The comments by Joseph Naso, 78, came during a preliminary hearing Tuesday in his murder trial. Naso Could be Eligble for the Death Penalty. A group of officers had descended to search every corner of Naso's house. There was a passport and driving licence in the name of Sara Dylan, a woman who used to be called Renee Shapiro. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. "The person has travelled around the country, has been engaged with law enforcement across the country." "We think there are others out there we haven't discovered yet," said Chris Perry, director of the Nevada Department of Public Safety. Naso mentioned Healdsburg in a hand-written list detectives found at his Reno, Nev., home among photographs Naso took of women who appeared dead or unconscious, according to court testimony.. Additionally, the box contained a list that included the phrases "Girl from Port Costa," "Girl from Logunitas," "Girl from Linda (Yuba County)," and "Girl from MRV (cemetery)," with MRV supposedly meaning Marysville, according to Slote. Jacobs said he did, but noted that the women in Nasos pictures appeared in unnatural, uncomfortable or unsustainable positions. (Marin Independent Journal, Robert Tong / AP Photo). The jury of six men and six women in Marin County Superior Court deliberated for about eight hours over two days before finding Joseph Naso, 79, guilty of killing the women with alliterative names . The bespectacled Naso, who sat alone at the defense table in his red-and-white-striped jail clothes, struggled throughout his cross examination, often launching into long statements instead of asking questions. She was No. Each time he got away with petty theft or another attack on a woman, he became more confident and as his confidence grew his desires increased requiring more violence and more depravity to fulfill them. The authorities still don't know who she is. She told apreliminary hearing earlier this year that her former husband once told her he had given her something to knock her out and that twice in the summer of 1976 she believed she was drugged and sexually assaulted. While searching his home, authorities discovered a handwritten diary in which Naso listed ten unnamed women with geographical locations. Curiously all four womens names began with the same initials leading many to suspect Naso of the three similar Alphabet Murders in Rochester, New York between 1971 and 1973 however, no evidence linking Joseph Naso to these murders has been found. Authorities say the DNA of Naso's ex-wife was found on the hose. SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - A former photographer accused of killing four Northern California women with matching initials in the 1970s and 1990s defended disturbing pictures of women that were found in his Nevada home, saying they were created for magazines that featured such work. They are paid experts., He also said preliminary hearing testimony and prosecutor statements were opinions, speculations, theories but not evidence., An Alleged 'Serial Murderer and Serial Rapist'. Naso was standing there, watching. The only DNA evidence from the New York murders does not match Naso's. 1958." If anything, they were even more horrific with graphic descriptions of bondage, torture and murder. If Naso has spent more than half a century committing the appalling crimes the authorities now suspect he is responsible for, there is also evidence he could have been stopped early on. SAN RAFAEL, Calif. (KGO) -- Monday evening, the ABC7 News I-Team landed the first interview with serial killer Joe Naso, sentenced to death row last week for killing six women from the late 1970's . need your help for this. "Joe started strangling me in the middle of the night," she said. Visit our, List of 10: The True Story of Serial Killer Joseph Naso. It was nothing more than a lined sheet of paper that read, List of 10, but shortly after its discovery, a task force was created, and a serial killer was nabbed. Six other women referred to on the list have not yet been identified, but prosecutors say the investigation is ongoing. killings," were young. Slote said the list refers to the four murder victims. 