San Francisco, CA – San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announced today that Mark Personette (80), convicted of first-degree murder of a teen girl in 1978 after a trial by jury, was sentenced to the maximum life with parole eligibility in 7 years.
“After almost 50 years, Mr. Personette is finally being held accountable for his heinous crimes against Marissa and will spend the rest of his life in prison,” said District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. “While nothing can bring Marissa back to her family, today’s sentence hopefully leaves her family with a sense that justice was done for all that they have endured.”
According to testimony and other evidence presented at trial, on March 27, 1978, the 15-year-old victim Marissa Harvey, who was visiting her sister in San Francisco, went to Golden Gate Park to ride a horse. She never returned to her sister’s house. The following day, her body was discovered in the underbrush of Sutro Heights Park by surfers who were walking through the area. At the crime scene, investigators found a leaf with the victim’s blood and her earring, showing that she was attacked there. Her cause of death was determined at the scene to be strangulation by ligature. An autopsy revealed numerous injuries consistent with a violent attack and sexual assault.
DNA testing in the early 2000s revealed a male DNA profile on the Marissa’s sweater and jeans, as well as within a piece of dried gum stuck to her back. In 2021, through investigative genetic genealogy, Mr. Personette was identified as a potential suspect. FBI investigators surveilled Mr. Personette, in Denver, Colorado, and observed him discarding trash in a Walmart parking lot over 15 miles from his house. They collected the trash, which included only personal hygiene items with his DNA. A search warrant at Personette’s house showed that he was separating his personal hygiene items from his other trash. He also had 1970s maps of San Francisco along with a set of California license plates with a 1979 registration sticker, though he denied to investigators that he had been in San Francisco. A confirmatory DNA test showed that Mr. Personette’s DNA profile was on the victim’s sweater and jeans, and the piece of dried gum.
A prior victim of Mr. Personette testified that in 1979, a year and a half after Marissa’s death, he raped her in a wooded area of New Jersey when she was 16 years old.
The case against Mr. Personette was successfully prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Heather Trevisan and Katherine Wells, with assistance from District Attorney Investigators Douglass Keeley and Gino Guerrero, paralegals Jessica Diagmond, Julio Flores Guzman, and IT support from Noaeh Pinaire. Victim Advocates Maria Reynoso, Janet Pedroza, and Lily Bueno worked closely with the victim’s family through the pendency of this case. Additionally, SFPD support dog Auburn and her handler supported the family. The case was solved thanks to the tireless work of the San Francisco Police Department’s Homicide Cold Case Unit investigators and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Denver surveillance team. Marrisa’s family is extremely appreciative of all the hard work done by SFPD and SFDA.
“This sentence reflects the extraordinary cruelty of Mark Personette’s conduct and the harm he caused,” said Assistant District Attorney Heather Trevisan. “He will spend the rest of his life facing the consequence of taking hers.”
“Mark Personette has been sentenced, and the long wait for accountability is finally over,” said Assistant District Attorney Katherine Wells. “While no sentence can undo the unimaginable loss Marissa’s family has carried for decades, I hope this moment brings them some measure of closure. It was an honor to seek justice for Marissa, and to stand alongside her family, the survivor who bravely testified, and the investigators and prosecution team who never stopped working to uncover the truth.”
Court Number: 22000870
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