Dana Point Man Believed Slain : Disappearance Stories Led to Murder Charge

It was the contradictory stories explaining the disappearance of his former roommate that finally got Timothy James Keene into trouble.

Keene--who grew up in Newport Beach before moving to Boulder, Colo., with his friend Michael Meteer--at first told a friend that Meteer had committed suicide and that the death was kept a secret so as not to shock Meteer’s mother.

Then Keene told another friend that Meteer died after he hit his head on the bumper of a pickup truck during an altercation.

Newport Beach and Boulder police, who have been investigating the disappearance of the former Dana Point resident 2 1/2 years ago, arrested Keene in Buena Park on Saturday and were preparing Wednesday for his extradition to Colorado, where he will face murder charges.

Police said they believe Keene dumped the body of Meteer, who was then 29, in the desert somewhere between Colorado and Orange County, but so far no body has been found.

Keene’s arrest on a homicide charge ended a long wait for Olga Meteer, the victim’s mother, who has long believed that her son is dead.

“I could not believe that he was missing,” she said Wednesday. “He would have contacted me by now, no matter where he was.”

The arrest also brings expectations that her son’s disappearance will finally be solved. “If (Keene) didn’t kill him, then at least he will know what happened,” she said.

“This has practically destroyed our family,” she said, noting that her husband and three other children have all suffered physical ailments from the stress of not knowing Michael Meteer’s fate. “It is the most frantic thing to lose a child.”

According to Newport Beach Officer Robert Oakley, Meteer and Keene moved to an apartment in Colorado in 1985. Meteer’s mother said her son left the county after going through a traumatic divorce, while Keene left because of trouble with the law.

Meteer was first reported missing Oct. 17, when he failed to show up for his job as a car salesman, which he had begun 10 days earlier. Keene told Boulder police then that he knew nothing of his roommate’s whereabouts.

On Oct. 25, 1985, Keene was arrested by Costa Mesa police, who found him driving Meteer’s Silver Volkswagen Scirocco. Keene had several outstanding drunk-driving arrest warrants, with bail totaling $20,000, Oakley said. He was arrested and taken to Orange County Jail.

Oakley said Keene then called a friend and asked her to sell the Scirocco and use the money to pay his bail. The friend, who was not identified, became suspicious and returned the car to Meteer’s mother. But while searching through the car, the friend found Meteer’s wallet--plus torn and blood-soaked clothes in the trunk.

According to Oakley, the bloodstained clothes were examined in New York by a blood specialist, who determined that the person who had worn the clothes could not have inflicted the wounds that produced the stains. Without Meteer’s body, police still did not believe they had enough evidence against Keene. But then Keene got out of jail after serving time for drunk driving and told friends conflicting stories about what had happened to his former roommate, Oakley said.

According to an affidavit filed at the courthouse in Boulder County, Keene met with two female friends at a restaurant in Costa Mesa in early May, 1987, and told them that Meteer had committed suicide.

Keene told the women that he had found his roommate hanging by a rope in the bathroom of their apartment, the affidavit said.

He told them that he took the body, wrapped it in a sheet and buried it under debris in the desert so Meteer’s mother would be spared the pain of knowing her son had committed suicide, according to the affidavit.

Keene sometime later told another friend he had known for 12 years that Meteer had been killed when he hit his head on the bumper of a pickup truck during a fight they were having, the affidavit said. Keene told this friend that the argument with Meteer began in a bar after work on Oct. 17, 1985.

Keene told the friend that he took the body and dumped it in Utah or Nevada, but he did not remember exactly where, the affidavit reads.

“At that time, Boulder police said, ‘Something is not right here’ and came to Orange County to arrest Keene,” Oakley said.

Keene was arrested Saturday night in a home he shared with a friend in the 7000 block of Jackson Way in Buena Park.

Extradition proceedings are being processed while Keene is being held on $52,500 bail, Oakley said.

It has taken nearly 2 1/2 years for police to solve the disappearance of her son, who is survived by two children, but Olga Meteer is not bitter.

“The police have done an awfully good job,” she said. “I’m just very happy that this guy is in jail.”