DAY ONE

On Monday afternoon, the long-awaited trial for the 1974 murder of 21-year-old Janet Taylor, the youngest daughter of Stanford Hall of Famer, Chuck Taylor, began. The defendant, John Arthur Getreu, a former Stanford employee was arrested and charged in late 2018, but a series of setbacks delayed his trial nearly three years. Twice, the elderly Getreu was hospitalized days before his appointed court date, requiring rescheduling. The pandemic put a year-long halt to court proceedings. And the California Supreme Court imposed a last-minute stay in the 48-year-old case, nearly derailing any possibility of justice for the gruesome crime that cut short the life of a young woman of great promise.

Prosecutor Josh Stauffer’s opening statement began with describing the victim:

“March 24 1974, Janet Taylor was 21 years old. Janet had grown up in the Bay Area in the peninsula area. Her family had a strong connection to Stanford University. Her father, Chuck Taylor, was a once Stanford football star, and he became a football coach. And during Janet's early years was the head of athletics at Stanford University. March 24 1974, was any normal day for Janet Taylor. Janet was in love. She had a boyfriend. His name is Russell Bissonnette. They live together in La Honda. “

Stauffer cast 77-year-old Getreu as an individual with a long history of violent crimes against young girls and women. Taylor’s 1974 rape-strangulation murder was preceded in 1973 by the near-identical rape-strangulation murder of Leslie Perlov also on Stanford property. Damning DNA evidence ties Getreu to both murders. Samples gathered from Taylors pants and Perlov’s fingernails each independently created a male DNA profile that matched that of the defendant and ultimately led to his arrest. Getreu will stand trial for the Perlov homicide next year.

Stauffer told the jury what to expect in the coming days from San Mateo’s supervising senior criminologist who, using advanced technology, successfully pulled Getreu’s DNA off of Janet Taylor’s pants.

“She'll testify that the swab from the outside of the pants was not a high-quality DNA sample where it was matching to the defendant and matching to the defendant in such a way that a random person selected from the population would be one and 34,000 if that person had the same DNA. But she also swabbed the interior of the crotch of Janet Taylor's pants. And when she saw the interior of this tear, she found a much stronger piece of DNA evidence. The DNA was also DNA from the defendant. John Arthur Getreu, and the chance of finding another random person in the population with the same DNA, is ONE IN 102 BILLION.

Stauffer revisited past Getreu’s convictions, beginning with the rape strangulation murder of the 15-year-old daughter of an Army Chaplain that Getreu in Germany in 1963. In 1975, Getreu was also convicted for the statutory rape of a 17-year-old Palo Alto teen when he was a Boy Scout leader.

It is a marvel of the American justice system that, given the criminal history of the defendant and the damning scientific evidence against this previously convicted teen killer, taxpayers have paid hundreds of thousands if not a million dollars to afford Getreu a lengthy trial. One cannot help wondering how swift justice would move if the defendant had the same criminal history but was born Black or Hispanic. Perhaps his prior sentencing would not have been so lenient.

The defense’s opening statement, presented by attorney, John Halley, attempted to distinguish between Getreu’s morbid past and the crime on hand. “There is only one question of this case,” Halley told the jury, whether or not Getreu committed Janet Taylor’s murder “beyond reasonable doubt.” Halley stressed that the stories told by the prosecution about other crimes were obviously horrifying, but not necessarily evidence that Getreu killed Taylor.

Halley stressed the importance of strict evidence-handling standards used by modern crime labs, and highlighted their absence in the years between Taylor’s murder and the trial. Halley attempted to discredit the prosecution’s primary piece of DNA evidence relating to the Taylor murder. Highlighting the absence of a notable crotch tear in early evidentiary reports by the coroner’s office, Halley suggested that the evidence used in the prosecution might have been handled with improper standards, or even tampered with. Previewing his defense strategy of scrutinizing the prosecutions’ criminologists and investigators, Halley characterized the findings of investigators as “evidence you should review with an open mind.”

Two additional witnesses were called to support the prosecution’s case today. One attended in person and another from “the grave.” The reality of prosecuting decades-old cold cases is that as they slog their way through the backlog of trials in an overburdened criminal justice system key witnesses die.

The first witness, cold-case investigator and retired renowned LA Homicide detective, Rick Jackson, walked the jury through the details of the investigation. He was asked to help precisely locate both murders, and explore both victims’ connections to Stanford and give the jury a baseline understanding of cold case homicide investigations.

