38 years after skull is found, Jane Doe has a name

EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. - On March 22, 1974, Nancy Webster, 37, and her daughter, 19-year-old Rebecca Dinkel were seen at a café in the Garden Valley area of El Dorado County.

They left the cafe shortly after Nancy received a threatening phone call from her abusive, common-law husband, Clifton Mahaney.

It was the last time anyone saw either one of them alive.

Nancy's horses and dogs were left without food or water and both women's belongings were still at their homes. Rebecca left behind two small children, two-year-old Brion and six-month-old Clinton. Their leaving for any other reason besides leaving against their will was highly unlikely.

There was a warrant issued for the arrest of 42-year-old Mahaney and in June of 1974 he was arrested in Colorado and extradited to El Dorado County to answer to charges he murdered both women even though their bodies were never found. The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office (EDSO) was able to put together sufficient evidence for the District Attorney’s Office to prosecute Clifton Mahaney for the murder of Nancy.

On December 8, 1974, a jury found Mahaney guilty of voluntary manslaughter following a four-week trial and five days of deliberation. Mahaney was ultimately sentenced to 10 years in prison on January 10, 1975.

In 1981 a human skull with an apparent gunshot wound was discovered by hikers
in the Rock Creek Road area of El Dorado County. While EDSO suspected that the skull might belong to Nancy or Rebecca, neither woman had any dental records on file and DNA science was in its infancy so no conclusive connection to the victims could be made.

After serving his sentence, Mahaney passed away in 2002 without ever admitting to the murders or identifying the location of the bodies, robbing Rebecca’s sons of any possible resolution to the mystery of their mother’s disappearance. Mahaney’s death seemed to mark the end of any possible answers surrounding the tragedy.

That was until 2017 when the El Dorado County Cold Case Task Force, working in conjunction with the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Coroner’s Detectives, graduate students from Chico State University’s Forensic Anthropology Department, and criminalists from the California Department of Justice’s Richmond Lab, made a breakthrough.

The human skull now had the potential to unravel the 43-year-old question of what happened to Nancy ans Rebecca.

The Richmond DNA Lab was able to recover a partial DNA sample from one of the
molars still attached to the skull. A Cold Case search led detectives back to Nancy and Rebecca.

Detectives from the task force found Rebecca’s biological sons, Clinton and Brion, now grown men, and reached out to them for help. Both Clinton and Brion provided DNA samples that were then tested against the sample recovered from the skull.

It was a match and the found skull was that of Rebecca.

Her sons were never actually told about their mother’s disappearance, at least that question has been answered.

“Not having a mother left a huge hole in my heart,” Brion told District Attorney Chief Investigator Jeff Dreher. “Knowing you were able to identify my mom and return her to us gave me closure that she wasn’t alive somewhere in the world.”

"Law Enforcement’s job does not end with capturing and prosecuting the murderer. It extends to men and women working tirelessly, sometimes for decades, to provide what peace and resolution they can to the families of victims," said the DA's office in a press release.

“The family and friends of the victim never forget and neither should we,” said El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson.

In this case, advancements in DNA science and the dogged determination of law
enforcement led to closure for Rebecca’s sons when the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Victim-Witness Unit along with the El Dorado County Coroner’s Section were finally able to return Rebecca’s remains to her family.

“I want to thank the investigators and all the people who continued working on my mother’s case to bring some closure to me and my brother,” said Clinton as he extended his gratitude.