2 on the list was "Girl near Port Costa," Jacobs said. Joseph Naso, 78, owned journals that contained dozens of sexual and violent images of women. "The last entry on the list made reference to a girl from Marysville, with (cemetery) written next to it," the documents state. One of them picked up the aluminium clipboard on the dining room table. The 79-year-old former commercial photographer, who was living in Reno when he was arrested in 2011, said the prosecution's evidence about two other murders that he is suspected of committing and. Court documents state that Naso had photographed Parsons. Joseph Naso an American serial killer known as The Double Initial Killer and Crazy Joe. Page after page of what the police came to call the "rape diary" was filled with similar records of Naso's assaults on women. Serial killing suspect Joseph Naso kept a numbered list of 10 women, including four prostitutes he is charged with killing, plus photos and news clippings, court documents reveal. There are six men and six women on the jury panel and nine alternate jurors. Joseph Naso (born January 7, 1934) is an American serial killer and serial rapist sentenced to death for the murders of four women. The photos and the list led to Nasos arrest for the murders of the four prostitutes in April and his extradition to California from Nevada. List of serial killers in the United States, List of serial killers by number of victims, "Marin prosecutors link killer Naso to Tiburon victim in 1981", "The Case of the Double Initial Murders: An odd history", "The Case of the Double Initial Murders: Crazy Joe", "Slaying suspect Joseph Naso kept notes on victims", "The Case of the Double Initial Murders: Victims", "Joseph Naso accused in Dylan fan's disappearance", "Marin judge sentences Joseph Naso to death row for murders of six women", "Has the alphabet murderer finally been caught? Next to each was the word "Girl" or "Lady" and a location. Officer Wesley Jackson's last stop for the day was a modest white bungalow on a dead-end street cracked dry by the Nevada desert sun. Six other women referred to on the list have not yet been identified, but prosecutors say the investigation is ongoing. In the 1970s he moved across the country to California, settling in the San Francisco area. View . "Do you agree that in magazines you see similar images as in movies of people posing to appear deceased?" No. Marin County District Attorney Ed Berberian, who is prosecuting the case, would not comment on whether investigators had made progress in looking at the six other women and locations mentioned on Naso's list. Joseph Naso was married once and even had two sons (one of which suffered from schizophrenia, and who Naso apparently took good care of), worked as a freelance photographer and in his spare time he killed prostitutes. A diary documenting the rapes and sexual assaults of underage girls and women was found alongside posed photographs of two murder victims in the home of a suspected serial killer, a court has heard. Certainly the police missed several opportunities to curb his attacks. name as one of Naso's alleged victims. the Murderpedia project stay alive. Its loose talk I use, he said. Convicted of the murder of four young women in 2016 he now sits on death row as a man in his 80's who will no doubt die alone and despised in the same solitary space. Naso acknowledged in an interview with authorities that he photographed a number of women, including prostitutes. At the time Naso began logging his sex attacks in the "rape diary" in the 1950s, he was living in New York. In a preliminary court appearance earlier this year, shackled and wearing a red and white striped prison uniform, he described the pictures of naked women scattered around his house as his "romancing" and accused prosecutors of misunderstanding his use of the word "rape". Across the room the officer spotted a pair of mannequin legs turned upside down and fitted with nylon stockings. Naso lived in the Marysville area in Yuba County around the time Parsons and Tafoya were killed, she said. In reality, it was supposed to be ten women, of which four were unidentified. After serving in the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s, he met his first wife, Judith. Colon's decomposed body was found near Port Costa 1978 by a California Highway Patrol officer in Contra Costa County. documenting the rapes and sexual Serial killing suspect Joseph Naso kept a numbered list of 10 women including the four prostitutes he is charged with killing and kept news clippings of the killings in a safety deposit box, authorities said in documents released Thursday that shed new light on the bizarre case. The piles of photographs, notebooks and a string of other evidence discovered in Naso's house point to a serial rapist who attacked women across the United States for more than half a century and who, in time, graduated to serial murder. were Marin County prosecutor Rosemary Slote showed the photographs during her opening statement in the trial of Joseph Naso, who she called a "serial rapist and murderer." . "There are probably more. Jacobs said he did, but noted that the women in Naso's pictures appeared in "unnatural, uncomfortable or unsustainable" positions. He likened the photographs to a horror movie, saying the disturbing images were created for magazines that featured such work. Joesph Naso kept a diary of his depraved acts on young women. The documents state that Naso had photographed at least one of the victims he is charged with killing: Parsons. Parsons strangled body was found in Yuba City in 1993, where