Bay City News
Prosecutors in Monterey County have linked the cold case murders of two women in the '70s to a man who has been committed to a federal facility for years due to grave mental illness, the District Attorney's Office said Tuesday.
Jurn Norris, 69, is a former resident of Marina, where he is accused of murdering two young military spouses in 1979 named Helga DeShon and Uicha Malgieri.
Though they believe they have a solid case against Norris after analyzing DNA evidence decades later, prosecutors are not going to be filing charges because he is currently incompetent to stand trial due to severe mental illness. He is the subject of a federal civil commitment in another state and has been in a locked facility "for decades," according to the District Attorney's Office.
According to prosecutors, in September 1979, 21-year-old Malgieri was found strangled to death in her apartment on Cosky Drive in Marina. Malgieri was originally from South Korea and was married to a U.S. Army specialist stationed at Fort Ord.
Malgieri's husband was initially arrested on suspicion of the crime, but he was released with no charges and cleared as a suspect.
"He was not involved in his wife's murder in any way," said a statement released from District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni's office on Tuesday.
DeShon, who was also married to an Army sergeant, was also found strangled to death in her apartment on Cosky Drive in October 1979.
Both women were strangled on Tuesday mornings while their husbands were at work. At the time, investigators believed that both murders were connected and evidence was collected for each case, prosecutors said.
Norris, who was 25 at the time, had been discharged from the Army that May after attacking and strangling another soldier while they were stationed in Germany. The female soldier survived and identified Norris as her attacker. He was given a bad conduct discharge and he returned to the United States. Prosecutors said he was in Marina at that time because his wife was an Army sergeant stationed at Ford Ord.
Norris became a suspect in the two Marina murders after a neighbor of Malgieri told police that she had an unsettling interaction with him at the same apartment complex in August, one month before Malgieri was killed. The neighbor said that Norris knocked on her door early in the morning while her husband was at work and asked if he could enter her apartment and wait until noon. Once inside, he smoked cigarettes and made sexual comments toward her, suggesting that she could be a nude model. He asked her if she could trust him. When she became uncomfortable and asked him to leave, he exited but then returned, claiming he had left his cigarettes behind, though he had not. The neighbor documented his license plate as he drove away.
On August 25, 1979, Norris stabbed his own wife with an ice pick and she survived the attack.
In October 1979, on the day of DeShon's murder, a person believed to be Norris called Malgieri's neighbor again and told her that her "best friend" had just been killed. Although the neighbor did not know DeShon, they were both from Germany. Norris told her that she was "next."
In November of that year, Norris kidnapped his wife on the way to marriage counseling and threatened to kill her. He returned to their residence and didn't harm her, but received 180 days in jail with 60 days suspended for stabbing his wife. In 1980, Norris shot his wife multiple times and she survived. He was then sentenced to federal prison.
Norris remained a suspect in the two murders on Cosky Drive, but due to limited forensic technology at the time, there was not enough evidence to convict him.
Fast-forward to the present day, when cold case detectives decided to re-examine these cases. DNA testing was conducted on evidence taken from both crime scenes which "showed there was strong support for Norris as a contributor" to DNA found on the jeans of DeShon. A hair belonging to Norris was also found in her apartment. Norris could not be excluded from DNA collected at the Malgieri scene.
Prosecutors in Monterey County said, were Norris competent to stand trial, they have enough evidence to file charges against him. However, Norris is "gravely mentally ill" and indefinitely being held in a federal facility, according to the District Attorney's Office. There is little chance that he will ever be in a condition to be competent enough to stand trial.
"The Cold Case Task Force is grateful to all who assisted in bringing a resolution to these offenses and those who continue to honor the memories of Uicha Malgieri and Helga DeShon," said prosecutors.
Copyright © 2024 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area.
Most Popular
Comments / 0