Lia Elizabeth Szubert, a 22-year-old White/Caucasian female, was traveling from Twin Falls to Boise, Idaho, on June 9, 1987, with plans to meet her fiancé at the airport. Her journey was tragically interrupted when she experienced car trouble on Interstate 84, forcing her to pull over near a truck stop in Mountain Home. From there, she made a phone call to a friend, which would be the last time anyone ever heard from her.
When she failed to arrive in Boise, her family reported her missing, sparking a search that would end in heartbreak.
Four days later, on June 13, 1987, the search for Lia came to a grim conclusion when motorists discovered her decomposing body east of La Grande, Oregon. An autopsy would later reveal that the young woman had been strangled to death. The discovery of her body launched a homicide investigation that would soon focus on a drifter with a history of violent crimes, a man who was already on the radar of law enforcement in multiple states.
Investigators quickly identified a prime suspect in Lia's murder: Darren Dee O'Neall. Witnesses reported seeing a man matching his description at the truck stop around the time of Lia's disappearance. O'Neall, a man known for using aliases and altering his appearance to evade capture, was already a wanted man, with his name on the FBI's Most Wanted list for other violent crimes. His pattern of violence and transient lifestyle made him a person of interest in several unsolved cases across the Pacific Northwest.
Despite the strong suspicion surrounding O'Neall, and the fact that he was questioned about Lia's case, he was never formally charged with her murder due to a lack of physical evidence directly linking him to the crime. O'Neall was eventually convicted of other violent crimes, including the 1987 murder of another woman in Washington and a kidnapping and sexual assault in Oregon. While detectives remained certain of his involvement in Lia's death, her case officially remains unsolved, a painful chapter in the violent history of a suspected serial killer.
