Suspect Arraigned in 35-Year-Old Rape Case
An Arizona man pleaded not guilty Friday to the rape and murder of a 14-year-old San Francisco girl more than 35 years ago after DNA evidence linked him to the crime.
William Speer, 61, was arrested in Phoenix in December after investigators matched him to a fluid sample recovered from the autopsy. He had previously been convicted of three rapes and was being held in a state mental hospital in Arizona.
Speer has been charged in the 1968 death of Linda Harmon, who was found dead in a neighbor’s apartment where she had been baby-sitting. At the time, investigators interviewed several acquaintances of the neighbor, including Speer, then 25 years old. No arrests were made in the case at the time.
Speer is due back in court Jan. 28.
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