Michelle O’Keefe, Raymond Lee Jennings: ‘Dateline NBC’ Investigates The Blue Mustang Parking Lot Death Of California College Student

The Michelle O’Keefe, Raymond Lee Jennings fatal shooting case will be featured on an episode of Dateline NBC. Michelle O’Keefe was an 18-year-old college student who was found dead in her car in a dark parking lot in California in 2000. The man who was arrested for the murder was Raymond Lee Jennings, a security guard who worked at the lot. Since then, there have been three trials. The first two ended in deadlocks with the third trial ending in a guilty verdict for Jennings. Today, he is still serving out his 40-year sentence for murder.

Michelle O’Keefe’s case was in the news in 2000, after law enforcement officials were called to the scene located at a Park and Ride car lot near the Antelope Valley Freeway in California. In the car, they found the body of a white female with gunshot wounds to the face and chest. One leg dangled outside of the vehicle and her hand was found clenched in her lap. The woman was identified as Antelope Valley College student Michelle O’Keefe, from Palmdale.

Police had no clues as to who could have committed such a vicious crime against the young woman. An investigation revealed that Michelle O’Keefe had just left a videotaping for a Kid Rock music video and was headed to class. That particular parking lot was one where she felt safe because it had on-site security guards. The last person to see her alive was her friend, who told police that she was sure that O’Keefe had left the parking lot directly behind her. What her friend didn’t know was that Michelle O’Keefe had decided to change clothes in the dark parking lot, but moved her car to what she thought was a safer location inside the lot.

The case baffled the police. There were no clues, no witnesses, and no weapons found at the murder scene. At first, authorities speculated that Michelle had been carjacked or robbed. An attempted sexual assault was also a possibility. Crime investigators also believed that she was killed by someone she didn’t know. One stranger that police believed knew a little too much about the case was a security guard on duty that night named Raymond Lee Jennings. The investigators’ suspicions were confirmed after Sylvia Brown, a well-known psychic on The Montel Williams Show, told Michelle O’Keefe’s parents that a white man named Lee killed their daughter. She also told the grieving parents that the killer wore a badge and had on a blue uniform.

Raymond Lee Jennings was eventually arrested for murder. But with little evidence, it was tough to get a conviction. After two deadlocked juries, a third one found him guilty of murder. But people who know Raymond Lee Jennings say that he couldn’t have done it, and that there is absolutely no solid evidence against him. Others say the police acted out of haste and based their entire case on the psychic and the fact that Jennings knew too much about the case.

Today, he has a number of supporters who are fighting for him to be released from prison. Sylvia Brown was the same psychic who told the mother of Cleveland kidnapping victim Amanda Berry that her daughter was dead when she appeared on The Montel Williams Show in 2004. Amanda Berry’s mother died shortly after from a broken heart, according to family members. Brown was heavily criticized and heartbroken over the error that she made. She died in November, 2013.

Tune in to Dateline Sunday and weigh in on whether you believe Raymond Lee Jennings is a killer or a man wrongly accused.