A 1986 Double Murder Cold Case in the Mojave Desert Is Finally Unraveling

On the afternoon before they disappeared in 1986, Barry and Louise Berman followed a bone-jarring road deep into the California desert. They were bound for the hot springs in Saline Valley, 50 miles from the nearest pavement and long a popular Mojave Desert draw for nudists and eccentrics. Desert campers who hung out with the couple the day they vanished had no clue that Barry was heir apparent to a vast fortune. liquor importer Jules Berman, became known as “Mr. Kahlua” after turning the Mexican coffee-flavored drink into America’s top-selling liqueur. In 1960, when Barry was 10, his father segued into real estate by buying private Lake Arrowhead, a vast mountain hideaway for Southern California gentry such as the O'Malleys and Dohenys. The elder Berman owned a Beverly Hills estate north of Sunset Boulevard, sailed a yacht christened Kahlua and drove a Rolls-Royce. His friend Pat Brown, governor of California, appointed him to the state athletic commission. But Barry was "repulsed by his dad's money and wanted to go the other way," recalls Brent Lieberman, a teenage buddy, now a surf photographer in Santa Barbara. Nearly three years after Barry and Louise Berman vanished, setting off one of the most elaborate searches of its era, the couple's bleached bones and bits of clothing were discovered after a desert hiker spotted a skull, uncovered by heavy rains. Police found the murdered couple's grave nearby — they were buried atop one another.