Serial killers and true crime

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — A diary documenting rapes and sexual assaults of underage girls and women was found along with posed photographs of two Northern California slaying victims in the home of a suspected serial killer, a homicide detective testified Wednesday.

Nevada Department of Public Safety Det. Richard Brown, the lead investigator on the case, made the disclosure during a preliminary hearing for Joseph Naso, a Reno, Nev., man charged in the “Double Initial” killings.

Naso, 78, is acting as his own lawyer in what is likely to be a death penalty case. The former photographer has pleaded not guilty to four murder charges involving slayings of prostitutes the 1970s and 1990s.

Being his own lawyer worked out what I consider right for Bundy. Let us hope Naso is just as successful.

“Girl in north Buffalo woods. She was real pretty. Had to knock her out first,” read one entry in Naso’s journal. Brown said the journal was filled with such descriptions, and that Naso used the word rape in other sections.

White-haired and wearing leg shackles, Naso sat alone at the courtroom defense table with his head rested on his hand.

Was he bord? Such a shame that he is allowed to express such disrespect for the victims and the proceedings.

Naso listened as Marin County prosecutor Dori Ahana and Brown detailed dozens of sexual and violent photographs of women seized from his home, objecting at times to the relevance. The photographs showed many women unconscious or appearing dead, including two prostitutes Naso is charged with killing, Pamela Parsons and Tracy Tafoya.

“Who is paying for all of this entertainment?” Naso asked after hours of detailed testimony about the photos. “This is my private work, my photography. The women have been violated. What happens in a home is sacred and private. … The whole thing is disgusting, and I don’t see the relevance at all.”

At this point I can only yell at the screen. They found pictures of the dead woman. What the hell does he mean private and without relevance? That comment about entertainment is sickening.

Judge Andrew Sweet overruled Naso’s objection.

For stupidity I hope.

In one photograph of Parsons, Brown said she appeared to be dead.

“I thought she was deceased. Her face doesn’t appear natural,” he said, describing the picture.

Other photographs taken of the lower halves of women appeared to show the reddish-purple discoloration of the skin seen in dead people, Brown said.

In a bedroom in Naso’s home, investigators also found a “List of 10″ that contained scrawled descriptions of 10 women, including four references that prosecutors believe described murder victims — Roxene Roggasch, 18, Carmen Colon, 22, Parsons, 38, and Tafoya, 31.

The matching letters of each woman’s first and last names gave rise to the “Double Initial” moniker for the case. Six other women referred to on the list have not yet been identified, but prosecutors say the investigation is ongoing.

That is a very disturbing part that so many had the double initials. He did research on his victims, he knew them (or about them) well enough to at least know their names.

The preliminary hearing is providing the first in-depth look at the prosecution’s case against Naso and his lifestyle. At the end, the judge will determine if prosecutors have enough evidence to take Naso to trial.

Evidence like photos of the dead women when they already appear to be dead? Notations that match the killings? Personal items from the murdered women? Evidence like that?

Authorities seized thousands of documents, calendars, ledgers, journals and photographs from Naso’s house. In two safety deposit boxes, Naso kept $152,400 in cash, along with news clippings covering the slayings of Parsons and Tafoya, and other personal items from women.

Nevada probation Officer Wesley Jackson testified that he arrived in April 2010 to check Naso’s Nevada home for violations of his probation agreement and found food rotting on the kitchen counter and debris strewn about.

All the bedrooms were locked, and Jackson said Naso resisted opening them for a time.

In Naso’s bedroom, Jackson said, he found mannequin parts and a full mannequin clad in a red dress. Women’s lingerie was in the dresser drawers. In his garage, suitcases were found packed with mannequin legs clad in hosiery.

Further searches of the home turned up a box of knives and guns hidden behind a refrigerator in Naso’s garage, authorities said. Naso was forbidden to have weapons due to probation from a felony larceny conviction in California.

Parsons’ strangled body was found in the Yuba City area of Northern California in 1993, where Naso was living at the time with his mentally ill son. Court documents state that Naso had photographed Parsons.

A 1993 calendar Naso kept had an entry for Sept. 15, Brown said, that placed him in the area.

“Stayed in (Yuba City) all day long. Took care of some old business,” Brown read from the calendar. “September 15 was the last time Parsons was known to be alive.”

Tafoya was killed in the area when Naso lived in Yuba City. Her body was found on the side of Highway 70 near Marysville Cemetery in 1994.

In a calendar entry on Aug. 6, 1994, Naso referred to meeting with a woman in Marysville near the time of Tafoya’s death.

“Picked up a nice broad in (Marysville). 4 p.m. She came over for four hours. Took photographs. Nice legs. She ripped me off,” Brown read, adding: “That’s the last date Tracy Tafoya was known to be alive.”

Investigators have said Naso might have used his then-wife’s panty hose to strangle Roggasch, a prostitute whose 1977 murder went unsolved for decades.

Circumstantial evidence but still compelling evidence.

Colon’s decomposed body was found near Port Costa 1978 by a California Highway Patrol officer in Contra Costa County. Authorities have said DNA evidence collected from her fingernails could tie Naso to her slaying.

I hope that they get the results back soon.

Authorities previously said Naso was being investigated for possible links to New York’s “Double Initial Murders” of three girls in the early 1970s.

However, no charges have been filed.

Source Wall Street Journal

Naso is now claiming that the book is just fantasies and that the word rape means nothing more than making out.

Seriously.

During his cross-examination of Brown Thursday morning, Naso, who is representing himself in the case, asked Brown why he had called it that.

Brown answered, “Because your writings say ‘I had to rape her,’ and ‘I raped her in the front seat of the car.’”

Naso responded, “That, in my culture, refers to making out,” drawing gasps of disbelief from some in the courtroom.

“I use that term loosely. It’s just a fantasy,” Naso said.

CBS San Francisco and Bay City News Service.

If there were not victims this would actually be funny.