Friday, Jan. 24, 1986, dawned crisp and sunny on Brighton Drive. Across the street, hundreds of students trudged into Dublin High School, ready for the coming weekend. Some time that morning, neighbors saw a man standing on the lawn of 7168 Brighton, the home of veterinarian Harve Ringheim and his new wife Keiko. But no one thought anything of it until later.

In the late afternoon, 9-year-old Beth Ringheim, Harve’s daughter from his first marriage, arrived at the home for her usual weekend stay with her dad. Her mother waited for Beth to head up the drive and into the house before driving off. The front door was unlocked, as it normally was, in anticipation of Beth’s visit. 

At first, Beth couldn’t understand what she was seeing. Her stepmother was slumped over in the living room, her head in a bucket of water and hands duct-taped behind her back. Her father was bound and bloody. Beth raced out of the house and called a neighbor for help. When Dublin police arrived, there was nothing they could do. The Ringheims were dead.

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Forty years later, the killings of Harve and Keiko Ringheim remain a mystery that has bedeviled generations of Alameda County detectives. The case now rests in the hands of Alameda County Sheriff’s Office detective Pat Smyth who, in a twist of fate, was nearly a witness to the shocking daytime crime. While Harve and Keiko were being targeted, Smyth was across the street, attending class at Dublin........

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