Tuesday, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office announced that a criminal grand jury indicted 65-year-old Thomas John Loguidice on Dec. 14 on one felony count of kidnapping with the intent to commit robbery. The charge was accompanied by allegations that he used a deadly weapon, threatened great bodily harm, and acted with “a high degree of callousness.”

“We don’t forget victims and we don’t forgive violent crime,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “Our message to our community is that this office will use advancing DNA forensics, detective work, and determination to seek justice.”

Loguidice is serving a 40-year prison sentence following his 2012 conviction in San Benito County for two counts of sexually abusing a child under 14. Until the recent indictment, he was being held in state prison custody at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad.

Jail records show he was transported to the Santa Clara County Main Jail on Thursday, and he is scheduled to be arraigned on the new charge Wednesday in a San Jose courtroom.

Prosecutors say the crime behind the new charge was reported the morning of Jan. 13, 1994 at what is now Westfield Oakridge Mall. Around 10 a.m. a 21-year-old woman working as acting manager at President Tuxedo was getting ready to open the store when a man walked into the showroom, threatened her with a knife, and forced her into a back storage room.

The intruder forced the woman to the ground, bound her wrists and tied her to a pipe, then proceeded to take cash out of the register. Before the man left, authorities say he sexually assaulted the captive woman before running away.

San Jose police detectives investigating the holdup eventually ran out of leads. Deputy District Attorney Rob Baker said that last summer, the cold case unit he leads at the district attorney’s office revisited the Oakridge case as part of a broader review of nearly 300 outstanding sexual assault investigations dating back to the 1990s.

During the new evaluation, they found that a sample of the assailant’s DNA from the original crime scene matched an entry in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System. The entry reportedly belonged to Loguidice, who was required to submit his DNA to the database after his 2011 arrest in connection with the crimes in San Benito County.

After the match, prosecutors determined that they could not charge the sexual assault dimension of the holdup because the statute of limitations for that crime expired in 2000. But Baker said there was a strong enough case to charge Loguidice with kidnapping with intent for robbery, which has no statute of limitations.

Baker added that the office sought a criminal indictment from a grand jury, rather than the typical procedure of directly filing a criminal charge “because of the case age and desire to get to trial as soon as possible.” A grand jury indictment allows prosecutors to bypass a preliminary examination, the court hearing where a judge determines whether charges are fit to proceed to trial.

A conviction on the indictment would add a seven-years-to-life prison term on top of Loguidice’s current prison sentence. He has parole eligibility in 2032, and that would be pushed back by at least seven years if he were found guilty of the new kidnapping charge.

Check back later for updates to this story.

Officers were called at 2:48 a.m. Jan. 1 to an apartment complex near North Jackson Avenue south of Alexian Drive for a report of an assault. They arrived to find a man suffering from serious injuries consistent with being hit by a vehicle, according to San Jose police.

The injured man was rushed to a local hospital, and police said he was initially expected to survive, but he died Sunday. He was identified by the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office as 52-year-old Ernest Pino Valenzuela.

An assault investigation started shortly after the Jan. 1 police call determined that the now-deceased man was in an altercation with another man at an apartment complex, and that at some point the second man used his vehicle as a weapon.

The second man was initially arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, though he was later released; his identity has not been disclosed by police. After the injured man died, the case was transferred to the SJPD homicide unit, which will present their findings to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office for evaluation of potential charges.

Additional details about the circumstances of the homicide were not immediately available Tuesday, but police said the two men knew each other and that the incident was not a chance encounter.

The first homicide of the year investigated by police also involved a man who died from injuries suffered on New Year’s Day. Leroy Benjamin, 62 was shot near West San Carlos Street and the Highway 87 overpass, and died Jan. 9; a shooting suspect has been arrested in that case.

Anyone with information for investigators can contact SJPD homicide Detective Sgt. Mike White at 4104@sanjoseca.gov or Detective Sgt. John Van Den Broeck at 3829@sanjoseca.gov, or call 408-277-5283. Tips can also be left with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-7867 or at svcrimestoppers.org.

