Crime & Safety
Jury Selection Begins Monday in Accused Serial Killer Naso's Trial
Joseph Naso, 79, is accused of murdering four women between 1977 and 1994, including 18-year-old Roxene Rogasch, whose body was found on the eastern slope of White's Hill in Fairfax.
By Bay City News Service
Jury selection is expected to begin Monday at alleged serial killer Joseph Naso's murder trial.
Naso, 79, of Reno, is .
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Naso, a self-employed modeling photographer, photographed nude and partially nude women in heels, lingerie and garters in poses that made them appear dead, incapacitated or unconscious, according to testimony at Naso's preliminary hearing in January 2012.
The bodies of the four women, Roxene Rogasch, 18; Carmen Colon, 22; Pamela Parsons, 38 and Tracey Tafoya, 31, were found along rural roads in the four counties.
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Pathologists who performed autopsies on the women testified at the hearing that all of them died of asphyxiation due or likely due to strangulation.
Rogasch, of Oakland, whose body was found on the eastern slope of White's Hill in Fairfax on Jan. 11, 1977, was wearing panty hose inside out, according to the prosecution.
Another pair of panty hose was around her neck, a third pair was in her mouth and a fourth pair was wrapped around her mouth.
Contra Costa County Deputy Tuan Nguyen, a criminalist who processed the pantyhose for DNA evidence, testified Naso's wife's DNA was found on one pair of panty hose, and semen from two males were found on another pair. One of the semen samples likely came from Naso, Nguyen testified.
The prosecution is alleging the murders were committed during sexual battery and false imprisonment, and reflect the dominance and control of women in Naso's photographs.
Naso, who has been representing himself, said during the preliminary hearing he had many dates and girlfriends who willingly posed for the photographs.
"This has nothing to do with power but with rapport," he said during the hearing.
Naso said all the evidence him is circumstantial. He faces the death penalty if convicted of committing multiple murders.
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