The Last Person to See Marina Habe Alive
While no police report has been released in the Marina Habe case, certain patterns in abduction cases offer insight. Criminological research indicates that many abductions are carried out by individuals familiar with the victim. Additionally, standard investigative protocol places particular emphasis on the last person known to have seen the victim alive, as this individual is often a primary subject of interest.
In Marina’s case, this person was John Hornburg.
Hornburg spent approximately three hours alone with Marina before her disappearance—a significant stretch of unaccounted time. What occurred during this interval remains unknown. Hornburg’s only verified statements were that she changed clothes at his residence and left at 3:15 a.m.
A critical vulnerability in the investigation is the reliance on Hornburg’s testimony, as no independent witnesses or physical evidence exist in the public record to corroborate his claim that Marina left his residence.
This uncertainty also gives rise to the staged car theory. If Marina’s car was returned to her home to create the appearance that she arrived safely, it could have delayed the filing of a missing persons report.
In homicide investigations, detectives evaluate suspects based on motive, opportunity, and means. In Hornburg’s case, all three aligned.
- Motive: The brutality of the attack suggested overkill—driven by rage, jealousy, or betrayal—all plausible motives given that he and Marina were on a date and spent the evening together until the early hours.
- Opportunity: Hornburg acknowledged being the last person to see her alive, providing him with a clear opportunity.
- Means: The nature of the attack required physical force rather than specialized weaponry. Hornburg likely possessed the physical capability to overpower Marina.
On the day Marina’s body was found, Hornburg’s status in the investigation likely shifted from a person of interest to a suspect. This follows standard protocol: when the victim’s last known movements depend entirely on the unverified account of one person, that individual naturally becomes a central focus.
While Hornburg had been interviewed following the initial disappearance, the discovery of the body escalated the case to a homicide investigation.
Detectives would have sought to interview him again, at which point any questioning would have required Miranda warnings. This marked a transition in the investigation, as any subsequent statements—or a decision to remain silent—would have legal consequences. It is not known whether Hornburg spoke with police after Marina’s body was found.
Hornburg Moved to Arizona After the Murder
Following Marina Habe’s murder, John Hornburg relocated to Arizona. He did not return to Los Angeles until 1989, when he assumed management of his father’s car dealership on Sunset Boulevard. From an investigative standpoint, this relocation created significant jurisdictional hurdles.
While California detectives could request a voluntary interview, they lacked the authority to compel testimony or initiate an arrest across state lines without the high threshold of probable cause required for extradition.
While his move to Arizona could suggest he was avoiding legal action, it’s also plausible that he simply sought to escape the intense public scrutiny and unwanted attention after newspapers widely published his name and address as the last person seen with Marina.
Was Hornburg Marina Habe’s Boyfriend?
Although Marina Habe and John Hornburg were on a date the night she disappeared, her family stated that they were not romantically involved and had been childhood friends. The Habe and Hornburg families had known one another for more than a decade. Family members also stated that Marina was seeing someone else, though no name or identifying details were provided.
Investigators may have considered whether jealousy played a role—specifically, whether an unidentified boyfriend acted after learning that she had gone out and spent the night with Hornburg.
Without knowing this individual’s identity, his whereabouts, background, and potential involvement cannot be evaluated. Aside from family statements, no independent information about him appears in the record. The only details reported are that he may have been in the military and that his relationship with Marina was considered serious.
Conversely, the “childhood friend” dynamic does not rule out Hornburg as a suspect. If Hornburg sought a romantic relationship that she declined—potentially because of her commitment to the unidentified boyfriend—the rejection could have served as a catalyst for resentment or rage.
Expert Perspective: Tom O’Neill’s View of Hornburg
During my correspondence with Tom O’Neill, author of Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, he confirmed that he had investigated Marina Habe’s case extensively and had examined several potential suspects, including John Hornburg and an outlaw biker nicknamed “Spanky” (discussed further below).
O’Neill told me that he personally leaned toward John Hornburg as the more likely suspect, based on interviews with Marina’s mother, stepbrother, and friends (including those present the night she disappeared), as well as several detectives assigned to the Habe case. He further explained that he tried hard to secure an interview with Hornburg, but Hornburg repeatedly refused to speak with him.
The Co-Ed Killer: A Serial Offender
After considering Hornburg and others connected to Marina, detectives also explored cases with similar patterns. In doing so, they came across a suspected serial killer believed to have killed seven women from 1967 to 1969.
Homicide detectives investigated John Norman Collins, known as the Co-Ed Killer, as a suspect in Marina Habe’s murder. Notably, Marina herself was a college co-ed at the time of her death—a term once commonly used to refer to female college students. They explored whether Marina and 17-year-old Roxie Ann Phillips, found dead in California on July 13, 1969, were victims of the same killer.1
All of Collins’ suspected victims were young women who were abducted, raped, beaten, and either strangled or stabbed to death. This pattern strongly aligns with the circumstances surrounding Marina’s murder.
