Nearly 41 years after a carpenter was found beaten to death in his home, Newport Beach Police arrested a 70-year-old man in connection to the cold case.
Larry Manatt was arrested Friday on suspicion of killing Ronald Gaskey, the Newport Beach Police Department announced in a social media post. Manatt, a Huntington Beach resident, was taken into custody and booked in jail on suspicion of murder, days before the 41st anniversary of Gaskey’s death.
Gaskey was found beaten to death in an upstairs hallway at his home in Newport Shores on Dec. 13, 1983, the Orange County Register reported days after his killing. Gaskey, 35, was found by his girlfriend, who went to check on him after he did not show up for work at his family’s construction company. Authorities said he was beaten with a blunt instrument, but there were no details about a suspect, the newspaper reported.
“It’s a real mystery,” then-Newport Beach Police spokesperson Tom Little told the press.
Detectives collected evidence from the home and interviewed multiple people when Gaskey’s body was found, and in the past few years the case was reopened, police said. Detectives reviewed the case file and completed additional interviews, which led them to Manatt as their suspect.
The case was presented to a superior court judge and the department obtained an arrest warrant for Manatt. He was taken into custody without incident, according to police.
Anyone with information about the case can contact Newport Beach Police Detective Kyle Markwald at (949) 644-3762 or kmarkwald@nbpd.org.
