Ronald Dean Smith was a five-year-old boy who disappeared on August 24, 1974, after playing at a local park while his grandmother Shirley O’Conner babysat him. When he did not return home for dinner an extensive search produced no immediate clues.

On October 13, 1974, children collecting beer cans along Ortega Highway near El Cariso Village in Riverside County found a body. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said the remains matched Ronald’s description; decomposition prevented facial identification, but the clothing matched what he had been wearing at the time he went missing. An autopsy determined Ronald had been murdered.

Investigators were unable to identify a suspect for several years. In 1978 Patrick Wayne Kearney, later known as the Trash Bag Killer, was charged in multiple murders and ultimately confessed to Ronald’s killing. Kearney was convicted of multiple counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

If anyone knew Ronald, his movements that day, or remembers activity along Ortega Highway in late summer 1974, please share what you know.