CA - Linda Harmon, 14, raped & murdered, San Francisco, 29 March 1968

mysteriew

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Thirty-seven years ago, in 1968, a 14-year-old babysitter was brutally raped and murdered in San Francisco. Today that murder case reached Superior Court. The man accused is William Speer, finally arrested because of DNA testing. This week, Speer talked exclusively with ABC7 from the county jail.

William Speer, defendant: "I can't discuss these other things."

William Speer is 63 years old. That means he was only 25 when, police say, he raped and murdered 14-year-old Linda Harmon who was babysitting for a neighbor.

Speer is representing himself after firing at least three attorneys.

William Speert: "In 1968 I was legally insane. I was not who I am today. I was in a different world. I was in a world, there were times when I had blackouts."

Still, Speer says despite the blackouts, he's sure he didn't kill Harmon.

William Speer: "My position is I didn't murder anybody.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=local&id=3573687
 
If this guy wants to have any chance at all during the trial he better get himself another attorney and listen to what his attorney advises. He is a fool if he thinks he can defend himself. Oh well, let him defend himself...if they have DNA that says he committed the murder then he committed it. Hard to beat DNA.

Is the guy saying that he was an active alcoholic back then and had blackouts so he doesn't remember anything about a murder? I wonder what his defense will be or is it going to be...."I wasn't there and didn't do it?" Sounds like he is headed for the big house to me.

I hope that his arrest brought some kind of satisfaction or peace to this girl's family. They have been waiting a long time for justice.
 
The trial has begun in the oldest murder cold case in state history.

The prosecution says that it has DNA evidence linking Speer with the murder of 14 year old Linda Harmon who died in the Sunnydale Housing project while babysitting two young children.

Investigators re-opened the cold case two years ago when they found a semen sample of the killer left in a police evidence freezer. The FBI national database linked the semen with Speer who has a number of convictions for sexual assault.
http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=4034530&nav=5D7l
 
A guilty verdict today in a 37-year-old murder case is a "prime example" of the importance of DNA testing, according to San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris.

After deliberating for about four hours, a San Francisco Superior Court jury found 63-year-old William Speer guilty of murder in the first degree for the 1968 stabbing death of 14-year-old Linda Harmon.

Speer was arrested about 35 years after he raped and killed Harmon, stabbing her to death with a meat-carving fork and knife. Semen recovered from Harmon's body was kept on file at the San Francisco Police Department until, in December 2003, its DNA profile was matched to Speer's in a so-called "cold hit.''
http://www2.cbs5.com/localwire/loca.../n/HeadlineNews/DA-COMMENT/resources_bcn_html
 

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