On February 19, 1997, 12-year-old Brendan Neal Abernathy and his father, Neal Abernathy, were found murdered in their home on Dunham Court in the Hercules by the Bay subdivision. Both victims had been tied with electrical cables and shot in the head; the scene was discovered by Brendan’s mother, Susan Abernathy, when she returned from work. Cupboards, cabinets, and drawers were open, and the only reported missing item was an antique amethyst necklace that had belonged to Susan’s grandmother.

Investigators compiled more than 600 pages of reports but were unable to identify a clear motive or perpetrators. The scene was staged to look like a robbery, yet police found no signs of forced entry and concluded the killings were probably not random. A handwritten note signed Someone who knows, thought to be written by a woman, and two anonymous phone calls emerged as leads but did not solve the case. On the murders’ 10th anniversary the department re-examined evidence and re-interviewed witnesses, but the core questions remain unanswered.

If anyone knew the Abernathy family, lived on Dunham Court in 1997, or has information about that antique necklace or the anonymous contacts, please come forward.