According to a social-media post by the CHP’s Santa Cruz office, a CHP officer responded around 11:15 a.m. to a call reporting a car stuck in a ditch in the 800 block of Old Mill Pond Road, near the Glenwood area of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

When the officer arrived, he found the car was “not teetering on a ditch but in fact, teetering on the side of a cliff!”

Within a few minutes, the officer managed to soothe and calm three people inside the car, who were “scared for their lives” and “in disbelief.”

After carefully following the officer’s “clear and concise instructions on how to safely exit the car,” the three were able to get out safe and sound.

Alongside images of the car balanced on the cliff edge by one rear tire, the CHP warned residents about exercising caution.

“If you do need to drive please slow down, be aware of your surroundings, and give enough space between yourself and surrounding vehicles.”

Contact George Kelly at 408-859-5180.

The person was hit at about 6:45 p.m. near Dry Creek Road and Bascom Avenue, according to the San Jose Police Department. While the pedestrian’s injuries were initially believed to be life-threatening, police later said the person was expected to survive.

Anyone wishing to offer a tip about the wreck can do so by calling Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-7867 or by visiting svcrimestoppers.org.

One day after the victim died, San Jose police announced that they arrested a man suspected of shooting him.

The shooting was reported at 6:10 p.m. in the 400 block of West Carlos Street, near the Highway 87 overpass, according to San Jose police.

Responding officers found a man at the location suffering from at least one gunshot wound, and he was rushed to a hospital with life-threatening injuries. Police said he died Monday; on Wednesday the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office identified him as Leroy Benjamin, 62, of San Jose.

In a news release, police said a man was arrested Tuesday in San Jose on suspicion of committing the fatal shooting, but that “the motive and circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation.” Sgt. Christian Camarillo, a police spokesman, told Bay Area News Group that the victim and suspect — who police have not publicly named — knew each other.

The first homicide investigated by San Jose police in 2022 did not occur until Feb. 8. The city recorded 35 homicides last year, with 20 of them the result of shootings, according to data compiled by this news organization.

Anyone with information about the Jan. 1 shooting can contact Detective Sgt. Ivan Barragan at 4106@sanjoseca.gov or Detective Elizabeth Ramirez at 4201@sanjoseca.gov or at 408-277-5283. Tips can also be left with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-7867 or at svcrimestoppers.org.

The revelation comes a day after a threatening note was found inside a girls’ bathroom at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School at 480 East Meadow Drive, according to the Palo Alto Police Department. The threat said the author intended to bomb the school Wednesday.

The student who found the inscription reported the threat to staff members, who in turn contacted authorities.

The ensuing investigation determined that the threat was not credible, police said Wednesday. School leaders are “confident” they have identified the student responsible for the threat, and the issue is being handled “internally as an administrative matter,” the police department added.

To ensure everyone’s safety, officers were at the school Wednesday until the issue was resolved.

Police praised the student who reported the threat and encouraged any others with information about it to tell a trusted adult or contact police at 650-329-2413. Those wishing to remain anonymous can call or text 650-383-8984 or email paloalto@tipnow.org.

Henry Bermudez was charged this week with rape and four additional rape- and assault-related counts indicating that the victim was intoxicated and unconscious during the reported attack.

Mountain View police stated in a news release that the woman reported being assaulted Saturday night after she became separated from her husband along Castro Street. While she was on her own, she told police that she was taken to an apartment in the 200 block of Castro, near Villa Street, where she was raped.

At some point the woman was able to leave, and she called her family by borrowing a phone from a good Samaritan. She reconnected with her family — who had reported her missing — and on Sunday morning, they flagged down a Mountain View patrol sergeant downtown and reported the sexual assault.

Police said the woman directed investigators to her attacker’s apartment, and after visiting the site they considered Bermudez as a suspect and learned he worked on the same block.

