In a crime that eluded investigators for decades, a California serial murderer named John Arthur Getreu was sentenced on Thursday for the murder of a 21-year-old Stanford graduate and law librarian.
According to a news release from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, John Arthur Getreu, was sentenced to seven to life in prison for the 1973 slaying of Leslie Perlov.
Who is John Arthur Getreu?
Born in 1944, John Arthur Getreuis a serial killer from Stanford. He was sentenced in April for the murder of a 21-year-old Stanford graduate and law librarian.
He was already serving a life term for another murder, that of Janet Taylor, 21, in 1974.
The killings in California were part of a pattern known as the “Stanford murders,” according to the statement.
“The long nightmare of John Getreu is over,” stated Santa Clara District Attorney Jeff Rosen in a statement. “I hope this brings some peace to the loved ones of those he preyed on. And I pray I never have to use his name again.”
According to a previous news release from the prosecutor’s office, Perlov’s body was discovered on February 16, 1973, in the hills above the Stanford University campus. The statement said that she had been strangled with a flowered scarf.
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After law enforcement in the counties of San Mateo and Santa Clara joined forces to solve the killings, Getreu was apprehended in 2018.
According to the statement, DNA from Perlov’s fingernails linked him to the murder after he entered a guilty plea in January.
According to the prosecutor’s office, Getreu was residing with his wife in Hayward, roughly 27 miles southeast of San Francisco, at the time of his arrest.
In the adjoining San Mateo County in 2021, Getreu was found guilty of killing Taylor. She was Chuck Taylor’s (the football coach at Stanford) daughter.
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On March 25, 1974, Taylor was discovered strangled on a road south of San Francisco, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office. Getreu and her murder were connected by DNA found on her clothes.
According to the local prosecutor’s office, Getreu was previously found guilty of raping and killing 15-year-old Margaret Williams in Germany in 1963 as well as raping a woman in San Mateo County, California, in 1975.
