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Former Los Angeles Raiders cheerleader Linda Sobek had just caught her big break in November 1995, landing a part on the popular sitcom Married… With Children. Then, she suddenly vanished.
The model and actress last talked to her mother on Nov. 16, as she was headed to a photo shoot. She never returned from the job or made it to a fitting scheduled for the new television role, according to People, ending her dreams of fame just as they were beginning to take root.
Media coverage of Linda Sobek’s disappearance leads to break
When word of her disappearance spread to Sobek’s friends and family, including her former cheerleading teammates, they quickly sprang into action.
Denise Villanueva, a former Raiderette and friend of Sobek’s, relied on her own experience in marketing to get the word to the media.
“It was a team effort,” Villanueva told Oxygen. “We provided a piece of the puzzle that elevated the exposure of the case.”
It was the result of that media blitz that authorities got the break they needed.
A man who saw the news coverage recognized Sobek’s image. He called police on Nov. 21, to report that he’d stumbled upon a roadside trash bin filled with photos of Sobek while participating in a community cleanup in Angeles National Forest three days earlier, according to Oxygen’s Real Murders of Los Angeles, which featured the case in a past season.
As retired Los Angeles County prosecutor Stephen Kay explained, “He said this woman was so beautiful that he was going to keep four of the photographs.”
When the tipster realized Sobek was missing, he called police and helped lead them to the trash can where he found the photographs.
Investigators find daily planner, car records
Authorities searched the dumpsters in the area and found more photographs of Sobek, along with her daily planner, which was missing the entry for the day she disappeared.
“That was not a good sign,” Hermosa Beach Police Lt. Mark Wright, now retired, told Real Murders of Los Angeles. “I began to believe that Linda was the victim of a homicide.”
Among the trash recovered at the park, investigators also found a lease agreement for a Lexus SUV. The name on the agreement was Charles Rathbun, a photographer.
After authorities talked with Rathbun on the phone—he denied any involvement—they confronted him at his home and found him “drunk, brandishing a pistol and threatening to kill himself,” People reported in 1995.
Rathbun was taken into custody and tearfully admitted to killing Sobek. He claimed that he had accidentally hit her with the car while trying to teach her to drive it for the photo shoot and panicked, burying her in the national forest.
He agreed to take police to the body, but spent hours leading them to one dead end after another, Oxygen previously reported.
While in custody, detectives said Rathbun attempted to kill himself with a razor blade.
Retired Hermosa Beach Police Detective Raul Saldana recounted on Real Murders of Los Angeles, “In his cell on the wall he had written in blood, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
What happened to Charles Rathbun?
While at the hospital receiving treatment for his injuries, detectives pleaded with Rathbun to help Sobek’s family find the closure they needed and he finally agreed to lead them to the correct location of the body.
After recovering Sobek’s remains from a shallow grave in the park, the medical examiner determined that there were no signs that she’d been struck by a car. Instead, the medical examiner found ligature marks on her ankle and determined she died from blunt force trauma to the head and asphyxiation.
According to Wright, she was also “clearly sexually and violently assaulted.”
Ultimately, Rathbun was convicted in 1996 of killing Sobek and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
