COURT GRANTS SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES

Serial Killer John Arthur Getreu convicted of life without parole.

By Grace Kahng | April 27, 2023 | San Jose, CA

Santa Clara County sentenced convicted serial killer John Getreu of a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the 1973 murder of Stanford graduate 21 year old Leslie Perlov . The sentencing which was delayed by a day due to a courtroom error, brings the Perlov family’s 50 year wait for justice to a close.

Getreu appeared via Zoom from a California state hospital where he is currently serving a life sentence for the 1974 murder of Janet Taylor, the Stanford Athletic Director’s daughter at the time. He appeared thin but alert from a wheelchair and had no reaction when his sentence was pronounced. His son, who watched the hearing remotely also remarked that Getreu looked to be in the best shape of his life.

This sentencing brings Getreu’s spree of brutalizing girls and young women to a definitive end.

The court used its discretion to deny Getreu the ability to serve the life sentence for Perlov’s murder concurrently with time served for Taylor’s murder which were the guidelines at the time of those crimes. The judge also emphatically granted the family’s request that Getreu be denied the possibility of ever being paroled.

Leslie’s surviving family attended today’s hearing. Her sister, Diane, made an impassioned plea to the court urging them to use their discretion to find special circumstances to ensure her sister’s killer would never be released.

“I stand here today. Not alone. But with my sister beside me. Leslie has been stripped of her life and her voice, but I have not been stripped of mine. It is now my turn to speak for both of us. Do not feel our loss. Do not feel our pain. Feel our strength and feel our fury. Now, after his fourth conviction, this serial killer must spend the rest of his life in prison.”

Before sentencing was pronounced, Leslie’s younger brother Craig Perlov described his older sister as his protector and the leader of the three siblings. “My sister Diane and I both have PhDs mine is in physics. But Leslie was the brightest of the three of us for sure. She just graduated from Stanford in three years, and she was set to go to law school, determined to use her gifts to make the world a better place,” his voice quiet with emotion.

“When she was brutally assaulted and murdered in a Stanford campus. She was 21 years old. She was never able to start the University of Pennsylvania Law School Philadelphia, where she was accepted,” Diane told the court. “She was never able to be a lawyer at the underserved as she intended Never able to marry her fiance. And to become the first female president of the United States, which she had planned since the fourth grade. “

Perlov, who was seated next to the Santa Clara investigator responsible for solving her sister’s murder, went on to praise the investigators, surviving victims and family members who assisted in bringing Getreu to justice.

Diane Perlov delivered an eloquent and moving eight-minute victim statement giving the court a sense of the profound loss of Leslie’s life as sister, a daughter, and a productive member of the community.

“My mother died eight years ago, she was incredibly strong for all of us. Once when I asked her if she wanted to see a grief counselor, she said no. She said Leslie’s murder left an open wound in her heart. And she said she had no intention of healing that.”