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Convict charged in unsolved 1982 O.C. killing

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A 67-year-old man already serving life sentences for two other murders has been linked by DNA evidence to a previously unsolved third killing from the early 1980s, Orange County prosecutors said.

David Richard Campbell was charged Wednesday with one felony count of special circumstances murder with a sentencing enhancement for multiple murders and the personal use of a firearm, according to Orange County prosecutors.

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Campbell is already serving a life sentence for the 1981 Halloween murder of his friend William Kimble Raber of Buena Park. Raber’s headless torso was found in Riverside County at Vail Lake.

On Jan. 2, 1982, Campbell met with his friend Frank “Bart” Marshall, who said that Raber had not been seen in awhile, according to Orange County prosecutors.

Campbell became paranoid that Marshall knew about Raber’s death and shot the 26-year-old man in the head, prosecutors said. Marshall’s body was then dismembered and discarded near Big Bear. His remains, discovered in 1985, remained unidentified for more than 27 years. The skull, recently identified as Marshall’s, led to the additional murder charges.

Campbell also received a life sentence in the disappearance of a neighbor, John Fischer, who was last seen on Dec. 30, 1981, leaving his home in the family car. A skull containing a bullet was discovered by Boy Scouts hiking near Idyllwild four years later. The rest of the body was never found, but the bullet from the Fischer murder matched that from the gun used in the Raber murder.

The Fullerton Police Department reopened its investigation into the Marshall case, and were able to link Campbell to the murder through DNA technology, which was not available to investigators at the time the crime took place.

Campbell is in custody in Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad, Calif., but he will be brought to Orange County to face the charge.

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-- Nicole Santa Cruz and Rick Rojas in Orange County

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