Naso was living at the time with his mentally ill son. Colons decomposed body was found near Port Costa 1978 by a California Highway Patrol officer in Contra Costa County. Another suspect, an uncle of one of the murdered girls, also committed suicide and is now thought unlikely to be the murderer. Like Naso's alleged victims, the three girls In the 1990s he moved on to Nevada, where he was finally captured. The search turned up a separate stash of notebooks written years later. [2], Naso took classes in various San Francisco colleges in the 1970s and lived in the Mission District of San Francisco and then in Piedmont, California, in the 1980s. To tell the story of the victims requires a level of thought over what they went through and how that period in the company of this abhorrent man played out before their deaths. I dont do that. He asked his former wife if he had ever physically abused or threatened her, or if she had ever heard of him harming another person. Tafoya was killed in Yuba City when Naso lived there. She reported the attack to the police at the time, but said they suggested she was trying to make her boyfriend jealous. Naso photographed nude and partially nude women in heels, lingerie and garters in poses that made them appear dead, incapacitated or unconscious, according to evidence presented at Naso's. A spot in hell has been saved for Joseph Naso. In the afternoon, Naso told the jury he is innocent, arguing there is no evidence linking him to the four homicides, and showed a variety of his photography, including multiple snapshots of naked or half-naked women, to the jury. An elderly man, Joseph Naso Joe to everyone but the justice system knew as much as he unlocked the gate and let the officer in. They were discovered in the former photographer's home in Reno, Nevada, by a probation officer in. Naso was charged with rape at least twice. It is an intense and gripping read which keeps the attention on the innocent victims of Joseph Naso and the tragedy of their lives being cut short and ending in such violence. (IJ. match the DNA left on Walcowicz. But even without a warrant, Jackson was free to rifle through the house on the outer reaches of Reno at any time he chose. . She was real pretty. No. Straddling Peters Mountain, the 803-acre Joseph E. Ibberson Conservation Area is dominated by large hardwood trees. Former photographer Joseph Naso, a 79-year-old former photographer, was convicted of killing Roxene Roggasch, Carmen Colon, Pamela Parsons, and Tracy Tafoya. The level of disgust felt about Naso increases which each new denial, narcissistic comment or outburst of anger. This is a powerful book that does not sensationalize Joseph Naso; rather it reveals in harrowing detail the depraved individual that he is. Once this list was discovered the task of police investigators was to identify the women on it and find out who they were and what happened to them. [3] His acquaintances nicknamed him "Crazy Joe" for his behavior. Investigators were looking into other unidentified references on Naso's macabre list. "DNA testing was done during which the DNA of Judith Naso was found on the panty hose around her neck," wrote Ryan Petersen, a Marin County sheriff's investigator. After serving in the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s, he met his first wife Judith. Im sorry about her demise, but I didnt do it.. He worked as a freelance photographer and had a long history of petty crimes such as shoplifting, which he committed even in his mid-seventies. A main attraction to the conservation area is the elaborate trail . Detective Richard Brown, who heads the Nevada investigation, said that the photo appears to be of a woman who is already dead. They were found strangled and dumped in locations around California over a span of 17 years between the 1970s and 1990s. Parsons' strangled body was found in Yuba City in 1993, where Naso was living at the time with his mentally ill son. Wake up to the day's most important news. The diary would come to form acentral part of the case against Naso, but there was more. November 1968: 4: Japan : Mahanand NAIK. He was also implicated in the murders of other women. Graphic nude images of his victims in weird poses Naso had worked as a photographer were also found in the search of his home. I just wanted to tell you that story to show that people do hitchhike, he said. A terrifying and absolutely nightmarish serial killer, Naso took pride in his gruesome work and kept a diary wherein he detailed the murders and other crimes he had committed. But William asked his mother about it in the morning. According to Naso's own diary, when the mother of one under-age girl he had sex with went to New York police, the officer's response was to warn him to leave town. He was resident in the city, but later shifted upstate. In the midst of the clutter lay a single sheet of paper with a