Santa Clara Handyman Found Guilty Three Decades After Killing Classmate

For 31 years, Mary Quigley's mother waited for her 17-year-old daughter's rape and murder to be solved. For 31 years, Brendan Murry, who used to walk the pretty blond-haired senior home from Santa Clara High School, wondered who it was that instilled fear into the community and got away with stringing Quigley's body up from a park fence.

And for most of that time, Richard Archibeque lived as a free man, getting married, divorced and raising a daughter who is now the same age as Quigley was the night of her gruesome death.

After three decades — and three days of deliberation — a jury found Archibeque guilty of first-degree murder for the death of his former classmate.

Even before the jury entered the courtroom, Archibeque — whose glass eye was an identifying mark that helped convict him of raping a different woman in 1980 — was wiping away tears.

For Quigley's mother, there were no tears, just relief. She had sat through the 2 1/2-week trial in San Jose's Hall of Justice and listened to 25 witnesses recalling events from the 1970s.

"I am so grateful that police and our society didn't forget, didn't quit looking," said Quigley's mother, Janice Goodman. "It doesn't bring her back, but at least I know what happened and that's more than I ever had before."

He appeared in court for the verdict, as did his old high school friend, Michael Knoy, who has kept the case alive on the Web site www.maryquigley.net, and offered rewards for information to help solve her killing.

"She was magical," said Knoy, who broke down in tears when the verdict was read. "There was just something special about her."

""In eighth grade, he would be sitting in class and pull out his eyeball and play with it on his desk."

A fellow Marine friend would join our group of young former Marines and a Corpsman on our frequent visits to the "gaming boats" of Mississippi and Louisiana. Oh, how I long for being young and single again....

Whenever he felt like scamming some comps, free meals or drinks - he would pop out his glass eye, roll it across the table while faking a quiet whimper, and say "Here, take this as my IOU - it's the only thing I've got to show for a tour in Vietnam"..

It ALWAYS worked at least ONCE at each location.....,
The greatest hazard to the scam, would be one of the other drunk former Marines with us cracking and laugh at Cliff's familiar scam... That happened a few times....

Today, Cliff is a happy, healthy and comfortably retired lawyer - who is still known to pop out his eye in the wee hours of the morning in a bar.... It STILL works.

You would be amazed at how many lovely ladies IMMEDIATELY move toward him during these scams - and want to comfort and mother him...... They were not the least bit put off by the grossness of his exposed eye socket... Amazing. Cliff is a genuine rogue - and I love him.

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