Although suspected of seven murders, Collins was convicted of only one: the murder of Karen Sue Beineman. Despite sufficient evidence to indict him for the murder of Roxie Ann Phillips, Collins avoided extradition to California and was never tried.2
At the time of Marina’s murder, Collins was 21 years old, matching the age of the man Marina’s mother reported seeing in the driveway. However, detectives were unable to definitively link him to the Habe case.
A Violent Outlaw Biker: Spanky
In a 1988 L.A. Magazine article, Marina Habe’s stepbrother revealed that one of the homicide detectives working the case suspected a drug-dealing outlaw biker known as ‘Spanky’ might have been responsible for the crime. The article noted that Spanky was already deceased by the time of its publication.3
One potential candidate for Spanky is Kirk ‘Spanky’ Smyth, who was mentioned in a newspaper article as the best man at a 1984 prison wedding of an Aryan Brotherhood member and was once caught smuggling a Buck knife into the prison in his rectum.4 However, no definitive evidence links Smyth to Marina’s case.
Rumors linking Smyth to the suspect “Spanky” seem to have originated from a single 2008 newspaper mention—unrelated to Marina Habe’s case—and a 2015 blog comment that was widely repeated. Over time, this repetition led the claim to be treated as fact and cited as such in podcasts and blog comments.
However, anyone claiming to know for certain that Smyth was the suspect is presenting unverified claims as facts, as this has never been officially confirmed.
Establishing Spanky’s true identity is challenging (he has now been identified — see the section below) because no official homicide investigation report on the Habe case has been released, leaving much of the information to speculation.
A request for the report was submitted to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD), but, like most requests for cold cases, it was denied.
New Information Regarding Spanky
In late 2025, I was contacted by a man who said that his father—surnamed Rothbard—was the individual known as “Spanky” in the Marina Habe case. He explained that author Tom O’Neill had previously spoken with his family about Spanky. I reached out to O’Neill, who confirmed that Rothbard was the “Spanky” referenced by homicide investigators and that he may have had some peripheral connection to the Manson Family.
O’Neill also confirmed that his reporting had led him to the Rothbards and that he had spoken with Rothbard’s friends, wives, and girlfriends; however, he emphasized that he never found solid evidence linking Rothbard to Marina’s murder.
He noted that Rothbard may appear in a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department interview with Manson Family member Bill Vance, who claimed that a biker named Spanky was responsible for Marina’s murder. Beyond those references, O’Neill did not find any corroboration.
Based on what O’Neill told me, I strongly suspect that Vance was the same individual referenced by Ed Sanders in The Family, in which Sanders wrote that Marina Habe was known to members of the Manson Family but did not specify which member provided the information.
Importantly, O’Neill reiterated that while Rothbard, aka Spanky, may have been involved, he did not see sufficient evidence to draw that conclusion and ultimately leaned toward John Hornburg as the more likely suspect. Maury Terry, author of The Ultimate Evil, reached a similar assessment, noting that the evidence against Spanky was weak.
Driving Down Sunset Boulevard
Could Marina have been abducted by a violent outlaw biker? What are the chances of her meeting a serial offender or outlaw biker early Monday morning, around 3:15 a.m.? Let’s examine her route.
The fastest route between John Hornburg’s home at 13326 Sunset Boulevard and Marina’s home at 8962 Cynthia Street is about 8 miles, or a 20-minute drive. This is likely the route Marina took, as she reportedly left Hornburg’s home around 3:15 a.m. and apparently arrived at her mother’s home around 3:30 a.m.
If Marina did, in fact, drive herself home, her route would have begun by heading east on Sunset Boulevard. After covering most of the distance—approximately 7.5 miles—on Sunset, she would have passed through the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, which was just a few blocks from her home.
She would have turned right onto Phyllis Street, followed by another right onto Doheny Drive. A final left turn would have brought her to Cynthia Street and her destination.
Even on a Sunday night and early Monday morning, the Strip—famous for its vibrant nightlife—would have been buzzing with activity.
The counterculture movement of the 1960s was in full swing, and with it came shifts in drug use. Communal LSD use gave way to methamphetamine, coinciding with a rise in violent crime and an increased presence of dealers around clubs, bars, and music venues, particularly on the Sunset Strip.
A Group Known to Visit Sunset Boulevard
In late 1969, investigators began focusing on a communal group that frequently gathered along Sunset Boulevard and the Sunset Strip—the same area where Marina Habe lived. This group was known as The Family.
- –Possible Link Between Habe and Coed Killings ↩︎
- –Michigan Murders, Wikipedia ↩︎
- –The Charlie Conspiracy, 1988, Lamag.com
*Archived copy of the original page ↩︎ - –A Bond Stronger Than Bars, 2008, L.A. Times
*Archived Copy of the Original Page ↩︎