Pat Pemberton

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. — Eight months after 15-year-old Elyse Pahler mysteriously vanished from her Arroyo Grande home, another teenager, overwhelmed with guilt, told a pastor about the horrible things he and his two buddies had done.

After Royce Casey subsequently confessed to law enforcement and led detectives to Pahler’s decomposed body, news accounts of the crime would shock the community with details of barbaric violence, death metal music and alleged Satan worship.

“It’s perpetually described as one of the most notorious cases in the county,” said Charles Carbone, a prison rights attorney.

On Friday, 30 years after the gruesome murder, Casey walked out of the Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, set free by a parole board. A month earlier, a co-defendant, Jacob Delashm

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