Darren Dee O'Neall was once one of the most wanted men in the United States. The FBI put him on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, number 413 in the list's history, while it held a warrant charging him with the killing of Robin Smith, a 21-year-old woman from Des Moines, Washington. He was later convicted of her murder in the first degree in Pierce County. An Oregon jury convicted him of two counts of first-degree kidnapping, with other charges, in a case involving a minor who survived, and he received a sentence of 135 years.
A third case stayed open for 35 years. Wendy L. Aughe, 29, a student and mother in Bellingham, Washington, disappeared in April 1987 after a date with a man who called himself Mike. Her car turned up in Eugene, Oregon, with O'Neall's fingerprint inside, and he was convicted of stealing it, but no murder charge followed. In 2015 a state crime laboratory matched DNA from her home to him. Whatcom County charged him with second-degree murder in October 2022, and on March 1, 2023, he was taken from an Oregon prison to the jail in Bellingham. In that case he is accused, not convicted.
Little is known of his early life. The Deseret News gave his age as 28 in September 1988, and he was 63 when he was booked into the Whatcom County Jail in March 2023. Bellingham police said he "would often change his name and appearance," and the FBI has listed aliases he used, among them Mike Johnson, Jerry Macranahan and Larry Sackett, according to KOMO News.
Before 1987 he had already left one criminal case unfinished. When the FBI added him to its most-wanted list, it held two warrants for him, the Deseret News reported: one for the killing of Robin Smith, and one for failing to appear for trial on another charge in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Robin Smith was 21. Friends and family knew her as "Rockin' Robin," the Deseret News reported, and KOMO News described her as a woman from Des Moines, Washington.
Prosecutors alleged that she disappeared with O'Neall after a late-night party on March 28, 1987. Her remains were found about six weeks later in Pierce County. How she died has not been reported.
O'Neall was charged with first-degree murder. He was a fugitive by then, and the warrant for her killing was one of the two that put him on the FBI's list.
In late August 1988, after his capture, about 30 people gathered for her burial. Her mother spoke to reporters afterward. "We are at peace now," she said, and she said she hoped the family could be "put back together." She also said she would not be satisfied until O'Neall went on trial, which was then set for November 7, 1988. "We're hoping that justice will be served," she said. At that point he had pleaded not guilty and faced a charge of first-degree murder.
The case ended in a conviction. Speaking in Whatcom County Superior Court in March 2023, the Whatcom County prosecutor, Eric Richey, described O'Neall's record: "Prior to that, he was convicted of murder in the first degree in Pierce County and possession of stolen property," he said, according to KIRO 7, and he said the circumstances were similar to the Bellingham case. KOMO News reported that O'Neall had served time for her killing. The date of the plea or verdict and the length of the Washington sentence have not been reported.
Wendy L. Aughe was 29 and lived in Bellingham, in Whatcom County, Washington. She was a student at a beauty school in the city and the mother of an eight-year-old daughter.
The Bellingham Police Department set out the events of April 1987 in a release in March 2023. On a day in late April, Aughe went across the street from her school for lunch at a restaurant. When she came back she told classmates she had met a man in a "three-piece-suit" and had a date with him that evening. He introduced himself as Mike. That night the two of them drove one of her friends home to Burlington and then went back to Bellingham to visit another friend. That friend's house was the last place anyone reported seeing her, in the early morning of April 25, 1987. She was wearing gray pants, brown boots and a jean jacket.
At 7:30 that morning, police said, the man called Mike was seen at the shelter where he had been staying, and he said he had spent the night with a woman. He was seen taking his belongings and driving away in Aughe's car, a 1972 Ford Torino. He had just been hired at the same restaurant, and he went in for what was to be his second day of work. He stayed 15 to 30 minutes and then left, taking the money from the till and a bottle of whiskey.
On Tuesday, April 28, Aughe failed to pick up her daughter, and she was reported missing. Detectives who went to her home found signs, police said, of a violent encounter.
Her car had already crossed two borders. At 9:58 p.m. on April 26 it was logged entering the United States from Canada at the port of entry at Oroville, Washington. About eight hours later, at 6 a.m. on April 27, it was found abandoned in Eugene, Oregon.
Police in Oregon lifted a latent fingerprint from an item left in the car, and it belonged to Darren O'Neall. He matched the description witnesses had given of Mike, and his prints were also found on a form filled out at the Bellingham restaurant where Mike had worked.
The evidence was enough to tie him to her car but not, at the time, to her death. Her body was not found. In 1989 he was found guilty in Whatcom County Superior Court of auto theft for taking her car. By 1988 he was publicly wanted for questioning in her disappearance; the Deseret News reported that year that her car had been found in Eugene at about the time O'Neall was seen in the area.
While he was a fugitive, investigators outside Washington looked at him as well. The Deseret News reported in 1988 that he had been a suspect in four unsolved slayings in Idaho and Utah, and that he had once been wanted for questioning in the deaths of three northern Utah women.
The FBI says he was arrested on October 25, 1987, in Lakeland, Florida, by the Lakeland Police Department on auto theft charges, and that he was identified when his fingerprints were compared with those on record. The Deseret News, writing in September 1988, described his capture differently: he had been found earlier that year in a Louisiana jail under an alias. The two accounts have never been reconciled.