handwritten list of numbers up to 10. Chelsi Williams of George Jenkins had a dominant day at the St. He liked to record what he had done and had been doing all his adult life with a now bulging record of awful contents that horrified the jury members who had to listen to it during his trial. They show the victims from the waist down with the discoloured skin characteristic of corpses. He shot back: "That was back in the 50s.". Swinney has done an excellent job in telling it. Joseph Naso may not be a name you are familiar with, but by the time you have finished this book, it is a name you will never forget. He even took numerous photographs of his victims and kept them in his house as a macabre secret. Another double-initial killing. Another, recorded at about the same time, said: "Salina, Kansas girl Ifollowed and met at Fred Astaire dance studio. It doesnt make it look like a photograph.. Naso. This large block of nearly unbroken forest is a haven for wildlife like forest warblers and other deep woods animals. Joseph Naso is a repulsive individual who displays all the traits of a true narcissist . "I wish Icould remember better," she said. How the courts decide, We might not be able to understand free will with science. It means making out and having great sex. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. He was also found to be in possession of newspaper articles about the killings of two of the other women. Let's talk about the not so picture perfect life of Joseph Naso. Because of the earlier careful attention paid to the experiences of each of these women, the arrogance and the denials of Joseph Naso hit home harder. Swinney then stops to examine Joseph Naso in more detail, look at his background, his childhood history and what factors may have been involved in the creation of this vile man and his progression into serial murder. She was No. Before he gave his opening statements, he expressed displeasure to Judge Andrew Sweet with the courtroom projector he would use to show his photography. t. e. A man with an exaggerated "Jewish nose" depicted on the cover of an early 20th century joke book. True crime author and San Francisco Bay police officer C.L. Colon, Michelle Maenza, Wanda Walcowicz Eventually they moved to New York and largely forgot about him. But Naso's work as a commercial photographer regularly took him back to New York state. 3 on Naso's macabre list of 10 women, the documents state, referred to as "Girl near Loganitas," whose body was found about four miles east of Lagunitas, a small town in Marin County. Accused serial killer Joseph Naso, left, talks with his legal adviser Pedro Oliveros as prosecutions made their opening statement on Monday, June 17, 2013, in Marin Superior Court in front of . In Naso's Reno, Nev., home and in a safety deposit box, investigators said they found numerous nude photos of women who appeared to be dead or passed out, along with logs and journals. during his arraignment on murder charges Naso is older now, but no less belligerent. When Does Medical Malpractice Become a Criminal Case? From the old man's notebooks, detectives believe he drugged, bound and held some of his victims prisoner at his house. Prosecutors have said they intend to seek capital punishment. Colleen previously lived at 7109 Mount Holly Rd, Waynesville OH 45068 for 3 years, starting in . Im not the monster who killed these women. Number seven reads: "Lady from 839 Leavenworth" the street address of a residence hotel in San Francisco managed by Naso in the 1980s. (AP Photo/Marin Independent Journal, Alan Dep, File) MAGS OUT; NO SALES; TV OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT, Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. Jacobs found the photos while searching Naso's home after he violated his probation when officers found ammunition on Naso's property in Reno, Nev. Jacobs said the photographs were near a list Naso had scrawled with descriptions of 10 women, including four references prosecutors believe describe victims Naso is charged with killing: Roxene Roggasch, Carmen Colon, Pamela Parsons and Tracy Tafoya. Jacobs found the photos while searching Nasos home after he violated his probation when officers found ammunition on Nasos property in Reno, Nev. Jacobs said the photographs were near a list Naso had scrawled with descriptions of 10 women, including four references prosecutors believe describe slaying victims Naso is charged with slaying: Roxene Roggasch, Carmen Colon, Pamela Parsons and Tracy Tafoya. home in connection with an unrelated gun conviction discovered numerous photographs of nude women posed in unnatural positions . No. A serial rapist before he progressed to murder, Joseph Naso had been stalking and attacking women for up to five decades before he was finally stopped. Naso has said all of the prosecution's evidence at that hearing was circumstantial. The body