not to ever not have children for fear of loss, because life is not a guarantee. breathtaking beaches and beautiful bodies explain why southern california is often the first choice for motion picture and still photographers. in 1995, linda sobek, a busy model with a growing reputation, vanished on her way to a photo shoot. linda's photographic images helped launch her career and would also solve the mystery of her disappearance. hermosa beach, california, is just 15 miles south of downtown los angeles.

linda sobek, a 27-year-old blond model and actress, lived right off the boardwalk. she was a cheerleader for the los angeles raiders football team and was a popular bikini, lingerie, and calendar model. she also aspired to be an actress. on thursday morning, linda was paged for a last-minute photo shoot. linda grabbed some clothes, left a message with her mother that she'd call later, and headed off. she was never seen or heard from again. >> don't worry, you know. linda has got things to do. she's out working. she probably just took off and was doing something. mom just kept saying, no, i know something else is wrong. >> later that day, linda had an audition for the "married with children" television series, but she failed to show up.

>> anyone that knew linda knew there was no way that she ever would have missed that audition. and that really was the signal for her parent to start an intensive search. >> the family had been distributing numerous fliers, i think 53,000 fliers, with a $20,000 reward. >> i had one of her address books, and i just started making phone calls to all the girls. >> apparently, linda had broken some of her own rules about modelling assignments. no one knew where she was or the name of the photographer. since she took this assignment outside of her modelling agency, they had no information either. two days later, in a trash bin, a worker in the angeles national forest found some pictures of a beautiful woman. he took them home because they were so well done. >> and he was watching

television, and he saw the tv coverage of the sobek investigation. >> when the man realized the photos were of the model reported missing, he immediately called police. two years earlier, just a short distance away, the skeletal remains of another blond model 20-year-old kim pandelios. were discovered. like linda, kim had been called at the last minute for a modelling assignment with an unknown photographer. her murder was never solved. but the thought that linda was somewhere in the angeles national forest was daunting. it's an area approximately 1,000 square miles, about the size of the state of rhode island. as the days passed, investigators suspected foul play. in a race, it's about getting to the finish line. in life, it's how you get there that matters most.

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a few days after linda sobek's disappearance, charles rathbun, a commercial freelance photographer, called police with some information. he said he was with linda at a denny's restaurant on the

morning of her disappearance. he said they discussed her portfolio. and after the meeting, rathbun said they went their two separate ways. linda's car was found in the parking lot of the restaurant. tests on the vehicle found no evidence of foul play. but police were starting to get suspicious. among the items found in the trash bin at angeles national forest, along with linda's photographs and date book, was a rental agreement for a lexus sports utility vehicle. the name on the document was charles rathbun. rathbun said the rental agreement probably got mixed up with linda's portfolio during their meeting. rathbun shot photographs of the lexus later that day for "autoweek" magazine, and he

returned the car the next day. even though the lexus had been washed thoroughly inside and out, police found a number of clues. in the backseat was a suspicious red stain. a test revealed the stain was blood. further tests showed it was human blood. in the cargo area was a car cover, which tested positive not only for blood, but traces of human saliva. with no other leads, investigators wanted to know if the lexus had been in the angeles national forest where linda's photographs were discovered. >> basically, we put vaseline on a tire, rolled it across poster board, and then used magnetic fingerprint powder to enhance that tire track that's on the poster board.

>> and it essentially makes a tire print on this board that's indicative of the tire tread that might have been left back at a particular scene. >> but finding a tire impression in a forest covering over 1,000 square miles wouldn't be easy. not surprisingly, charles rathbun was interrogated again, and this time he changed his story. rathbun now said he hired linda to model for him in the photo shoot with the lexus sports utility vehicle. rathbun and sobek drove to el mirage, a dry lake bed about two hours north of hermosa beach. linda's assignment was to drive the vehicle in tight circles while rathbun took photographs. >> can you show me? >> rathbun demonstrated the

