Keith Morrison

So, yes, this story is about surviving or trying to.

But it's also about the very tricky business of learning to read conflicting signs by turns obvious and opaque in the shifting light of the high desert.

Yes, and it was ambiguous and confusing and absolutely demanding.

In this episode, you'll hear from the eyewitness, the man who was there, the man who seemed to know so much about Michelle's last moments.

Maybe too much.

You'll hear from a lead investigator still determined to find that one little nugget of proof.

It's very seldom you get a Perry Mason moment where they scream and yell, no, I did, I did, I did it.

And from the Deputy DA, who faced a prosecutor's worst nightmare.

You know what you say, but you don't know what they hear.

I'm Keith Morrison, and this is The Girl in the Blue Mustang, a podcast from Dateline.

Episode 3, Like a Voice from the Grave.

Retired L.A.

County Sheriff's Deputy Jim Jeffra was driving down the Antelope Freeway when he first saw a smiling Michelle O'Keefe dressed in her cheerleader's uniform on a billboard.

She was asking from the grave for help in finding her killer.

Jeffra knew about the case, knew it had gone stone cold.

But he wasn't a cop anymore, not really.

Wasn't his business.

And yet, there was something, that face, it spoke to him.

So this may be he was the guy to revive it.

Jeffra had a bald, pate, and sincere penetrating eyes.