Sam Amico
Infamous convicted killer John Arthur Getreu, who was on the run for decades, has died in prison. He was 79.
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Getreu was convicted of three separate murders — first in the early 1960s, of a girl in Germany while on a U.S. Army base. He was released in 1969, and then allegedly strangled two young women with connections to Stanford.
He escaped justice for 40 years, until police eventually linked him to the killings of the Stanford women using DNA evidence.
Getreu was finally arrested in November 2018 for the 1973 murder of Stanford graduate Leslie Perlov. Police located him at his home in Hayward, Calif., at the time.
A year later, he was convicted for the 1974 murder of Janet Taylor, the daughter of Stanford athletic director Chuck Taylor, a Hall of Fame football coach.
ABC7 reports:
“ABC7’s Dan Ashley spoke with investigative journalist Grace Kahng who has covered the case extensively over the years.
“Dan Ashley: ‘Grace, in all of your years reporting this story, you have long been convinced that Getreu was responsible for other killings as well. But we may never know with his death.'”
“Grace Kahng: ‘And that is incredibly vexing. But hopefully, with the advances in DNA and we have a dozen other cases that we believe he is responsible for, working hand in glove with the serial killer’s son, who is a very moral guy. Hopefully, we will find an answer and we close some of these cases. And we’re very, very close.'”
