UNSOLVED DOUBLE-HOMICIDE: NEAL AND BRENDAN ABERNATHY

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When a mild-mannered father and his 12-year-old son are shot execution-style inside their Bay Area home, there’s no apparent motive. Investigators are puzzled by one of the most unlikely homicides in suburban California history in this episode of Last Seen Alive.

Brendan (left) and his father Neal (right) were murdered in their own home on February 19th, 1997. The motive for their murder remains unknown, and their killer unidentified. Image source: family photo.
Hercules, California (outlined in red and white) is a small, suburban town in San Francisco’s Bay Area. It’s low crime rate (in comparison to the rest of California and the US in general) made Brendan and Neal’s murders even more perplexing than they might have been elsewhere. Image source: Google Maps.

Sources used to research this episode:

Ten Years Later, Police Take New Look at Killings of Father, Son: SENSELESS CRIME STILL A MYSTERY (Karl Fischer / East Bay Times)

Cherished Memories of Home / Woman surviving horror of slayings (Suzanne Espinosa-Solis / SF Gate)

Obituary: Neal Edwin Abernathy (findagrave.com)

Reward Doubled in Hercules Killings / Father, Son Found Slain in Family Home (Henry K. Lee / SF Gate)

Website Created by a Friend of the Abernathy Family: The Abernathy Murders, February 19, 1997 (rocks4brains.com)

Shattered Nerves in Hercules / Double Killing Destroys Sense of Security (Suzanne Espinosa-Solis)

Hercules Jolted by Shooting Deaths of Father, Son / Dual-Killing is Close-Knit City’s First (Erin Hallissy / Chronicle East Bay Bureau)

Overview of PROMIS (Prosecutor’s Management Information System) (US DOJ, Office of Justice Programs)

The INSLAW Octopus (Richard L. Fricker / Wired)

If you know anything about the murders of Neal and Brendan Abernathy, please call the Hercules Police Department at 510-799-8260.

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