Episode 14
The East Bay Slayer
Behind the Crime Scene - A True Crime Podcast
Episode 14
It's January 2, 1982. Joan Stewart is raped, strangled, stabbed several times and murdered in the woodlands near Montclair, California by the EAST BAY SLAYER. Charles Jackson started his lifetime career of crime when he was arrested and charged with theft at 16. Over the next 28 years, he is repeatedly incarcerated for committing burglary, rape, assault and molesting minors. Authorities learned he slayed more than eight people after he died in prison in 2002 because of the tenacity of Senior Deputy District Attorney Rockne Harmon's pursuit of DNA profiling.
Gina L Osborn and Tracy Miller go Behind the Crime Scene with Senior Deputy District Attorney Rockne P. Harmon to hear how the East Bay Slayer was captured and brought to justice.
Special Guest
ROCKNE P. hARMON, Senior Deputy district attorney, retired
Rockne P. Harmon is currently employed as a consultant to numerous law enforcement agencies dealing with such issues as cold case investigation and other issues related to forensic DNA typing. He had been an Instructor at U.C. Davis in the Masters in Forensic Science program from 2007-2015. He retired in 2007 after a 33 year career as a Senior Deputy District Attorney for Alameda County, California.
Mr. Harmon graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1967 and served four years active duty. He served a combat tour in Vietnam as Officer in Charge of a Navy Swift Boat and received the Purple Heart for wounds received in combat. After his military service he attended the University of San Francisco School of Law and graduated in 1974. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.
He was the prosecutor in a triple murder case that established the general acceptance of conventional serological methods, the precursor to today’s DNA technology.( People v. Lawrence Reilly). As a result of that case he was in a position to assist the forensic science community as it began the implementation of DNA typing soon thereafter.
Mr. Harmon has written and lectured extensively on the subject of the admissibility of forensic evidence, particularly DNA evidence. In 1998 he received an award from the FBI Director for his efforts supporting the FBI in their first decade of DNA typing. In 2003 he received the Achievement Award from the International Homicide Investigators’ Association for his work on cold cases.
He was the Chairman of the California District Attorneys’ Association Forensic Science Committee and was on the Advisory Board to the International Homicide Investigators’ Association for many years. At Alameda County he developed a highly successful protocol for solving old or unsolved cases using DNA typing. He was the driving force behind the California Attorney General’s decision to implement familial DNA searching in California that led to the arrest of the “Grim Sleeper” serial killer in 2010.
Mr. Harmon was one of the prosecutors in People v. O. J. Simpson.