Officers arrested Bermudez at his workplace after the woman identified him as her attacker, police said. He was booked into the Elmwood men’s jail in Milpitas.

During Bermudez’s arraignment Wednesday at the Palo Alto Courthouse, Deputy District Attorney Lauren Ogata retold the woman’s account, which alleges that as she went in and out of unconsciousness, Bermudez repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted her as she begged him to stop.

Ogata added that after Bermudez was arrested, he reportedly admitted that “he knew the victim was extremely intoxicated.” The prosecutor called Bermudez a “threat to all vulnerable women” in arguing against his release from jail.

During the bail discussion, the reported victim’s husband spoke briefly to the court via video conference, saying his wife will “go into shock at random points during the day” and that “she knows she escaped, but is in fear that (Bermudez) will be released.”

Judge Brian Buckelew agreed with Ogata, citing public safety concerns in remanding Bermudez back to jail without bail. Bermudez’s next court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 7.

Police said the investigation is ongoing, and that detectives exploring the possibility of more potential victims linked to Bermudez. Anyone with information about the case can contact Detective Christine Powell at christine.powell@mountainview.gov.

Dana Rivers, 67, was convicted last November of murdering Charlotte Reed, 56, her wife Patricia Wright, 57, and Wright’s 19-year-old son, Benny Toto Diambu-Wright, in a frenzied triple-shooting and stabbing. Earlier this week, Judge Scott Patton rejected Rivers’ attorney’s contention that she was legally insane at the time of the murders.

“The facts of this case indicate planning, sophistication and a systematic effort to cover up the crime,” Patton said in his ruling, the news site Berkeley Scanner reported.

Since Rivers’ guilt had been established, the insanity phase of her trial required prosecutors to establish that she either understood the nature of her act, or that the murders were wrong. During the guilt phase, Deputy District Attorney Abigail Mulvihill argued that not only had Rivers planned the murders for months, but that she attempted to torch the couples’ Dunbar Avenue house in order to cover up the crime.

The fire, started in the couple’s garage, was only doused because an officer responded to a 911 caller who reported seeing Diambu-Wright stagger out of the home and fall in the middle of the street. The officer arrived just in time to watch Rivers, soaked in blood, attempting to leave the area.

During trial, prosecutors argued that the murders were motivated by a dispute involving an all-female biker gang called the Deviants MC, which the defense argued wasn’t a gang at all. Reed was briefly a member of the now-defunct Deviants, but continued to be friends with Rivers after leaving the club. On the night of the murders, Rivers was supposed to spend the night, but attacked the couple as they slept in their bed, stabbing them dozens of times and shooting them, before shooting their son in the heart.

John Arthur Getreu, 78, formally admitted Tuesday to killing 21-year-old Leslie Marie Perlov on Feb. 13, 1973. He entered the first-degree murder plea in Santa Clara County Superior Court via video conference; he is in state prison custody in Stockton, and his attorney said several medical conditions made it impossible to safely bring him to court.

Getreu also admitted Tuesday that his murder of Perlov was during an attempted rape. The body of Perlov, a Stanford graduate working at a local law library, was found face down underneath an oak tree, west of her car parked near a quarry off Old Page Mill Road.

Despite being on short list of suspects and a documented history of sexual assault and homicide, Getreu eluded charges until his November 2018 arrest at his Hayward home.

Authorities credited the then-rising forensic method of DNA genealogy, made famous by the solving of the Golden State Killer case that same year. On Tuesday, Getreu spoke briefly, to say “Guilty” to Judge Jessica Delgado in affirming his plea and to assure her that he understood his rights.

Diane Perlov spoke in court to describe the lasting impact her sister’s death had on her family.

“It has been 50 years this month since my older sister was taken from us. Fifty years in which this monster has been free and living his life,” Diane Perlov said. “I don’t know how many other people he has killed. Hopefully he will have to deal with that with his soul.”

She credited her sister’s struggle with Getreu for helping solve her own murder.