was later identified as Colon's. Papers everywhere. The prosecution is alleging that Naso met the women while he was working as a self-employed photographer. It wasn't uncommon for him to bring them home then try to explain why they were there to his wife. Matheson said that Naso wanted to have sex with her while she was unconscious. women alongside posed photographs of two murder victims. SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - A former photographer accused of killing four Northern California women with matching initials in the 1970s and 1990s defended disturbing pictures of women that were found in his Nevada home, saying they were created for magazines that featured such work. "This is my private work, my photography. Naso, dressed in a black suit and blue tie, sat expressionless as photographs of the victims were shown on large screens for the jury. In the 1990s he moved on to Nevada, where he was finally captured. Inside Naso's safety deposit box at a bank in Reno, investigators also found news articles about Parsons' death, Slote said. Joseph Naso (born January 7, 1934) is an American serial killer, sentenced to death for the murder of six women. . "That was all she did.". Photos Naso showed during his opening statements included portraits of him at a variety of ages and photos he took of weddings, families with small children and female models. Naso's habit of diligently recording every attack has given detectives a bewilderingly large source of leads as they attempt to piece together the picture of his suspected crimes. Some were apparently accounts of past crimes. Working as a photographer, he obsessively documented his crimes. He said the photos demonstrated the variety of professional photography he has done. Prosecutors say Naso extended a string of bizarre killings of women with alliterative names, with . Time Catches Up with a Serial Killer YouTube Naso was sentenced to death in 2013 and currently sits on California's death row. C.L. Datasets available include LCSH, BIBFRAME, LC Name Authorities, LC Classification, MARC codes, PREMIS vocabularies, ISO language codes, and more. Others looked knocked out, or worse. At the front door the policeman confronted a metal security gate and a black and red sign: Keep Out. He said his role is helping Naso with questions regarding the law and trial procedure. I didnt care for porno, but sexy pictures I thought were OK.. "Her face doesn't appear natural," he said. I saw numerous photographs of women in various unnatural positions, said Jacobs, who supervised Nasos probation for the Nevada Department of Public Safety. The safety deposit box also held a piece of paper on which Naso wrote: "May 4 1992 Monday pm" the time of the Dylan concert Shapiro never made it to. Others read more as instruction manuals for the carefully planned and prolonged deaths of individually named women yet to be captured. Still, a connection does exist, albeit tenuous. Probation officer Roger Jacobs was the first witness called at the preliminary hearing in the murder trial of Joseph Naso, 78. in Marin County Superior Court in San Rafael, Calif. on Wednesday, [10], Later, prosecutors Dori Ahana and Rosemary Sloat introduced evidence identifying Patton and Dylan. Photo: AP In time the winds of love blew. The photographs showed many women unconscious or appearing dead, including two prostitutes Naso is charged with killing, Pamela Parsons and Tracy Tafoya. New article updates and our free monthly Newsletter straight into your inbox. Their marriage lasted for 18 years, but after the divorce, Naso continued visiting his ex-wife, who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. The couple had a son named Charles who later developed schizophrenia, and Naso spent his later years caring for him. Now the question has arisen: was Shepherd's murder Naso's transition from killing girls to killing women? On one of the occasions she was at a San Francisco hotel after an evening at a nightclub with her husband. Another investigation added to the growing list of Naso's possible crimes. The first letters of the victims first and last names gave rise to suspects Double Initial nickname. Other women on the list included mentions of Healdsburg, a town in Northern California; Berkeley; and what appeared to be an address in San Francisco. On Monday Marin sheriff deputies arrested 77-year-old Joseph Naso minutes after he was released . Investigators found it at his home among lurid photos of women who appeared to be dead or unconscious. victims in the original "double initial 9 on the list, called "Girl from Linda," for the town in Yuba County where she was born. But prosecutors presented a trove of evidence collected from Naso's Reno, Nev. home, including photographs of partially nude women appearing dead or knocked out, and a journal describing rapes of . Scott Sonner / AP In this file photo from April 