By September 1988 he had pleaded not guilty to the murder charge in Robin Smith's death and was awaiting trial.
O'Neall was also tried in Multnomah County, Oregon, on charges from 1987 involving a victim who was a minor and who survived. The jury convicted him on twelve counts: two counts of first-degree kidnapping, with other charges. The trial court ordered seven of the twelve sentences to run consecutively. KING 5 reported that the Oregon sentence was 135 years.
He appealed. In State v. O'Neall, decided August 26, 1992, the Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions and the sentence. Judge Deits wrote for the court. O'Neall had argued that the state failed to prove that some of the offenses took place in Multnomah County, which is the legal question of venue; the court held that the evidence allowed the jury to find that they did. It also rejected his argument that the two kidnapping convictions should merge into one, because the two forms of kidnapping he was convicted of fall under separate provisions of the statute. A challenge to the consecutive sentences was not considered because it had not been raised at trial. Chief Judge Joseph dissented in part; he would have found the venue evidence insufficient for some of the counts.
From 2008 O'Neall was held at the Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla, Oregon, according to KOMO News.
The Bellingham Police Department kept the Aughe case open. On August 15, 2015, it received a report from the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory on evidence collected in her home. The laboratory had found DNA from two people, Aughe and a single unknown man, whom it called "individual B." The partial profile was entered into the Washington state and national CODIS databases, and a match was declared between individual B and O'Neall.
In November 2020 the department received a second laboratory report. It linked evidence from Aughe's car to her, KOMO News reported.
Police then established probable cause to charge O'Neall with second-degree murder and asked for an extraditable arrest warrant. He was charged in October 2022.
On March 1, 2023, Bellingham officers picked O'Neall up at Two Rivers Correctional Institution, drove him to Bellingham and booked him into the Whatcom County Jail. The department announced the arrest the next day. "Nothing short of dedicated investigative work started by BPD detectives in 1987," the police chief, Rebecca Mertzig, said of the result, and she spoke of teamwork spanning "three generations of BPD detectives."
On Thursday, March 2, 2023, O'Neall appeared before a Whatcom County judge on the murder charge. Bail was set at $10 million. Aughe's daughter was in the courtroom, KOMO News reported. In court, Eric Richey said O'Neall might be a suspect in other violent crimes and murders in other jurisdictions, according to KIRO 7. An arraignment was set for March 10, 2023.
O'Neall is presumed innocent of Wendy Aughe's death unless the charge is proved. Her body has not been found.
Several claims about O'Neall have circulated since 1987, and only some of them rest on court findings.
Utah. In 1988 the Deseret News reported that O'Neall had once been wanted for questioning in the slayings of three northern Utah women. Salt Lake City Police Detective Don Bell told the paper he was no longer considered a suspect in those cases because he had been out of state when they happened.
Idaho. The same report said he had been a suspect in four unsolved slayings in Idaho and Utah. No charges in Idaho were reported, and KIRO 7 noted in 2023 only that he had been accused of murders in Utah and Idaho.
Other jurisdictions. The Whatcom County prosecutor said in 2023 that O'Neall might be a suspect in other violent crimes and murders elsewhere. He named no cases.
No charge has been reported in any of these deaths. They remain suspicions, not findings.
March 28, 1987: Robin Smith, 21, is last seen after a late-night party; prosecutors later allege she left with O'Neall. Her remains are found in Pierce County, Washington, about six weeks later.
April 25, 1987: Wendy Aughe, 29, is last seen in Bellingham after a date with a man calling himself Mike.
April 26, 1987: Her 1972 Ford Torino enters the United States from Canada at Oroville, Washington, at 9:58 p.m.
April 27, 1987: The car is found abandoned in Eugene, Oregon; a fingerprint inside is later matched to O'Neall.
April 28, 1987: Aughe is reported missing after she fails to pick up her daughter.
While he is a fugitive: The FBI places O'Neall on its Ten Most Wanted list, number 413.
October 25, 1987: Lakeland, Florida, police arrest him on auto theft charges; fingerprints identify him (FBI).
1988: The Deseret News reports he was found in a Louisiana jail under an alias.
August 1988: Robin Smith is buried; a trial date of November 7, 1988, is set on the first-degree murder charge.
1989: He is found guilty in Whatcom County Superior Court of auto theft for taking Aughe's car.
Date not reported: He is convicted in Pierce County of first-degree murder and possession of stolen property.
August 26, 1992: The Oregon Court of Appeals affirms his Multnomah County convictions for kidnapping and other charges.
2008: He is held at Two Rivers Correctional Institution, Umatilla, Oregon.
August 15, 2015: The Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory reports a DNA match to O'Neall in the Aughe case.
November 2020: A second laboratory report links evidence from her car to Aughe.
October 2022: He is charged with second-degree murder in Aughe's death.
March 1, 2023: He is moved from Oregon and booked into the Whatcom County Jail.
March 2, 2023: Bail is set at $10 million; arraignment is set for March 10.