Alleged 'Stanford murders' serial killer convicted of 1974 cold case murder

John Getreu was on trial for the murder of college student Janet Taylor.

Forty-eight years after the original crime, it took a San Mateo County, California, jury a little more than an hour Tuesday to find John Arthur Getreu guilty of murdering 21-year-old Janet Ann Taylor.

Taylor, a college sophomore, was the youngest daughter of legendary Stanford University football coach, Chuck Taylor. She had been beaten, strangled and left on the side of the road near the Stanford campus, according to authorities. Her body was discovered by a truck driver on March 24, 1974.

Getreu, 77, worked at Stanford at the time of her murder. He has also been charged in the 1973 murder of Stanford graduate, Leslie Perlov, and will be tried next year. He has pleaded not guilty in that case.

Cold case detectives used genetic genealogy to identify Getreu in what prosecutor Josh Stauffer described as a sexually-motivated crime in the strangulation of Taylor.