maneuver while linda stood by and watched. rathbun said he lost control of the vehicle and accidentally hit linda, killing her. according to rathbun, he panicked, put linda's body in the vehicle, drove to a deserted location in the angeles national forest, and buried the body somewhere there. >> he was very vague. he kept saying, i can't remember. he would break into tears and would say, i'm not sure, i'm not sure. i don't know where she is exactly, but i can take you there. >> the lexus showed no signs of exterior damage consistent with an accident. investigators thought linda night -- might still be alive and pressed rathburn to lead them to the grave, but the search was

unsuccessful. >> he was leading him on a wild goose chase. he knew exactly where she was. he was hoping to stall hoping her body was would decomposed before we did find it. >> investigators pushed rathbun yet again for information, this time touring the forest in a helicopter. after a number of failed attempts, rathbun finally led them to linda's body. she was buried next to a tree in a shallow two-foot grave. the left tire impression of the lexus was found in the soft sand nearby. >> she, surprisingly, was perfectly preserved. for a nine-day burial, i was not optimistic that we would have a lot of soft tissue to diagnose exactly what happened, and i was surprised. >> a forensic archaeologist was brought in to retain anything of evidentiary value. the autopsy would reveal the true cause of death, whether it

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linda sobek's autopsy revealed an enormous amount of information about her death. except for blood above her right ear, her body showed no external

signs of an automobile injury. her blood alcohol level was .13, well above the state limit for intoxication. she died not from an automobile accident, as charles rathbun claimed, but by asphyxiation. >> she struggled against it to cause a hemorrhage? the lungs as well as all in the neck and the eyes, which is typical for somebody who has been asphyxiated against their will. she was aware, awake, struggling for her life at that time. asphyxiation is the most common mechanism used in homicidal sexual assaults. >> and there were other injuries, bruises, a twisted wrist and ligature marks on her ankles. >> that showed that her legs had been forcibly spread apart and held in that position.

she struggled against those restraints because there were abrasions up and down her legs indicating a struggle. >> and the body appeared to have been washed. she was not wearing makeup, and it appeared that her clothing had been changed before burial. >> i call this a girl thing, but i was very troubled with the position of her clothing. the position of her zipper was such that it was all the way up to her neck, and this concerned me, because i don't think that's a natural position. most women wear clothing sort of in the mid chest region, and this was an unnatural position. >> there was also evidence of forcible sodomy. a look into charles rathbun's past revealed a man with a mercurial personality, which had cost him a number of freelance projects. >> he could be very personal and charming. he could lose his temper and almost go ballistic, throw

things around a photo shoot. he could talk to models and be very personable and polite to them and then go behind the camera and say very derogatory things about them. >> a few years earlier in columbus, ohio, charles rathbun was arrested and charged with the rape of a married coworker. rathbun claimed the encounter was consensual and he was acquitted. the search of rathbun's home revealed a collection of over 200 guns. of particular interest was a .44 -- .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol. >> when i tested the gun chemically or i used presumptive tests, i did detect a positive presumptive test for blood on the breech face surface of that weapon. >> well, we found a lot of

evidence from his house and from talking to his friends that he did have a dislike for blonds and that he did have a dislike for some women, in particular, that he referred to linda as a little bitch and being difficult to work with. >> charles rathbun was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and sodomy with a foreign object. rathbun continued to maintain that linda's death was an accident. he said that linda was drinking that day, and after striking her accidentally with the lexus, she began kicking and screaming. while trying to subdue linda, rathbun accidentally suffocated her. >> almost ludicrous to think she would drink while on a photo shoot, especially when you think that she had an interview with a television program scheduled for later that evening, that she would compromise herself. >> then rathbun delivered a bombshell. he claimed his sexual encounter with linda that day wasn't

forced at all, that it was consensual, and he claimed to have nude photographs to prove it. vo: 85 percent of people who travel will go someplace they've already been. where's the fun in that? it's time to find someplace new. book the hotel you want with the flight you want, and we'll find the savings to get you there. just take a closer look. it works how you want to work. with a fidelity investment professional... or managing your investments on your own. helping you find new ways to plan for retirement. and save on taxes

