Delving into the mind of an alleged serial killer
By Jaclyn O’Malley, Reno Gazette-Journal
Joseph Naso is a 77-year-old self-employed photographer whose life experiences — on the surface — don’t seem different from those of many other men.
After a 1950s stint in the U.S. Air Force, he married and soon became a father. Decades later, he divorced, but maintained a relationship with his former wife. During the past several years, he became caretaker to his extremely mentally ill middle-aged son, often lashing out against the system by making legal challenges regarding the son’s treatment. Naso thought he could do better than health care workers, some whom he deemed incompetent and refused to let inside his home.
But Naso amassed a criminal history dating back to 1955 and seemed to have a fondness for women’s underwear — including an arrest relating to the alleged theft of underwear in the 1990s from a department store, according to the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News. and asking a female neighbor in Yuba City, Calif., if she was selling women’s underwear at her garage sale, according to Sacramento News 10.
Neighbors in Lemmon Valley described Naso, who had dozens of addresses spanning the country throughout the last several decades, to news media as strange and mentioned the fences around his modest home, which allowed no view into his backyard.
And when dozens of law enforcement officers and forensics crews stormed Naso’s home in April 2010, removing boxloads of his property, they felt their unease was validated.
On Tuesday, law enforcement accused him of being a serial killer who murdered women in crimes that, at least in three of the cases, can make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted, according to the Mercury News. Such special circumstances can include robbery, kidnapping or rape. The four women he is charged with killing had the same initial in their first and last names, which suggests some organization and planning. It also suggests the name alliterations could have been his calling card.