“It was only because she fought so desperately that she had the evidence underneath her fingernails,” Diane Perlov said. “It was an incredibly brutal murder and sexual assault.”

She added: “There is no peace for this, there is no resolution or peace or comfort. Justice is the least we can do.”

Deputy District Attorney Michel Amaral said the latest conviction was a “tribute to law enforcement’s use of science to find killers, and the family’s perseverance of seeking justice on behalf of their sister.”

“John Getreu committed these atrocious crimes nearly 50 years ago and he thought he had gotten away with it,” Amaral said. “But science caught up to him.”

Getreu was convicted in September 2021 in San Mateo County for the 1974 murder of 21-year-old Janet Ann Taylor, who was the daughter of Chuck Taylor, a former Stanford athletic director and coach. He was given a sentence of life in state prison and is being held at the California Health Care Facility, Stockton.

While his first conviction was on the Peninsula, the road to implicating Getreu in the two murders was paved in the South Bay, where the Santa Clara County sheriff’s office and district attorney’s office, which operates the county Crime Lab, revived the Perlov investigation about five years ago.

Leslie Perlov’s body was discovered Feb. 16, 1973 — three days after she is presumed to have been killed — and the crime scene showed she had been strangled with her underwear and pantyhose stuffed in her mouth and her skirt pulled up above her waist. But there was physical evidence underneath her fingernails that was preserved, with the hope that one day in the future it could be meaningfully processed.

Getreu has a sordid history that preceded and coincided with the two Stanford killings for which he was convicted. In 1964, when he was 18, Getreu was convicted of raping and killing a 16-year-old girl in Germany. Both Getreu and the girl were the children of Army officers stationed there; he was tried as a minor and returned to the United States after serving a short sentence.

He was working as a security guard in Palo Alto when Perlov and Taylor were killed, and in 1975, Getreu was convicted of raping an underage girl in the city. But DNA collection from felons was not standard practice at the time, so he was not tied to the Perlov and Taylor killings.

Fast forward to 2018, and Getreu was on a list of possible suspects identified by the new round of evidence analysis. Detectives conducted surveillance on him and surreptitiously obtained his DNA from a discarded item.

Authorities said it matched the sample that had been recovered from the original crime scene. After Getreu was arrested, he was linked to Taylor’s killing after San Mateo County sheriff’s investigators matched his DNA to samples taken from Taylor’s clothing.

Perlov and Taylor were among four young people connected to Stanford who were killed on or near the campus between 1973 and 1974. In a separate case, the same team of investigators tapped DNA genealogy to solve the murder of Arlis Perry, who was killed in 1974 at the Stanford Memorial Church. Stephen Blake Crawford, a campus security guard at the time, died by suicide in June 2018 as officers were approaching his San Jose apartment to arrest him.

The murder that remains unsolved is that of David Levine, a 19-year-old junior who was found stabbed to death outside Meyer Library in September 1973.

Getreu is scheduled for sentencing April 26 and again faces a lifetime prison sentence. Technically, he would be eligible for parole after about seven years because his crimes are subject to 1973 sentencing guidelines. But Amaral said he expects that the entirety of Getreu’s criminal history dating back to the Germany killing, and how he was free for decades after killing Perlov and Taylor, would dissuade a parole board from actually releasing him.

“What we have here is an actual serial killer,” Amaral said. “That should give the parole board enough to keep him in (prison) for the rest of his natural life.”

The incident was reported around 5:45 p.m. Saturday at the care facility, which Los Altos police did not name. In a statement, police said the suspect “gained unauthorized access into the facility and subsequently sexually battered the victim.”

The suspect then left the care facility on a bicycle, police said.

Authorities on Monday also released images of the suspect from the care facility’s surveillance footage.

Anyone with information related to the incident can contact Sgt. Steven Spillman at 650-947-2689 or sspillman@losaltosca.gov, or the anonymous tip line at 650-947-2774.