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charles rathbun claimed that linda willingly engaged in sex with him before the automobile accident and had taken photographs of linda that day, which would prove it. >> the defendant told his brother there were some photographs in the desert that would prove his innocence and prove linda consented to sexual relations with him. and drew hymn a map of where to fine these rolls of films and his brother and robert and his girlfriend, drove out up into the mountains and were able to find these five rolls of film out in the middle of the desert after months of exposure being in the sun and the win and the rain. >> robert found five rolls of film, but instead of turning them over to police, he developed the film himself. four rolls contained g rated pictures of linda posing at el mirage in two different outfits.

in some of the pictures, linda's outfit looked dishevelled, and there was a hole in her thigh high stockings. raising questions about whether linda posed willingly. the fifth roll was water damaged, double exposed and pornographic. >> the fifth roll of film was a series of double exposed pictures, 12 images of a dashboard of a vehicle and 11 images which are fairly x rated and fairly pornographic of female genitalia. you could see no head, no face, really no body. a close up of female genitalia. >> the mystery of this is it was clouded by the water damage, so we were only seeing bits and pieces of these various frames or various photographs. >> according to the defense, those pictures indicated that

linda sobek had engaged in consensual behavior with the defendant on the day they took the pictures of the vehicle and the day she disappeared and died. >> were the photographs of linda sobeck. with the help of the sheriff's photo lab and an aerospace company, the pictures were enhanced. the corporation scanned these images in and assisted me for three days, going over pixel by pixel, the significance of what we were seeing. >> in the background, you could see some of the element of the automobile's dashboard. but the logo on the steering wheel was not that of a lexus. it was an oldsmobile prototype rathburn photographed on a previous project. >> it has an entirely different logo. it has cruise controls in the steering wheel, the lexus vehicle does not have.

>> but were the nude pictures of linda? investigators compared the pictures of the body of the woman this the photograph to pictures taken during linda's autopsy. >> it was clear that this was not linda and in no way did it show any type of consentual act. the dress was wrong. the car seat was wrong. the hands you see within the pictures had a very masculine appearance and don't appear to with consistent with our victim. the list goes on and on. >> and prosecutors did not believe rathbun's accident scenario. they suspected when rrathbun wa taking photographs that day, for linda, it was a job. to rathbun, an opportunity. >> the forensic evidence suggested that rathbun struck

her on the right side of the head, twisted linda's arm, tied her ankles and sexually assaulted her, possibly with his gun. he may have forced her to consume the alcohol. the deep bruises on her ankles indicated linda desperately tried to escape. after the assault, rathbun caused linda's death by asphyxiation. linda's blood and saliva were found on the car cover in the cargo area. and evidence suggests rathbun washed linda's face and redressed the body an effort to conceal what happened. he later disposed of linda's person items in a dumpster, but made the mistake of including the lexus rental agreement in his name. >> charles rathbun was convicted of first degree murder and sodomy and sentenced to life in

prison without parole. >> the forensic evidence in this case was all important. those photographs he introduced to save him and provide his defense were in fact what caused his conviction. >> the sobek family believes that robert rathbun should have been charged with evidence tampering for his role in the discovery of the film. >> robert rathbun admitted on the stand he had destroyed the map that his brother had drawn and that had led him to these canisters of film. of his own accord, he's admitted to his own guilt. >> prosecutors suspect that charles rathbun also may have been involved in kimberly pandelosis' death. she met an uchb identified

photographer at a denis's restaurant on the day she disappeared and her remains were discovered just a few miles from linda sobek's. to date, no one has been charged to date, no one has been charged with kim's murder. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com murder mystery dinner shows are often a fun way for amateur sleuths to test their crime-busting skills while enjoying a meal with friends. this is the story of a man killed just hours after leaving the theater. despite some good acting, the killer was no match for the skills of real-life forensic scientists. st. michaels, a small waterfront community on the maryland shore.