Reno Man Joseph Naso, 77, Is Booked on Suspicion of Four Northern California Cold-Case Killings of Women
A 2010 probation search of his Reno home led to a task force. Marin County prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty in the killings from 1977 to 1994.
Published
The killings of four Northern California women in the 1970s and 1990s had gone unsolved for decades. Late on April 11, 2011, Joseph Naso, 77, of Reno, was booked on suspicion of all four.
Naso was arrested in South Lake Tahoe after being released from jail in an unrelated case, the Marin Independent Journal reported. He had been serving time for violating probation in a 2009 theft case after four guns and ammunition were found in his home, and he was held without bail in the Marin County Jail. The women were Roxene Roggasch, whose body was found in Marin County, and Carmen Colon, found in Contra Costa County, in the 1970s, and Pamela Parsons and Tracy Tafoya, both found in Yuba County, in the 1990s. Marin County District Attorney Ed Berberian said authorities in Nevada had found evidence on Naso that linked the killings together, and prosecutors said they planned to seek the death penalty.
On April 13, Naso, a New York native, petty thief and freelance photographer, made his first California court appearance on four counts of murder with special circumstances that made him eligible for the death penalty, and his arraignment was postponed to April 27. Nevada authorities had formed a task force after probation officers searched his Reno home in 2010, following a 2009 grocery store theft. Investigators in New York also looked at whether he was linked to the early-1970s killings of three girls with matching initials near Rochester, but a DNA sample from one of those victims did not match him. Naso was sentenced to death in Marin County on November 22, 2013.
CBS Sacramento spelled the fourth victim's surname "Tofoya," while the Associated Press spelled it Tafoya.
Sources
- Condemned Inmate List, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
- Nevada Man, 77, Arrested in 4 California Cold Case Killings, Fox News (Associated Press)
- Suspect in 4 murders held in Marin County Jail, CBS Sacramento
- Man charged with four Calif. cold-case killings, Officer.com (Associated Press)
Related News
- August 20, 2013: Marin County Jury Convicts Joseph Naso, 79, of Murdering Four Northern California Women in the 1970s and 1990s
- November 22, 2013: Marin County Judge Sentences Joseph Naso, 79, to Death After His Conviction for Killing Four Northern California Women