An alleged San Francisco Bay Area serial killer was convicted Tuesday of the murder of the daughter of former Stanford University athletic director Chuck Taylor nearly 50 years ago.
A San Mateo County jury took about an hour to convict John Getreu of strangling Janet Taylor, 21, who 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.
An email seeking comment from Getreu’s attorney, John Halley, wasn’t immediately returned Wednesday.
Getreu, 77, of Hayward, was a former employee of the Stanford Medical Center. Geneological DNA testing linked him to Taylor’s killing, investigators said.
Getreu also has pleaded not guilty to the 1973 killing of a Stanford graduate, 21-year-old Leslie Perlov, who was found near a Stanford-area running trail.
Authorities say both women were sexually assaulted and strangled.
Getreu also spent five years in prison after being convicted in the rape and death of a woman in West Germany in 1964.
Getreu’s only son, Aaron Getreu, expressed sympathy to Taylor’s family after the verdict, ABC News reported.
“My family had no clue about my father’s past and have nothing but sympathy for all of his victims,” he said. “We only knew him as a loving father and grandfather, but science doesn’t lie. With this conviction I hope these families can now have closure.”