Credit: Santa Clara DA
Serial killer John Getreu pleaded guilty Tuesday to the murder of Leslie Perlov, a Stanford Law librarian, in 1973.
Perlov’s body was discovered in the hills that overlook the Stanford campus on Feb. 16, 1973. A floral scarf was found tightly knotted around her neck and had been used as a ligature to strangle her to death.
Getreu was charged in 2018 after Santa Clara County DA criminalists matched DNA found under the fingernails of Perlov to the now 78-year-old man.
After his sentencing on April 26, 2023, Getreu will spend the rest of his life in prison.
“Justice for Leslie Perlov and her loved ones took a very long time, but it is has arrived,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said. “This serial rapist and murderer will spend the rest of his life in prison.”
Getreu is believed to have committed a string of sexual assaults and at least three slayings, two part of a pattern in the 1970s commonly known as “The Stanford murders.” Getreu used to live near Stanford and once worked at the Stanford Medical Center.
In September 2021, Getreu was convicted of the murder of Janet Taylor, 21, the daughter of Chuck Taylor, the university’s football coach and athletic director.
The victim was last seen hitchhiking on the western edge of the Stanford campus on March 24, 1974. Her body was discovered on the side of a road by a truck driver.
In 2018, investigators were led to Getreu after submitting DNA evidence to the Virginia-based DNA technology company Parabon NanoLab, which uses the public genealogical database GEDmatch to generate a number of family trees connected to the sample.
Getreu also spent five years in prison after being convicted in the rape and death of a woman in West Germany in 1964.
Republished courtesy of Santa Clara DA. The Associated Press contributed to this report.