76-Year-Old Man Is Charged With 1978 Killing of Queens Girl

U.S.|76-Year-Old Man Is Charged With 1978 Killing of Queens Girl

In March 1978, a 15-year-old miss from Queens traveled to San Francisco for Easter to sojourn her fractional sister. Days aft her arrival, her assemblage was recovered adjacent Golden Gate Park. She had been strangled.

The San Francisco Police Department investigated the killing, but yet the lawsuit went cold. On Thursday, 43 years aft the shocking transgression and a small much than a twelvemonth since the lawsuit was reopened, San Francisco officers traveled to Colorado to apprehension Mark Stanley Personette, 76, successful the sidesplitting of the girl, Marissa Rolf Harvey.

Mr. Personette was charged with 1 number of homicide connected Thursday aft a associated cognition successful the suburbs of Denver conducted by the San Francisco Police Department’s homicide detail, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Jefferson County, Colo., Sheriff’s Office, the Police Department announced successful a connection connected Sunday.

Mr. Personette was booked into the Jefferson County Jail and is scheduled to look successful a Jefferson County tribunal connected Jan. 10. It was unclear connected Monday if Mr. Personette had a lawyer.

“For much than 4 decades, Marissa Harvey’s household members person been relentless advocates to bring her slayer to justice,” the San Francisco constabulary chief, Bill Scott, said successful the statement. “We anticipation this improvement successful the lawsuit begins to bring a measurement of healing and closure they’ve been excessively agelong denied.”

Attempts to scope surviving relatives, including the girl’s parent and an aunt, were unsuccessful connected Monday night.

On March 27, 1978, Marissa was driven to Golden Gate Park by a person of her sister’s for an day of horseback riding, according to a New York Times article from that year. Her assemblage was recovered the adjacent time adjacent Sutro Heights Park, according to the San Francisco Police Department.

The rental stables were reported to beryllium closed the time Marissa near to spell horseback riding, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

The paper quoted Boyd Stephen, a coroner, who successful 1978 said the miss was recovered “badly beaten and strangled with a cordlike device.”

The miss was identified by her fractional sister, Miriam Wadeiff, who was past a postgraduate pupil and teacher astatine the San Francisco Institute. The girl’s stepmother said Marissa was a pupil astatine St. Dominic’s School successful Oyster Bay, connected Long Island.

The Police Department said successful a connection connected Sunday that its homicide item “led an probe that employed the champion disposable exertion astatine the clip and exhausted each lead.”

“Despite their champion efforts,” the section added, “the probe went cold.”

In October 2020, the department’s cold-case portion reopened the execution investigation, utilizing “advanced investigative methods.” The section connected Monday did not respond to a petition for remark seeking details astir what led investigators to Mr. Personette.

“To the families and friends of each victims awaiting justness for crimes committed successful our city,” Chief Scott said successful the statement, “we anticipation this lawsuit sends an unequivocal connection that you are ne'er forgotten by the San Francisco Police Department — and that our cold-case investigators proceed their tireless enactment connected your loved ones’ behalf.”

After Mr. Personette’s arrest, the section asked different instrumentality enforcement agencies crossed the state to reappraisal their cold-case homicides involving intersexual assaults of young women to spot if determination were different cases successful which Mr. Personette mightiness beryllium a suspect.

In its statement, the section shared erstwhile booking photos of Mr. Personette, including 1 successful October 1979 successful Somerville, N.J.; different successful Bernards Township, N.J., for an battle arrest; and 1 successful November 1979 successful Hopewell Township, N.J.

Previous constabulary reports for Mr. Personette were not instantly disposable connected Monday night.