Face of an accused monster
NEW YORK: The cold-case murder of a New York teenage girl 43 years ago in California has finally moved a step closer to being solved, with the arrest of a man who police believe may also be a suspect in a string of other murders across the US.
Mark Stanley Personette, 76, was arrested in Colorado over the 1978 rape and death of Marissa Harvey, 15, after investigators reopened the case in October 2020, according to San Francisco police.
Personette was determined to be a suspect after police used “advanced investigative methods”, The New York Post reported, without giving any further details.
Harvey, a Long Island resident,
was killed while visiting family in San Francisco.
On the trip, she failed to return from a visit to Golden Gate Park and her badly abused body was found a day later in nearby Sutro Heights.
“For more than four decades, Marissa Harvey’s family members have been relentless advocates of bringing her killer to justice, and we hope this development in the case begins to bring a measure of healing and closure they have been too long denied,” Police Chief Bill Scott said.
After Personette was booked for the homicide, San Francisco police urged law enforcement agencies around the US to review their unsolved rape-related murders
involving girls and young women to determine if there is a connection to Personette.
The Denver Post reported that police released booking photos of Personette taken over several decades, including a 1979 arrest in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.
“In the wake of this homicide suspect’s arrest, the San Francisco Police Department is requesting that law enforcement agencies within the United States thoroughly review their sexual assaultrelated cold-case homicides involving young women to identify any other incidents in which Personette may be a suspect,” San Francisco police said in a statement.
The circumstances of Marissa’s
murder were particularly tragic for her family.
According to the Daily News, months before her death Marissa and her family had discovered learned that the adopted girl had a biological sister in California.
Marissa’s parents finally agreed to let her fly alone to San Francisco for a weekend visit.
On the excited teenager’s to-do list was a horseback ride at the Golden Gate Park Stables, where a friend of her sister dropped her off – but they did not realise the stables were closed.
So, instead, it is believed that Marissa decided to go for a walk through Golden Gate Park by herself to admire the
view – a mistake that would lead to her violent death.
When Marissa didn’t return from the park, her sister reported her missing. The following day, a man saw a pair of small feet sticking out of a park bush. Police said Marissa had been violently sexually assaulted and then strangled.
The investigation into Marissa’s murder went cold many years ago and was only reopened late last year.
Personette was arrested in Denver, Colorado, after a joint operation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the San Francisco Police Department and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
He was charged with one count of homicide.