The next witness, Taylor’s best friend Deb Adams testified via video deposition. Adams was battling late-stage cancer when Getreu was arrested in 2018. She had grown up with Janet on the Stanford campus and was the last person to see Janet alive the night she was murdered in March 1973. She had hoped to testify in person last fall when the trial was originally calendared. Tragically she passed earlier this May.

The prosecution showed a video deposition taken before the trial in which she described her relationship with Taylor as well as the night she died. The Defense was able to cross-examine Adams before the trial as well. The jury watched the video of Defense attorney Halley persistently trying to ascertain whether or not Taylor routinely wore underwear or frequented a saloon Adams did not seem familiar with.

8/30/21 OPENING STATEMENT EXCERPTS

Prosecutor Josh Stauffer

March 24 1974, Janet Taylor was 21 years old. Janet had grown up in the Bay Area in the peninsula area. Her family had a strong connection to Stanford University. Her father, Chuck Taylor, was a once Stanford football star, and he became a football coach. And during Janet's early years was the head of athletics at Stanford University. March 24 1974, was any normal day for Janet Taylor. Janet was in love. She had a boyfriend. His name is Russell Bissonnette. They live together in La Honda.
On March 24 1974, Janet had a car but her car was not working. Russell drove her to work that day, to Ocean Boost. He drove her there in the morning hours, dropped her off at work, and left her there. And as he left, he did not know that he would never see her again. The last time he ever saw Janet alive. You'll hear from Russell Bissonnette, who testifies before you in this case. You’ll also hear from Deborah Adams. Deborah Adams was Janet's closest best friend back in 1974.
On March 24, Deborah was home from college. Deborah was home from college visiting family, visiting friends, and the afternoon of March 24. Deborah and Janet had planned to spend the afternoon together, catching up before Deborah returned to college the following day. And they did that. Late afternoon on March 24, Janet was at Deborah's house. Deborah lived on the Stanford campus with her family. Janet spent that afternoon with Deborah, they socialized, they reconnected and Janet decided that she wanted to go home around seven 7pm as it was getting dark. She was concerned, she didn't want to wait for a ride. She wanted to get home so she could take care of her dogs or dogs who were in La Honda. So, March 24. In the early evening hours, Deborah saw Janet walk through the backyards to a road called University Boulevard, where Janet began hitchhiking home. Janet began hitchhiking home that night.
Deborah went back to college the following day. Deborah and Janet never saw each other again.
That night, Russell Bissonnette became concerned his girlfriend didn't return home. He didn't know where she was. The following day in the morning hours, Russell was concerned. Janet still had not returned home to La Honda. He didn't know where she was. This is March 25 1974. Russell becomes concerned starts looking for starts calling family friends trying to find Janet. Nobody knew where she was.
Ernesto Evangelia worked for the peninsula Creamery in 1974. Mr. Evangelia, would deliver milk to stores in Portola Valley and Woodside. And on March 25 1974, he was driving a commercial truck. He was driving along Sand Hill Road near a road called Manzanita, delivering his milk to stores in Portola Valley and Woodside. As he passed the area of Manzanita on Sand Hill Road, he saw what he thought was debris on the side of the road. He decided to stop his truck get out and inspected the debris he saw on the side of the road. The debris that he saw on the side of the road was Janet. He saw Janet's body on the side of the road, discarded on the side of the road. So, this is the morning of March 25 1974. Her body was off the side of Sand Hill Road near Manzanita in an area which is west of the Stanford campus up in the hills. That's sort of an isolated area. There's some houses out there but it's mostly rural. Ernesto contacts the police. The police show up. You'll hear from one of the first response officers who was working as a deputy in 1974, a deputy by the name of Jeffrey Boyd. He came to the scene. Janet was clothed but she didn't have any shoes on. Her feet were clean. They were not muddy, but it had been raining out all night. Her body was damp. Under her body, it was dry. Her clothes were torn, underwear was missing. Her face was bruised. She had been beaten severely. She'd been strangled to death and left on the side of the road. Janet’s clothing was gathered as evidence back in 1974, gathered during her autopsy. An autopsy conducted by Dr. Benson, and one of those items of clothing that was gathered are these pants, these green pants that she was wearing. Those pants were booked into evidence and they remained in evidence of the sheriff's office for years, for decades actually remained in evidence waiting. They remained in evidence and advances were made in technology and forensics DNA analysis was developed. And you're going to hear and learn that these pants prove pivotal in telling us who it is that killed Janet Taylor.
