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DNA links skull found in 1981 to 1974 El Dorado County murder case

"We had a skull that was recovered and had an apparent gunshot wound evident in the skull itself, but we didn't know who the skull belonged to."

EL DORADO HILLS, Calif. — In 1974, Nancy Webster and her daughter Rebecca Dinkel were last known to have left a cafe after receiving a phone call from Webster's live-in boyfriend, Clifton Mahaney.

Their bodies were never found. However, the El Dorado County District Attorney's Office had enough evidence to prosecute Mahaney. He was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison on January 20, 1975.

In 1981, hikers found a human skull with a gunshot wound in the area of Rock Creek Road. The El Dorado County Sheriff's Office believed it could belong to Webster or Dinkel.

"We had a skull that was recovered and had an apparent gunshot wound evident in the skull itself, but we didn't know who the skull belonged to and there weren't any dental records to compare," said Joe Alexander, Acting Chief Assistant for El Dorado County District Attorney's office.

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Now, nearly 40 years later, the skull is being linked to Webster and Dinkel's murders thanks to DNA evidence.

In 2017, the El Dorado County Cold Case Task Force with the Sheriff's Coroner's detectives, graduate students from California State University, Chico's Forensic Anthropology Department, and the California Department of Justice's Richmond lab worked together to identify to whom the skull belonged. They found a partial DNA sample and used Dinkel's two sons, Clint and Brion, to help provide DNA samples and it was a match. The skull belonged to Dinkel.

"It solves the question of whose skull is this, and it also provides to her children some closure," Alexander said. "They're at least able to get part of their mother's remains returned to them, so that they can have a funeral or a ceremony or whatever they would like to engage in."

The sons, who now live in Kansas, said they never knew much about their mother.

"We were never told the whole truth or anything like that," Clint said. "We were told our mother got into an argument with our dad and went hitchhiking and got picked up by a stranger and she's never been seen again."

The two sons say they have some closure, but it's brought back some bad memories. 

"I was 6 months old when all of this happened, so I never got to know my real mother," Clint said. "And my dad at the time was so distraught, and was unable to take care of us, and pretty much put my brother and I into foster homes."

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