Stanford cold case: Man given second life sentence for 1970s murders near campus
SAN JOSE — A man convicted of two murders near Stanford University in the 1970s was handed his second sentence of life in prison Thursday morning in a Santa Clara County courtroom, closing a prolonged pursuit of justice 50 years after the initial slaying took place.
John Arthur Getreu, 78, was convicted in January for the 1973 killing of 21-year-old Stanford graduate Leslie Marie Perlov after he formally confessed to the murder in Santa Clara County Superior Court.
Getreu was sentenced for the murder as he appeared in court virtually from California Health Care Facility, Stockton because of medical issues, his attorney said.
During the course of the 20-minute hearing, he peered without emotion through the bold frames of his glasses, moving only to periodically inch his eyes closer to the glowing computer screen. The only words he spoke during the meeting came when he was asked to state his full name, during which he corrected the judge on the pronunciation of his last name.
January’s murder conviction was Getreu’s third. In September 2021 he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the 1974 murder of Janet Ann Taylor, daughter of former Stanford athletic director and coach Chuck Taylor. When Getreu was 18 he was tried and convicted as a minor of the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl in Germany, where both Getreu and the teenage girl were living as children of Army officers. He served a short sentence and returned to the United States shortly after.
Getreu was employed as a security guard in Palo Alto at the time of the Taylor and Perlov slayings.
“Today before the court to be sentenced is a serial killer,” said Deputy District Attorney Michel Amaral. “This defendent has escaped justice for nearly 50 years. Since murdering Leslie in 1973 he has escaped justice until his arrest a couple of years ago in which he lived a free life.”
Getreu was arrested in 2018 at his Hayward home after a DNA genealogy test linked him to Perlov. The victim’s sister, Diane Perlov, said in January that the evidence that eventually connected the investigators to her murderer was under her fingernails, likely from her attempts to fight Getreu off.
Getreu later admitted that he also attempted to rape Perlov during the 1973 incident.
A clearly emotional Diane Perlov appeared during Thursday’s hearing and told a story about the sisters’ plans to travel together as young women. She talked about a three-page letter her older sister sent in which she explained how to get to the train station in Paris, France.
“We planned to spend several weeks together in Europe before we split up for college,” Diane said with an emotional tremor in her voice. “It was 1972, and as Leslie would say, ‘We had all of the time in the world.’ ”
Leslie’s brother Greg, who also appeared during the hearing, said his older sister graduated from Stanford in three years and was headed for law school at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School in Philadelphia.
“Leslie was the brightest of the three of us,” he said. “She was determined to use her gifts to make the world a better place.”
Getreu’s life sentence will be served consecutively with the sentence previously handed out for the murder of Taylor and without possibility of parole, making it likely that he will die in prison.