A Riverside County man whose then-girlfriend was brutally murdered 36 years ago said he "shook immediately" when he learned a previously linked cold case had been solved.
James Alt, 53, of the Riverside County city of Wildomar, was relieved when he learned the suspected killers of Claire Hough, 14, had finally been named, even though both of them were found dead before they could be brought to justice.
Despite the fact police have ruled out a link between the two crimes and despite both occurring at the same San Diego beach six years apart, Alt was still overwhelmed when two men were named as suspects in Hough's slaying by DNA evidence on Thursday.
"I started shaking immediately," said Alt, recalling a time years ago when the FBI said the same person or people killed his former girlfriend, tried to kill him and killed Hough. "I was very optimistically hopeful ... that we found Barbara's killer as well as Claire's.
"I'm happy right now that they're at least talking about Claire and I can finally let her go. I've been holding onto her for a while."
Alt was just 17 when he was severely beaten and left for dead while Barbara Nantais, 15, was bludgeoned and strangled to death. Her young body was found mutilated and posed on the sand of Torrey Pines State Beach in San Diego on Aug. 12, 1978.
The couple had traveled to the beach town from Lakewood with two friends to surf and party.
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Due to the similarities of the crime scenes, investigators had previously thought the same killers may have murdered Claire, whose body was found in 1984. Authorities had prepared an arrest warrant this week for suspected Hough killer Kevin Charles Brown, 62, but he killed himself before detectives could close in, police said.
His widow, Rebecca, defended her former husband, an ex-San Diego Police Department criminalist, in an interview with NBC4's San Diego affiliate.
"They just pushed him because he was a quiet, gentle, nervous person," she said. "They just pushed him over the edge."
Police don't think Kevin Brown, who retired from the force in 2002, helped investigate the Hough murder case.
A second Hough murder suspect, Ronald Clyde Tatro, 67, died in a boating accident in 2011.
Alt insists he will continue to fight for justice to discover who was responsible for the attack that claimed his then-girlfriend's life, and which nearly killed him as well.
"I've never stopped," he said. "Once my mother died I took over and I don't stop and I'm not going to. I'm like the Energizer bunny."
