SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – Two men charged with murder in the 1973 shotgun slayings of two young girls can’t face the death penalty because it wasn’t an option when the girls were sexually assaulted and killed, a California prosecutor said.
William Lloyd Harbour and Larry don Patterson have been charged with six counts each stemming from the killings of 12-year-old Valerie Janice Lane and 13-year-old Doris Karen Derryberry, the Yuba County, California district attorney said.
The two men are 65-year-old cousins who both lived near the victims in Olivehurst, California, when they were killed nearly 43 years ago.
Harbour pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in California on Wednesday, said Deputy District Attorney John Vacek. Patterson was ordered held without bond in Oklahoma.
Patterson said he intends to waive extradition back to California to face charges in the deaths. The girls’ mothers first reported them missing as runaways on Nov. 12, 1973, after they failed to return home overnight from a shopping trip to a mall in nearby Linda.