Search for serial killer victim suspended

This comes from City News service, and appears in the Contra Costa Times:

MOORPARK - Authorities today planned to call off the search for the body of a 16-year-old San Fernando Valley boy missing since 1968 who was believed to have been buried next to a Ventura County freeway.

Unless there is "some compelling evidence," the search for the remains of Roger Dale Madison will be called off and a memorial service for the teen will be held at the site starting at 11 a.m., according to the Los Angeles Police Department. His sister was expected to be on hand, police said.

The search had been concentrated along the 23 Freeway at the Tierra Rejada Road offramp, where a 12-foot-deep pit was excavated.

Digging began there Monday, as cold-case investigators from a half-dozen jurisdictions, most of them volunteers working on their days off, searched for the remains of the boy, who was last seen just before Christmas 1968.