Death Row Inmate Exposes Serial Killer Joseph Naso's Brutal Murders

Who is serial killer Joseph Naso?

Born in Rochester, N.Y., on Jan. 7, 1934, Joseph Naso served in the Air Force in the 1950s and married Judith Naso in 1962. They moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with their two young sons in 1970s. (They divorced in 1980 and Judith died in 2016.)

He mainly worked as a freelance photographer, soliciting business door-to-door. It was while behind a camera that he started to feel as if he had control over his subjects, according to private investigator Ken Mains.

It gave him "a sense of power," Mains said in the 2025 Oxygen docuseries Death Row Confidential: Secrets of a Serial Killer. "I think it set him up for what he was about to do."

What he did was kill at least six women, according to prosecutors.

What did police find at Joseph Naso's house?

Naso had been arrested for shoplifting women's underwear in 2008, per NBC News, and was on probation for the offense when a parole officer visited his home in Reno, Nev., in April 2010 for a routine check.

The 76-year-old became "verbally aggressive" about not wanting the officer to search his house, now-retired Marin County DA Inspector Michael McBride said in the Oxygen series, so the cop handcuffed Naso and called for backup.

Police found mannequins dressed in lingerie, their mouths smeared with lipstick. Some were hanging from pantyhose tied around their necks. There were also thousands of photos of women in various stages of undress, with their hands and feet bound. Sgt. Rick Brown of the Nevada Department of Public Safety's Major Crimes Unit said in the Oxygen series that the women in the photos looked deceased.

Also found in Naso's possession, as detailed in the series: A handwritten list of 10 unnamed girls and locations.

And there was a key to a safety deposit box, Brown said in Death Row Confidential, in which detectives found newspaper clippings about missing and murdered women.

Who were Joseph Naso's victims?

Yuba County Sheriff Wendell Anderson said in the series that a photo glued to a piece of cardboard found in the box was of Pamela Parsons, a 38-year-old waitress whose body was found on Sept. 19, 1993. The sheriff said she appeared to be No. 9 on Naso's list, "Girl from Linda" (the largest community in Yuba County).

Another article found in the box was about Tracy Tafoya, 31, who was found dead on the outskirts of Marysville, Calif., Aug. 14, 1994, Anderson said. No. 10 on Naso's list was "Girl from Marysville, near cemetery."

"That's when we knew for sure," Brown said in the series, "the list of 10 is actually a list of murder victims." The visit to Naso's house had gone from probation check, he added, to "Holy crap, we've got a serial killer."

The body of 22-year-old Carmen Colon—allegedly No. 2 on Naso's list, "Girl near Port Costa"—was found Aug. 13, 1978. Roxene Roggasch, 18, was found dead Jan. 10, 1977, and she was alleged to be No.  3, "Girl near Lagunitas."

In 2013, Naso went on trial for the murder of these four women, media reports dubbing him "the Alphabet Killer" and "Double Initial Killer" because his victims' first and last names started with the same letter.

During his trial, however, prosecutors introduced evidence that Naso had also killed Sharileea Patton, 56, and Sara Dylan. Naso was not charged with either killing.

In the series, Sgt. Brown said Patton appeared to be No. 8 on Naso's list, "Lady from 839 Leavenworth," and Dylan was likely No. 8, "Girl in woodland near Nevada County."

What did Joseph Naso say during his murder trial?

Naso pleaded not guilty and insisted on representing himself.

"I'm not the monster that killed these women," Naso told the jury during his trial, per NBC News. "I dated, I danced, I took pictures, but I don't kill people, and there's no evidence of that."

In his closing argument, he said, "The prosecution has constructed its case against me with conjecture, opinion and stipulation. It’s guesswork.”

Naso was found guilty in August 2013 of four counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances of serial killing. The following month, he was sentenced to death, becoming, at 79, the oldest person in California history to get the death penalty.

He maintained his innocence in a 2013 prison interview. Asked how many people he had killed, he told ABC 7's Dan Noyes, "I killed none. That's easy for me to say, I killed none. How about you?"

How many women did Joseph Naso kill?

As chronicled in Death Row Confidential, death row prisoner William Noguera wrote to private investigator Ken Mains in 2022, saying he had detailed notes from his prison yard conversations in which Naso allegedly talked about killing multiple women.

Following a trail that started with Noguera's information, authorities came to believe that Charlotte Cook, 19, was No. 5 on Naso's list: "Girl from Miami near Down Peninsula." Her body found Jan. 4, 1974, at the bottom of a cliff at Thornton Beach in Daly City, known as the "Gateway to the Peninsula." (The Oxygen series showed how Mains concluded that Miami referred to a street in Oakland, not the Florida city as first assumed.)

But Naso's "biggest secret," Noguera said in a recorded call with Mains, played in the series, was that he claimed to be much more prolific than authorities suspected.

The list of 10 "'is not all my kills," Naso said, according to Noguera. "'It's just my favorites. The truth is, I killed 26 women.'"

Naso has never been charged with any other murders since his 2013 conviction for killing Colon, Parsons, Roggasch and Tafoya.

Where is serial killer Joseph Naso now?

Naso, now 91, spent years on death row at San Quentin State Prison. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who imposed a moratorium on executions after he took office in 2019, introduced plans in 2023 to convert the prison—home over the years to Charles Manson, "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez and other notorious killers—into a rehabilitation facility.

Naso now resides at California Health Care Facility, Stockton, which is for prisoners with severe medical conditions or long-term treatment needs, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's inmate locator.

What happened to former death row inmate William Noguera?

Noguera had been in prison since 1983 for killing his then-girlfriend's mother when he was 18.

 "I took a human life, and I take full responsibility for what I did,” Noguera told Vanity Fair's Rachel Dodes, who also appeared in the Oxygen series. "It would be very special for me to be able to give back in some way and allow these families to at least have some finalization."

From behind bars, Noguera became a noted artist whose work has been shown in galleries, wrote the 2018 memoir Escape Artist: Memoir of a Visionary Artist on Death Row and started the podcast Death Row Diaries.

In the summer of 2024, Noguera was resentenced to 25 years to life in prison, making him eligible for parole. He was found suitable for release in January and, on June 18, the 61-year-old's parole was confirmed.

He was transferred from Corcoran State Prison to Los Angeles County Jail due to an outstanding warrant and, per Vanity Fair, was released July 2 on $50,000 bail and moved into transitional housing.

Noguera told Dodes that, as soon as he walked free, he and his sister and brother-in-law “got in the car as fast as we could and went right to In-N-Out Burger."