Jurors tear up at former Reno man’s trial for 4 slain women

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — Jurors in the trial of a former Reno man charged with the decades-old slayings of four women in Northern California wiped tears from their eyes Monday, as a prosecutor showed graphic images of the victims’ bodies.

Marin County prosecutor Rosemary Slote showed the photographs during her opening statement in the trial of Joseph Naso, whom she called a “serial rapist and murderer.” In one, a young woman had nylon stockings stuffed in her mouth and another pair tied around her neck.

Naso has pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances for the slayings of four women — all prostitutes with matching initials: 18-year-old Roxene Roggasch in 1977; 22-year-old Carmen Colon in 1978; 38-year-old Pamela Parsons in 1993; and 31-year-old Tracy Tafoya in 1994, which led to the “Double Initial’ moniker for the killings. Prosecutors seek the death penalty.

Naso, 79, watched the prosecutor’s presentation with little reaction. He is representing himself.

Prosecutors say Naso drugged and photographed his unconscious victims, then strangled them and dumped their naked bodies in rural areas.

Slote also read from sections of a diary found at Naso’s home that detailed violent rapes of women.

In a 1961 entry, the journal describes a man picking a girl up and raping her in a car in the Berkeley Hills.

“I pulled up her skirt and put it to her,” Slote said, reading from the journal.

Naso was arrested at the time on suspicion of assault. Prosecutors say the woman named in that entry will testify about the incident.

Authorities around the country have also looked at Naso as a suspect in cold cases. Whether Naso sought out women with double initials is unclear, but in one cold case that prosecutors believe he may have ties to, the victim does not follow that pattern.

Investigators discovered DNA matching Naso’s profile on at least one victim, Roggasch, and a partial DNA match from material collected from under the fingernails of Colon.

Also discovered were photographs — including images of at least one of the victims in the case — and what prosecutors called a “rape journal” during a search of Naso’s Reno house.

Naso characterized the sadistic photographs as his art and said all of his “models” were willing participants.