CA CA - Michael Scott Glazebrook, 67, found guilty of 1981 rape and murder of Sonia Carmen Herok-Stone - 2/10/23

[Bishop Black]

DNA under young mom’s broken fingernail will lock rapist and murderer up for life 40 years after initial jurors failed to convict

More than 40 years after a panel of their predecessors failed to reach a unanimous verdict, a California jury has convicted a 67-year-old man of raping and murdering a young mother in 1981 while the victim’s daughter was at school.

Michael Scott Glazebrook’s fate was sealed Tuesday at the end of an eight-day trial in a Monterey County courtroom, prosecutors announced. Glazebrook, a Seaside resident, has long been accused of murdering Sonia Carmen Herok-Stone, a 30-year-old mother whose daughter was 4 years old at the time of the grisly strangulation murder.

 

[dotr]

Michael Stone has returned to live in Nevada County after DNA evidence helped convict another man in the 1981 rape and murder of Stone’s wife, Sonia Carmen Herok Stone.
Elias Funez/efunez@theunion.com

Local man exonerated: Cold case solved after 40 years

Staff Writer

www.theunion.com

• by Marianne Boll-See 5 hrs ago

''In the time since Michael Stone’s wife was murdered on Oct. 15, 1981, he has faced many obstacles to healing.
Aside from dealing with trauma, Stone has had to endure rumors that he murdered his wife — Sonia Carmen Herok Stone — even though he was cleared of charges by officials.

Now, through the advances of DNA technology, Stone can finally begin the healing process as Michael Scott Glazebrook, 67, a former Salinas school bus driver in Monterey County, was convicted in the rape and murder of Herok Stone earlier this month.
Glazebrook was the initial suspect in the first-degree murder case, which went to trial in 1983 and resulted in a hung jury. As a result, he was released from custody.

Forty years later, utilizing funds from a Monterey County Sheriff’s grant, Deputy District Attorney Matthew L’Heureux reopened the case in 2020, re-examining all evidence.
Detectives determined that some of the evidence could be tested with DNA technology that hadn’t been developed when Glazebrook first went on trial.
“In 1983, at the time of the original trial, there was no DNA testing, so what they were able to do with the evidence from the crime scene was just check it for blood type and those kinds of genetic markers,” L’Heureux told KSBW news station. “The case was reopened, evidence was resubmitted to the Department of Justice Crime Lab and they were able to extract DNA from under the victim’s fingernails and from her sexual assault kit that was taken at the time of her autopsy, and it was a match to Mr. Glazebrook.”
Glazebrook was then arrested again in August 2021 and was booked into Monterey County Jail on a warrant for murder. His bail was set at $1 million, according to officials.''

 

[dotr]

Killer in 40-year-old cold case sentenced to life in prison

The Monterey County District Attorney announced Wednesday that 67-year-old Michael Glazebrook has been sentenced to life in prison for the 1981 murder of Sonia Carmen Herok-Stone.

www.ksbw.com

''Michael Glazebrook, 67, was sentenced to life in prison for the 1981 murder of Sonia Carmen Herok-Stone.''

''California Department of Justice criminalists testified that Glazebrook's DNA was found underneath Herok-Stone's broken fingernail as well as on a swab taken from her breast.

In February of this year, a jury convicted Glazebrook of first-degree murder and found true a special circumstance allegation that the murder had occurred during the act of or attempted act of rape. The special circumstance made Glazebrook eligible for a life sentence without the possibility of parole.''

 

[dotr]

Oct 13, 2023
W5's Avery Haines reports on a cold case murder of a woman from Montreal resolved after 40 years.

 

[dotr]

Maya Hamovitch, Oct. 14, 2023

Who killed Sonia? Decades-old cold case murder blown open by new scientific evidence

A cold case stretching back to 1981 left Sonia Herok-Stone’s family and police searching for answers for more than four decades. Stone’s daughter and the now-retired detective Lins Dorman never lost hope for a break in the case.

www.ctvnews.ca

Sasha Stone was only four-years-old when her mother was attacked and strangled to death in October of 1981 in her home in Carmel by the Sea, California (W5, supplied photo)
While in her teens, she turned to detective Lins Dorman -- one of the original detectives on the case.

“I marched into Lins’ office… and said ‘why haven’t you re-opened this?’”

Her mother was Canadian Sonia Herok-Stone -- a 30-year-old enjoying a flourishing career with Levi-Strauss at the time of the murder.

And Det. Dorman was one of the first on the scene that day in 1981.

“My first impression was that I knew this person had struggled for her life… her clothing was basically completely removed….I couldn’t tell what was around her neck, but it turned out to be her pantyhose,” he said.

Dorman encountered the man he believed to have killed Sonia -- Michael Glazebrook -- one day after the murder, while canvassing Sonia’s neighborhood. He detailed his initial impressions of Glazebrook in this official report(opens in a new tab).

“The first thing I notice about him is that he’s extremely musclebound. He’s got a T-shirt that’s stretched so tight you can see every muscle in his back and his arms… I’m immediately drawn to his right cheek,” he said. “He’s got this deep red scratch.”

''During that initial meeting, Glazebrook -- a 25-year-old who recently moved into the area -- gave Dorman three different stories about his whereabouts the day of the murder, as well as how he got the scratch on his face.''

''W5’s investigation, “Who Killed Sonia,” reveals why Glazebrook managed to roam free for decades and exposes what led to the eventual dramatic breakthrough in the case.

Det. Dorman never got the chance to meet Sonia Herok-Stone, but finding the killer more than 40 years later still means the world to him.''

Mugshot of Michael Glazebrook (W5, supplied photo)

 

[dotr]

Oct 16 2023

Destroyed evidence, a flaky witness and a mistrial: how a Canadian woman's killer evaded justice for 40+ years

W5 presents the inside story of how the killer of Canadian woman Sonia Herok-Stone evaded justice for 40-plus years, due to destroyed evidence, a flaky witness and a mistrial.

www.ctvnews.ca

'When detectives arrived at Herok-Stone’s home in 1981, they found her body blocking the front entrance doorway, partially naked and bloodied — with a pair of pantyhose tightly tied around her neck.

The 30-year-old had been strangled to death.'
“She slowly died,” said Lins Dorman, one of the first detectives from the Monterey County Sheriff’s office on the scene in 1981.

It was evident, based on what Dorman saw, that the culprit “kneeled over her with his face inches away from hers taking her pantyhose… pulling tighter and tighter and tighter.”

“This was a violent, violent attack,” he said.''