Leslie Perlov on February 16, 1973, she is 21 years old. This is 13 months before Janet Taylor was murdered. February 16, 1973, Leslie Perlov, a recent Stanford Graduate, was missing. She was missing and police were searching in the hills, west of Stanford University. They were searching in an area that's commonly referred to as the Dish. It's a popular hiking/running area, west of Stanford between Stanford and 280, where there's a large satellite dish or radio dish actually, which is why people refer to it as the Stanford Dish. On February 16, 1973, Leslie's body was found.
Her body was found in an area in the middle of the park. It was a wooded area, was an isolated area. She was found by members of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office. This area is west of Junipero Serra Boulevard, the very same Boulevard Taylor was hitchhiking on the night that she would disappear. When Leslie was found she was found naked from the waist down. She was found to be for face was bruised. She was strangled to death. Her scarf had been used as a ligature around her neck, her underwear had been stuffed down her throat, and she died as a result of strangulation. Leslie Perlov clearly fought her attacker, she clawed, she scratched because just like Janet Taylor's pants were booked into evidence and waited decades for advances in DNA technology, Leslie's fingernail clippings from her left hand and right hand were clipped by Dr. Mason and stored in evidence at the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office.
48 years later Noe Cortez is a detective for the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office. He's a current detective for the sheriff's office in Santa Clara County and he was assigned to investigate Leslie Perlov’s murder in 2016. At that time in 2016, it was considered a cold case. Cold cases are cases that haven't had any leads. And they've been cold for years, in this case decades. Noe Cortez would work with members of the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office as well. Individuals like Dave Tresmontan Rick Jackson, Gordon Currie, because it was thought and believed that because these murders were so similar, there were so many striking similarities between them, there was likely the same perpetrator committed the murder. Both women had Stanford connections. Both were young Caucasian females 21 years old. Both were attacked, beaten in the face, and strangled to death. Both of them had missing underwear, underwear that had been stuffed down their throat. So, because of those similarities, Noe Cortez began working with San Mateo County detectives, who also at the same time are reopening the Janet Taylor case. Janet’s case had gone cold 47 years and it was reopened by David Tresmontan, Rick Jackson, and Gordon Currie.
Noe Cortez and the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office made the first big break in this case. The pivotal piece of evidence, the first connection we found to identify the killer came from those fingernail clippings. You're going to hear from Kevin Kellogg, who is a criminalist for Santa Clara County, who is going to talk to you about the analysis he did on Leslie Perlov’s fingernail clippings. He's going to tell you that he analyzed fingernail clippings, and he found a foreign DNA profile. The profile did not belong to Leslie Perloff. He's going to tell you that that foreign DNA profile was a male profile. And it's going to tell you that it came from this man right here. The defendant, John Arthur Getreu. He is going to tell you that on the left hand, and his analysis of that DNA profile, he found that defendant’s DNA and the chance of selecting another person at random with the same DNA would be one in 10 billion. He's going to tell you that he analyzed the right hand of Leslie Perlov, and under her fingernails, he found foreign DNA and the chance of selecting another random person with the same DNA will be one and 65 septillion. Now, believing that the Janet Taylor and Leslie Perlov cases may be connected, San Mateo County criminalists Alice Hilker, analyzed the clothing the Janet was wearing when she was killed. She analyzed Janice pants, she took swabs from a tear she found in the crotch, crotch area of Janice pants, and she swabbed the outside of those pants. She also found a foreign DNA profile. She'll testify that the swab from the outside of the pants was not a high-quality DNA sample where it was matching to the defendant and matching to the defendant in such a way that a random person selected from the population would be one and 34,000 if that person had the same DNA. But she also swabbed the interior of the crotch of Janet Taylor's pants. And when she saw the interior of this tear, she found a much stronger piece of DNA evidence. The DNA was also DNA from the defendant. John Arthur Getreu, and the chance of finding another random person in the population with the same DNA, is ONE IN 102 BILLION.
So not only is there a striking similarity in the manner in which these two young girls were murdered, the location, the manner of death, their appearance, evidence of DNA is on the bodies, and clothing of both of these young girls. But those are not the only crimes that have these striking similarities. Who is the defendant who is John Arthur Getreu?