Murder Victims' Photos Found in Accused Serial Killer's Safe Deposit Box, Detective Testifies

Photos of two Yuba County women who were murdered in the 1990s were found in a safe deposit box belonging to Joseph Naso, the man accused of killing them and two Bay Area women, a Nevada detective testified this morning.

Nevada Department of Public Safety Detective Richard Brown testified that the photos, in which the women were dressed in lingerie, were attached to news articles about the two Yuba County murders inside the deposit box at a U.S. Bank in Reno.

Similar photos of the two women were found at Naso's Reno home.

Investigators are sure one of the women is Pamela Parsons, 38, whose body was found in 1993, Brown said. It's believed the other woman is Tracy Tafoya, whose body was found a year later, he said.

Brown testified that Tafoya's husband told him one of the women
pictured is wearing undergarments similar to those he had purchased for
Tafoya.

In addition to Parsons and Tafoya, Naso, 78, also is charged with killing Roxene Roggasch, 18, of Oakland, in 1977, and Carmen Colon, 22, an East Bay woman, in 1978.

Some have referred to the killings as the "double initial" murders because the victims' first and last names start with the same letter.

Thursday's testimony is part of Naso's preliminary hearing in Marin County Superior Court. The hearing, which began Tuesday, will allow a judge to determine whether there is enough evidence to hold Naso for trial.

In testimony on Wednesday, investigators said they found numerous photos at Naso's home that depicted scantily clad women in odd poses, including some who appeared to be unconscious or dead.

-- including an apparent sexual assault on a 14-year-old girl on a Greyhound bus in Kansas -- that Brown called a rape diary.

During his cross-examination of Brown this morning, Naso, who is representing himself in the case, asked Brown why he had called it that.

Brown answered, "Because your writings say 'I had to rape her,' and 'I raped her in the front seat of the car.'"

Naso responded, "That, in my culture, refers to making out," drawing gasps of disbelief from some in the courtroom.

"I use that term loosely. It's just a fantasy," Naso said.

Bay City News Service