Cold case detectives trace DNA to genealogy site to arrest suspect 45 years after he killed a female law clerk
A man who committed a murder 45 years ago was arrested after his DNA was submitted to a public genealogical website and came back as a positive match. John Arthur Getreu, a 74-year-old from Hayward, Alameda County, was arrested in Palo Alto on November 20 on suspicion of murdering Leslie Perlov. Perlov was 21 years old when she was killed and was last seen at the place she worked as a law clerk at around 3 p.m. on February 13, 1973.
Perlov's orange Chevrolet Nova was found the same day abandoned next to the entrance of an old quarry near Stanford University's campus. She had only recently graduated at the time when she was killed, the Daily Mail reported.
Three days after her car was found, her body was discovered by officers under a tree on the side of a mountain to the west of Stanford.
In 1973, @Stanford grad Leslie Perlov was strangled & her car abandoned in the hills above campus. 45 years later, @SCCoSheriff arrests ex-security guard - and convicted killer & rapist John Arthur Getreu. His neighbors are in shock. Sister of victim rejoices. 505,610,710p @KTVU pic.twitter.com/8tjs56i8SA
— Henry K. Lee (@henrykleeKTVU) November 22, 2018
The 21-year-old's death was ruled as a homicide after an autopsy was conducted on her body. The ruling came from the fact that she had been strangled and also found with a pair of tights stuffed into her mouth. Her death remained a mystery all these years until cold case detectives looked into her case and, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, submitted DNA evidence to a crime lab in the county.
