On April 11, 2011, police officers in Reno, Nevada arrested 77-year-old Joseph Naso on four first-degree murder charges filed against him in Marin County California. The former commercial photographer stood accused of raping and murdering four Bay Area prostitutes between 1977 and 1994. The victims, Roxene Roggasch, Carmen Colen, Pamela Parsons and Tracy Tafoya ranged in age from 18 to 38, and each had first and last names that began with the same letter.
Forensic scientists connected Naso to two of the victims through DNA. A search of his house produced several nude photographs of women who appeared unconscious or dead. Police officers also found a so-called "rape diary" containing narrative accounts of women and girls who had been picked up and raped. The murder suspect's house was also littered with female mannequin parts and women's lingerie. In Naso's safety deposit box searchers found a passport bearing the name Sara Dylan. (A skull, found years earlier in Nevada matched Sara Dylan's mother's DNA.) Naso's safety deposit box also contained $152,400 in cash.
The Joseph Naso serial murder trial got underway in San Rafael California in June 2013. The prosecutor in her opening statement to the jury said the state would prove that Naso had drugged, raped and photographed the four victims. He strangled them to death then dumped their nude bodies in remote areas in northern California.
Naso, who represented himself at the trial, told the jury that he was not the monster the prosecution was trying to make him out to be. The defendant said the nude women he had photographed had been willing models. "I don't kill people, and there's no evidence of that in my writings and photography."
Following two months of evidence that featured the defendant's rape diary, the nude photographs and the DNA evidence linking Naso to two of the murder victims, the case went to the jury. During the trial, Naso, as his own attorney, made a courtroom fool of himself and tried the patience of the judge. On August 19, 2013, after deliberating seven hours over a period of two days, the jury found the defendant guilty of the four counts of first-degree murder. The verdict also included a finding of special circumstances that made Naso eligible for the death penalty.
While the jury recommended the death penalty in the Naso case there was no chance the state would put him to death. In 2006 a federal judge had put California's executions on hold until the state modified its execution protocols. That has not been done. Naso would join 725 inmates on California's death row. While some politicians and judges threw roadblocks in the path of the state's death penalty procedure, juries in California continued to impose the death sentence.
Homicide investigators believe Naso raped and murdered three 11-year-old girls between 1971 and 1973 in Rochester, New York. He was living in the city when these murders occurred. These victims also had first and last names that began with the same letter. One of the girls, Carmen Colon, had the same name of one of the women Naso killed in California. Detectives also believed that Joseph Naso murdered at least ten other women. Following the verdict Mr. Naso insisted that he had not raped or killed anyone.
Forensic scientists connected Naso to two of the victims through DNA. A search of his house produced several nude photographs of women who appeared unconscious or dead. Police officers also found a so-called "rape diary" containing narrative accounts of women and girls who had been picked up and raped. The murder suspect's house was also littered with female mannequin parts and women's lingerie. In Naso's safety deposit box searchers found a passport bearing the name Sara Dylan. (A skull, found years earlier in Nevada matched Sara Dylan's mother's DNA.) Naso's safety deposit box also contained $152,400 in cash.
The Joseph Naso serial murder trial got underway in San Rafael California in June 2013. The prosecutor in her opening statement to the jury said the state would prove that Naso had drugged, raped and photographed the four victims. He strangled them to death then dumped their nude bodies in remote areas in northern California.
Naso, who represented himself at the trial, told the jury that he was not the monster the prosecution was trying to make him out to be. The defendant said the nude women he had photographed had been willing models. "I don't kill people, and there's no evidence of that in my writings and photography."
Following two months of evidence that featured the defendant's rape diary, the nude photographs and the DNA evidence linking Naso to two of the murder victims, the case went to the jury. During the trial, Naso, as his own attorney, made a courtroom fool of himself and tried the patience of the judge. On August 19, 2013, after deliberating seven hours over a period of two days, the jury found the defendant guilty of the four counts of first-degree murder. The verdict also included a finding of special circumstances that made Naso eligible for the death penalty.
While the jury recommended the death penalty in the Naso case there was no chance the state would put him to death. In 2006 a federal judge had put California's executions on hold until the state modified its execution protocols. That has not been done. Naso would join 725 inmates on California's death row. While some politicians and judges threw roadblocks in the path of the state's death penalty procedure, juries in California continued to impose the death sentence.
Homicide investigators believe Naso raped and murdered three 11-year-old girls between 1971 and 1973 in Rochester, New York. He was living in the city when these murders occurred. These victims also had first and last names that began with the same letter. One of the girls, Carmen Colon, had the same name of one of the women Naso killed in California. Detectives also believed that Joseph Naso murdered at least ten other women. Following the verdict Mr. Naso insisted that he had not raped or killed anyone.
When will you be doing another article on this subject?
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