Family of slain Stanford grad ‘grateful’ for arrest in 1973 killing
SAN JOSE >> John Arthur Getreu, bespectacled and clad in the red jail jumpsuit reserved for high-security inmates, sat quietly in a wheelchair flanked by bailiffs as he formally answered to the 1973 killing of Stanford graduate Leslie Marie Perlov, whose strangled body was found in the Palo Alto hills, creating a mystery that lasted more than four decades.
Perlov’s surviving siblings, Diane and Craig, appeared in the packed San Jose courtroom to give voice to their big sister, whose loss they admittedly never got over in large part because they never wanted to forget. Also in attendance were Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith and District Attorney Jeff Rosen.
“I was stunned. I still am. I am grateful to the dedicated heroes of law enforcement. I am relieved that this person will not hurt other women, and that perhaps there will be justice,” Diane Perlov said in court. “But mainly, I still miss my sister.”
Getreu was arrested at his Hayward home Nov. 20 and charged with murder during an attempted rape in the death of 21-year-old Leslie Perlov, whose body was found Feb. 16, 1973, face down underneath an oak tree west of her car parked near a quarry off Old Page Mill Road and Page Mill Road.
Last seen alive three days earlier, she had been strangled with her underwear and had pantyhose stuffed in her mouth and her skirt pulled up above her waist.
The case was investigated intermittently over the past 45 years, then this past summer detectives with the sheriff’s office, investigators with the district attorney’s office, and criminalists with the county crime lab turned to the rising forensic method of DNA genealogy, made famous by the arrest of a suspect in the notorious Golden State Killer case earlier this year.
DNA from an unknown man was recovered from stored evidence in the case and submitted to Parabon NanoLabs, a Virginiabased company that combines DNA testing with genealogical mapping to link a person to relatives and ancestors to narrow down an identity.
Getreu, a convicted rapist and killer as a teenager in Germany who worked as a security guard in Palo Alto in 1973 — and was also convicted of raping a girl in the city in 1975 — was on a list of possible suspects identified by the testing. Detectives conducted surveillance on him and surreptitiously obtained his DNA from a discarded item. It matched the sample that had been recovered from the original crime scene.
“The one call I will never forget was the call last Tuesday,” Diane Perlov said. “It was (sheriff’s Sgt. Noe) Cortez, who simply said, ‘Diane, we got him.’ ”
The news floored retired Lt. John Johnson, one of the original investigators assigned to the Leslie Perlov case. Johnson was in the courtroom Monday for Getreu’s arraignment.
“It’s a relief. When you work these cases, they stay with you,” Johnson said. “I didn’t think we’d get anybody on this one. Science has made it so these cases will be solved.”
Indeed, DNA genealogy has rapidly identified suspects in long-unsolved cold cases around the country this year. Besides the Golden State Killer case and now Getreu, the method is credited with solving the murder of Arlis Perry, who was killed in 1974 at the Stanford Memorial Church, presumably by a campus security guard, and a UC Berkeley employee charged with being the NorCal Rapist of the 1990s.
Getreu did not enter a plea Monday and is being held without bail in the Santa Clara County Main Jail, and is scheduled to return to court Dec. 17. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, but could be eligible for parole, however unlikely that might be, after seven years because he would be subject to 1973 sentencing guidelines. “Nobody ever forgot about Leslie Perlov. Not the sheriff’s department and their diligent investigators who worked that case tirelessly, not the District Attorney’s Office, and our prosecutors and crime lab,” Rosen said. “We restarted the coldcase unit in the DA’s office about eight years ago and the reason that we did that was for days like today.”
For Diane and Craig Perlov, who were 20 and 18 when they lost their sister, Perlov’s memory stayed alive throughout all the grief and heartache. Diane Perlov’s son named his daughter after his late aunt, and when the family was escaping the past month’s Woolsey Fire in Southern California, they made sure to take an oil painting of Leslie as one of the few possessions they could save.
Diane Perlov also recalled her mother, who died four years ago, staying strong and letting the pain remain a way to remember Leslie. Diane also noted that the scarf presumably used to choke the life out of Leslie was actually hers.
“I cannot walk alone in the woods. I will not walk to my car at night with a scarf around my neck,” Diane Perlov said. “These things have become second nature to me, as they are with many women in this country.”
At the end of her remarks, she made a point to look directly at Getreu, who did not return eye contact.
“I am telling you all this because I want you to know that murder does not just affect the deceased. It changes many lives. It take many lives, and impacts a family forever,” Diane Perlov said. “And while justice doesn’t heal all wounds, it is the least we can do.”