Sexual Assault Diary, Guns and Mannequins Found in Accused Serial Killer's Home, Officers Testify

Two Nevada Department of Public Safety officers testified this morning that they found cash, guns, mannequins dressed in nylons, and a diary documenting sexual assaults when they searched accused serial killer Joseph Naso's Reno home in 2010.

Naso, 78, is charged with killing four reputed prostitutes, two from the Bay Area, between 1977 and 1994.

The testimony by probation officers Wesley Jackson and David LeBaker came on the in Marin County Superior Court. The hearing will allow a judge to determine whether there is enough evidence to hold Naso for trial.

Nevada authorities searched Naso's home on April 13, 2010, to see if he was complying with the terms of his three-year probation for a felony larceny conviction in 2009. They conducted a more thorough search a week later, on April 21.

Jackson testified that the mannequins were found in a bedroom and in a detached garage at Naso's Medgar Avenue home. He said Naso had women's nylons and lingerie in a bedroom dresser.

Naso also had a poster board with photos of nude and partially nude women, Jackson said.

LeBaker said he found the diary attached to a clipboard on Naso's dining room table. He said he read a few short paragraphs, including an account of a sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl on a Greyhound bus in Kansas.

Lebaker said he notified his supervisor, who then called detectives, and Naso's house was locked up and placed under guard.

Nevada Department of Public Safety Officer Roger Jacobs testified Monday that Naso told him the photos, which Jacobs said depicted women in "unnatural poses," were of his "old girlfriends."

In court Monday, Naso said the photos were part of his photographic artwork.

The Nevada public safety officers also testified that they found four guns behind a refrigerator in the garage, as well as ammunition and $14,000 in cash in the home and the garage.

Naso was arrested after the April 13 search for violating his probation.

He was arrested for the four murders in April 2011 by Marin County sheriff's detectives after he was released from the El Dorado County Jail, where he served one year for the probation violation.

The victims, whose first and last names began with the same letter, are Roxene Roggasch, 18, of Oakland; Carmen Colon, 22, an East Bay resident; Pamela Parsons, 38, and Tracy Tafoya, 31, both of Yuba County.

Roggasch's body was found on the side of a road near Fairfax in 1977, and Colon's body was found in 1978 near Port Costa in Contra Costa County.

Bay City News Service