12, 2011, the home of Joseph Naso is seen in Reno. No. Joseph Naso (born January 7, 1934) is an American serial killer and serial rapist sentenced to death for the murders of four women. The policeman began with the bedrooms. The victim's headless body was found by a gardener in Foss Creek behind the Simi Winery. Many of these girls were prostitutes, women Naso saw as easy prey. The probable cause statement released Thursday states that Naso may have used his then-wife's panty hose to strangle Roggasch, a prostitute whose 1977 murder has been unsolved for decades. Joseph Naso, the 79-year-old man convicted last week of murdering and dumping four women in the 1970s and '90s, is also the prime suspect in the murder of a woman found in Tiburon in 1981,. Authorities have said DNA evidence collected from her fingernails could tie Naso to her slaying. The window was the only one in the house fitted with metal bars. She was gorgeous. "I can probably get half the women in this room to disrobe voluntarily," he said. What happens in a home is sacred and private. No. Sentencing Joseph Naso to death row in August 2016, Judge Sweet told him You being in the world Mr Naso, has made this world a worse place. In List of 10, C.L. William told investigators that he woke in the middle of the night to hear what he thought was the sound of someone being strangled. up. Naso was on probation in 2009 following a conviction for felony larceny in California. The photographer's credential of Joseph Naso, the alphabet killer. But even without a warrant, Jackson was free to rifle through the house on the outer reaches of Reno at any time he chose. Joseph Naso in court during closing arguments. The police monitored the conversation as Naso told her to enlist the help of their eldest son. He said the pictures showed nude women posed in "unnatural positions" who appeared dead or unconscious. At another time, she came round in her own bed to find one of her husband's friends lying on top of her. Although her cause of death remains undetermined, she is considered to be a possible victim of serial killer Joseph Naso. He lived in the Rochester area at the time of the girls' deaths and the New York state police describe him as a "person of interest" in a renewed investigation into which they are putting considerable resources. Cloud Invitational on Saturday winning the 100 meter hurdles in a US #2 wind-legal personal best time of 13.54, while leaping for a US #2 all-conditions personal best mark of 41'0.50" in the triple jump. [4], Nevada parole and probation authorities arrested Naso in April 2010. It stopped after a while and he went back to sleep. By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. period he was back visiting relatives, seemed to be a coincidence. "In my culture, and where I come from, it's a term for making out, scoring, getting to first base," he said. The more he tried to defend himself, laugh at witnesses and display abusive outbursts at the prosecution attorneys and the judge, the further he sank in the opinion of everyone around him highlighting more than anything else, that he was guilty of these crimes. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. "I use that term loosely" by which he meant he's from New York. But each time he walked away because sex crimes were regarded with indifference, at best, by the authorities of the time. 3 on Naso's list was "Girl from Loganitas," who prosecutors believe is Roggasch, whose body was found near Lagunitas, a small town near the coast in Marin County. The women have been violated. The families of the dead children have endured one failed investigation after another. When Naso's arrest was made public, the cold case detectives in Marin County Deputy District Attorney Rosemary Slote told jurors this morning that Naso's DNA was detected on the pantyhose Roggasch was wearing when she was found on the side of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard on the eastern slope of White's Hill in Fairfax. Joseph Naso, 79, killed four women between the 1970s and 1990s . Jackson went through the routine of saying he was there to do a search under the terms of Naso's probation for theft from a grocery store in neighbouring California. But the prosecutions appear to have gone nowhere and, in some cases, the police barely took the accusations seriously. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts. The glare is very distracting, he said. The Question of Why: Did Ted Bundy have Dissociative Identity Disorder? Naso has pleaded not guilty to the murders and is representing himself in what will likely be a death penalty case. The investigation is being led by detectives in Nevada, where Naso was living when he was arrested, but the evidence is taking them across the country, often led by a fragmentary clue which was little more than a reference to a county, a building or a cemetery.