DNA evidence used to try rapist in decades-old SF murder

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - The fate of a convicted rapist accused of stabbing a girl to death nearly four decades ago is now in the hands of a San Francisco jury.

Closing arguments concluded Thursday in the case against William Speer, 63, who police said is linked by DNA evidence to the 1968 rape and murder of Linda Harmon, a 14-year-old girl who was baby-sitting for neighbors at the time of her death.

Harmon was stabbed repeatedly with a carving fork and kitchen knife and left in a sexually suggestive pose by her killer, prosecutors said.

No one was ever arrested and there were few leads in the case until 2003, when a genetic test connected Speer, who was undergoing therapy in an Arizona mental hospital, to evidence left at the scene, police said.

Speer was being treated for sexually violent tendencies and had served time in prison for a 1991 rape.

He also was convicted in the 1963 rape and beating of a 14-year-old girl in San Jose. That woman, now 56 years old, testified in the current murder trial.

Many other witnesses, including Harmon's mother and police investigators who tried to find the teen's killer, are dead.

Prosecutors portrayed Speer as a cold-blooded killer and serial rapist who targeted young girls.

"It's been 37 long years, but it's not too late. It's never too late to bring a murderer to justice," Assistant District Attorney Linda Allen told the jury.

Speer is charged with first-degree murder and rape and has served as his own lawyer since the trial began Oct. 17. He fired four lawyers who worked with him since his arrest.

In a brief closing statement, Speer suggested he was framed by police and prosecutors.

"I ran into professional, well-coached witnesses," he said. "The truth is, they lied."