Crime scene tape is seen forming part of a large perimeter around a crime scene. (Joseph Geha/Bay Area News Group)
Two Marina homicides from nearly 45 years ago have been solved according to law enforcement officials, but the suspect cannot be prosecuted due to mental incompetency, according to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office.
On Tuesday, District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni and Marina Police Chief Randy Hopkins announced that Jurn Norris, 69, formerly from Marina, had been identified as the perpetrator in the killings of Helga DeShon and Uicha Malgieri, both young military spouses slain in their apartments in 1979.
According to the District Attorney’s Office, they have not been able to file charges against Norris because he is incompetent to stand trial due to severe mental illness.
“Based upon a thorough review of Norris’s records and in-person interviews with Norris conducted by members of the Cold Case Task Force and Marina Police Department, the District Attorney’s Office has concluded that Norris would not be found competent to stand trial and that there is no reasonable likelihood that he would be deemed competent to stand trial within two years,” reads the press statement from the District Attorney’s Office. “He has been diagnosed with multiple mental health disorders and is gravely mentally ill.”
Following this, the District Attorney’s Office announced that they cannot file charges against Norris for the killings, adding that in the “extremely unlikely” event that Norris’s mental state substantially improved, the case could be re-evaluated at that time.
Norris is currently under federal civil commitment in another state. He’s being supervised and has been receiving inpatient mental health treatment in a locked facility for decades.
Norris was initially identified as a suspect in the case decades ago, after a neighbor of Malgieri told police she had an unsettling interaction with him Aug. 21, 1979. Norris showed up to her house while her husband was at work and asked to enter the apartment and wait until noon. The neighbor said Norris made a series of inappropriate comments including telling the woman she could be a “nude model.”
At the time, Norris was 25 years old and had been discharged from the Army in May 1979 after allegedly attacking and strangling another soldier while stationed in Germany in 1978. The soldier was a young woman who survived and identified Norris as the attacker.
On Aug. 25, 1979, Norris stabbed his wife, also a soldier at Fort Ord, with an ice pick, fled the scene and returned to the neighbor’s house to ask for her husband’s money. His wife survived the attack.
On Sept. 25, 1979, 27-year-old Uicha Malgieri was found strangled to death in her apartment on Cosky Drive in Marina. Malgieri, originally from South Korea, was married to a U.S. Army specialist stationed at Fort Ord and worked as a housekeeper in Carmel. At first, her husband was arrested for the crime, but was released without any charges and later cleared as a suspect.
Two weeks later, on Oct. 9, 1979, 21-year-old Helga DeShon was found strangled to death in her apartment, also on Cosky Drive in Marina. DeShon was originally from Germany, and married to a U.S. Army sergeant also stationed at Fort Ord. That’s when police connected the two crimes because of their proximity, the method of homicide and the fact that both women were from outside the United States. Both victims were also strangled on a Tuesday morning while their husbands were at work.
On Nov. 11, 1979, Norris kidnapped his wife on the way to a marriage counseling appointment and threatened to kill her. He returned to their residence without harming her.
In December 1979, Norris was sentenced to 180 days in jail for stabbing his wife.
However, on Jan. 8, 1980, Norris shot his wife multiple times. She survived the shooting. Then he was convicted of assault with intent to commit murder and sentenced to federal prison.
During this time Norris remained a prime suspect in the murders of DeShon and Malgieri, but no arrests were made.
“DNA testing did not exist at the time, and the physical evidence was inconclusive using the technology that was then available,” the press statement reads.
In 2016, Marina Police Department conducted a review of unsolved homicides that had occurred in the city. Advancements in technology allowed detectives to submit evidence again and they had the opportunity to re-interview witnesses. The District Attorney’s Office determined that sufficient evidence existed to establish Norris’s identity as the perpetrator of the murders and charges would be filed if he were mentally competent to stand trial.
The Monterey County District Attorney’s Office Cold Case Task Force received a $535,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice back in January 2022. The grant, titled Fiscal Year 2021 Prosecuting Cold Cases Using DNA provides funding to support forensic testing and investigative cold cases where DNA from a suspect has been identified.
Originally published at Kyarra Harris