Darrell Attardo and Stephanie Anderson

Darrell and Stephanie’s story

On Tuesday, Oct. 30, 1984, around 12:45 p.m., a roommate came home to a small house on 9th Street in Sunset Beach and found Darrell Attardo and Stephanie Anderson dead. Both had been stabbed multiple times. The house had been ransacked, drawers pulled out, and a safe ripped from a closet. Neighbors told reporters they had heard nothing unusual. No one has been charged. [1][3]

Who Darrell and Stephanie were

Darrell was 25 or 26 and Stephanie was 20. The manager of a neighborhood market described them to a reporter as a “perfect beach couple,” blond and devoted to the ocean. Stephanie had been in the market around 9 a.m. that morning. A friend later recalled that the couple had been at a Halloween party the night before. [3][4]

The Sheriff’s Department says Darrell was alleged to be involved in illegal drug activity. It also says there is no evidence Stephanie was involved in his business, and that she may have been “a victim of circumstance.” That allegation has never been tested in court, and its basis hasn’t been made public. [1]

What happened

What’s public is this:

• About 9 a.m.: Stephanie is seen at Woody’s Market. [3]
• Sometime that morning or around midday: someone enters the house, restrains the couple, and stabs them both repeatedly. The house is searched and the closet safe is torn out. [1]
• About 12:45 p.m.: a roommate who has been out comes home, finds them and runs outside calling for police. [3]

The Sheriff’s Department’s summary refers to “unknown intruders,” plural. [1]

Where it happened

Sunset Beach was a narrow strip of beach cottages between Seal Beach and Huntington Beach. In 1984 it was unincorporated county land policed by the Sheriff’s Department. It became part of Huntington Beach in 2011. [2]

What investigators have said

Investigators said at the time that they had no suspects and no motive. The Sheriff’s Department says it kept an open mind about leads, and still hopes for new information. [1][3]

Where accounts differ

• Where they were found. The official summary says the couple were restrained in a bedroom; the 1984 Daily Pilot reported they were on the living-room floor. [1][3]
• Names and ages. The official summary gives “Anderson” and Darrell’s age as 25; the Pilot gives “Andersen” and 26.
• Injuries. A friend’s account written decades later describes injuries that differ from the official summary and the 1984 report. Those details are unconfirmed. [4]

Open questions

• What was in the safe, and was it ever found?
• How many people entered the house, and how did they carry off a safe in daylight unnoticed?
• Who knew there was a safe in the closet?

What you can do

• If you lived on or near 9th Street in Sunset Beach in late October 1984, or saw people or a vehicle at the house that morning, contact the cold case team.
• If you know where the safe went, investigators want to hear it, even now.
• Research: the full Daily Pilot report, including its continuation page, is scanned in the Newport Beach Public Library’s archive. The Register and the LA Times Orange County edition for Oct. 31 to Nov. 3, 1984 are available through library databases. [3]