DETECTIVES SORT OUT TIPS ON PARK AND RIDE SLAYING.

Byline: Greg Botonis Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Homicide detectives are combing through phone calls and letters offering information about last month's slaying of 18-year-old Michelle O'Keefe in a Palmdale Park and Ride lot.

Trying to separate fact from fantasy among the loads of information rolling in - ranging from minor details about the night of the murder to theories about who committed the crime and why - is an involved process, according to investigators.

``It's a very time-consuming process to offer both validity and priority to each piece of information we're getting,'' said Sgt. Rich Longshore. ``We've done everything that an initial site investigation can accomplish, now we just sort all this out.''

O'Keefe was found shot to death in the driver's seat of her 2000 Mustang just after 9:30 p.m. Feb. 22 in the lot on Avenue S east of the Antelope Valley Freeway. The car's engine was running, the driver's door was open and the car had been backed out of its parking space and over the curb of a planter.

Investigators say O'Keefe had left her car at the lot while she went with a friend to work as an extra in the taping of a music video for rapper Kid Rock.

Lab tests are still being done on much of the evidence in the case, but results are still several days and in some cases weeks away.

Sheriff's volunteers a week after O'Keefe's slaying handed out fliers to motorists at the Park and Ride lot, asking for the public's help in solving the case.

After the fliers were passed out, detectives said they started getting calls from people offering bits and pieces of information about the night of the shooting that many callers say they had dismissed or forgotten, Longshore said.

``From here out it's just shoe leather and phone calls and trying to sort through the little factual information we do have,'' Longshore said.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to call the sheriff's Homicide Bureau at [phone] or the Palmdale sheriff's station at [phone].