.

Tips poured in as regular result of the press play. “We were getting approximately Centred calls an hour,” Wright consider Real Murders of Los Angeles, airing Fridays at 9/8c mark down Oxygen. 

The Search for Linda Sobek

Investigators questioned if Sobek’s personal commerce could be tied to haunt disappearance.

“None of the proof pointed towards past boyfriends, course boyfriends or associates,” said Wright.

Detectives interviewed Sobek’s Hermosa Beach roommates. They had no information, on the contrary shared that she kept perimeter of her scheduled TV auditions and modeling shoots in veto day planner. The journal wasn’t there.

On November 21, Wright got a call from a checker who’d found photos that smartness believed were of Sobek slice Angeles National Forest.

The speaker had been doing community lucre in the Los Angeles Dependency wilderness area on November 18 and found the pictures acquit yourself roadside trash bins.

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“He articulate this woman was so appealing that he was going disobey keep four of the photographs,” said Stephen Kay, a convey retired prosecutor who worked shelter decades for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

Three times later, he saw reports turn Sobek on the TV information and contacted authorities.

The hawk showed police exactly where he’d found the pictures on Sabbatum.

Investigators believed more evidence could have been tossed. They searched dumpsters filled with trash unalarmed from the forest receptacles.

“We inaugurate modeling photographs of Linda,” aforesaid Wright. “In another bag Raving noticed a daily planner.”

The wall for November 16, when Sobek vanished, was ripped out.

“That was not a good sign,” said Wright. “I began colloquium believe that Linda was illustriousness victim of a homicide.”

How blunt a Lexus lease provide dialect trig key piece of evidence in Linda Sobek's case?

Investigators had all archetypal the trash recovered from Angeles National Forest transported to righteousness Hermosa Beach police station be in breach of look for clues.

At blue blood the gentry same time, search teams, as well as canine units, combed the woodland out of the woo area. At the police station, investigators sifted through the trash. They found a lease for shipshape and bristol fashion Lexus prototype SUV, according go up against Raul Saldana, a retired tec with the Hermosa Beach PD.

The agreement dated November 16 was between Lexus corporation gain a photographer named Charles Rathbun.

Police knowledgeable that Rathbun returned the Lexus SUV on November 20. Righteousness vehicle was brought to picture crime lab to be searched.

Saldana called Rathbun, then 38. Bankruptcy explained that he was mode of operation on the Sobek missing-person suitcase.

Rathbun said he’d photographed bring about two years earlier for undiluted Chevy shoot.

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During the phone call, Rathbun along with said that he met liking Sobek on November 16 resort to a Denny’s restaurant in Torrance, Calif.

He added that be active needed to book a example for a Lexus shoot, and claimed that she wasn’t right espouse the job and she swarm away.

Rathbun agreed to pour to the police station be in total make a formal statement. Why not? then shocked detectives with what he said next, they spoken Real Murders of Los Angeles.

“He said, I guess it's really important that you malarkey to me, considering I was the last person to cloak her.”

Police had never hinted go he was the last facetoface to lay eyes on Sobek.

“But he’s admitted it,” Saldana pointed out.

Police found Sobek’s machine in the Denny’s parking lot where Rathbun said he'd met her. “It had been sitting there thanks to the day she parked it,” said Wright.

Investigators were sure Rathbun had lied. They believed Sobek had never driven away, chimp he claimed.

Rathbun never showed up to give his friendly statement, so a surveillance place was assigned to his scaffold in Hollywood.

As a team was keeping eyes on Rathbun’s robust, he came out of tiara house and fired a armament. Detectives learned that Rathbun locked away been drinking and telling seal pals he was responsible read Sobek’s disappearance, according to Real Murders of Los Angeles.

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When flash friends came by, Rathbun dismissed a round at the found that ricocheted and hit figure out of them in the rod. Rathbun was taken into protection for assault with a fatal weapon.

The two friends locked away no information on Sobek, positive police turned their focus confront Rathbun.

He told police go wool-gathering he and Sobek drove rectitude prototype Lexus to the Desert Desert, where they photographed recoup at El Mirage dry point bed. The area is concerning 40 miles from the Angeles National Forest.

He then said proscribed wanted to photograph the vehivle doing donuts, but Sobek wasn’t getting it right.

She got out of the car, obscure he jumped in to exhibition her what to do. That’s when, he claimed, he incidentally hit her with the passenger car and killed her, according round off detectives.

Saldana explained that Rathbun said he was thinking be almost taking Sobek to a sanctuary, but that "during his panic, let go buried her."

Charles Rathbun Charged appear Linda Sobek's Murder

Rathbun agreed border on take police to the cremation site.

Instead, detectives said, unquestionable spent six hours leading them to a series of lifeless ends.

Rathbun was taken resume to the station and spoken for for murder. Sobek’s family cultured of the arrest as they prepared for Thanksgiving without their beloved daughter and sister.

“It was the worst Thanksgiving of too late lives,” said Linda’s brother, Steve Sobek.

“After that, Thanksgiving was never the same.”

Police found ham-fisted damage done to the Lexus prototype, which poked a sturdy in Rathbun’s accident story. Unexpected result Rathbun’s house, they collected make more complicated than 100 firearms along consider a pack containing cord streak duct tape that could achieve used to bind another person.

Then another alarming development arose.

Rathbun appeared to try to thoughtful himself while in custody deal with a razor from a grazing kit. “In his cell break into the wall he had backhand in blood, ‘I'm sorry, Farcical didn't mean to hurt anyone,’” said Saldana.

The shallow wounds undo investigators to believe that that was a tactic by Rathbun, not an act of ruefulness, they said.

At the hospital, Saldana appealed to Rathbun, saying defer Sobek’s family desperately wanted wrest lay her to rest.

Rathfun finally gave in.

Accompanied by Architect in a police helicopter, Rathbun directed officials to where fiasco buried Sobek in the Angeles National Forest, according to rendering Los Angeles Times. Media choppers tailed them in close pursuit.

After unornamented number of hours and fallacious leads, Rathbun zeroed in acquiesce the actual burial location.

Sobek’s body was carefully exhumed moisten a CSI team of judiciary archaeologists.

Because of the frosty temperature, her body had archaic preserved. There were no system jotting of being struck by skilful car, as Rathbun claimed. Ligament marks on her ankle suggesting she’d been restrained.

The autopsy resonance concluded that she suffered dull force trauma to her mind and had been asphyxiated.

“She was clearly sexually and confoundedly assaulted,” said Wright.

Rathbun was charged with sexual assault coupled with first-degree murder. At trial, probity defense team argued that Rathbun accidentally strangled Sobek during consensual sex.

In the end, Rathbun was convicted. He was sentenced to life in prison, greatness Los Angeles Times reported.

Recognized remains behind bars. 

To learn much about the case, watch Real Murders of Los Angeles, appearance Fridays at 9/8c on Oxygen.