Keith Morrison

The importance of figuring out what happened, who did it, why, seems to loom very large in people's life.

Yeah.

Can you tell me about that?

For your daughter?

The Montel Show definitely had one immediate impact, and that was on Ray Jennings.

He'd gotten a new job as a salesman at a Toyota car dealership in Lancaster, and there were the O'Keefe's and the psychic on TV.

Unless he could talk them out of it.

Murder is like a wrecking ball in a family, all in pieces.

No one's the same after.

Pat and Michael Keefe were holding on for dear life by the time they took their case to TV shows and psychics, for all the good it did.

But give up?

Not a chance.

Otherwise it would eat them alive.

And so back home in Palmdale, Pat and Mike decided that the standard way of criminal justice just wasn't going to be enough for them.

What made it important to pursue this beyond the normal course of action, which is to kind of bug the police and hope for some sort of resolution?

That would be R. Rex Paris, big-time civil attorney, local legend, powerful man.

Paris had deep pockets and a reputation for hardball tactics and multimillion dollar settlements.

And he told the O'Keeffe's he was the man to help them get justice for Michel.

I met Mr. Paris in 2009 at his sprawling Lancaster office.

He'd redone what had been a furniture megastore.