I came across an article dated 6-16 76 in the Napa Register. The head line was : Did Slain Girl Have Death Premonition? It tells about Jenny Read having a nightmare about dying two weeks before she was killed. Jenny was 29 yrs old living in S.F. ,where she felt unsafe . In her diary she wrote: I am in a perishable place. She didn’t write in her diary on May 19th, her body was found in her Artist apt that day, a 10 inch butcher knife protruding from her heart. She was stabbed 13 times. Jenny dwelled on the possibility of death in her diary. She wrote :" Never have I so much anticipated Easter". Never has life seemed so precious, so short, so strong. On Sunday before she died, Jenny wrote" I must return to Water street to live. The last day of her life, she described a dream she had in which she was driving a car that skids off the road down a bank. "I am being hunted and dive into a hole in the brambles….there are two other men there and I’m not sure whether they are friends or enemies. We are not all brothers".
Jenny moved from a S.F. quite neighborhood, to a complex of Art studios in a run down area to cut down on the time it took her to pedal her bike to work.
No mention of a sexual assault or robbery as a motive.
As far as I could tell it was still unsolved ?
Hi Sandy,
It was a rape. They had a suspect
http://sfappeal.com/2009/08/sf-church-employee-charged-with-1976-murder/
not sure if he was convicted (I will check…)…
James Lee Mayfield, a registered sex offender, was linked via DNA, in 2009, to the murder, and brought to trial in 2010. I assume the press thinks its a foregone conclusion that he was convicted, as I find no follow-up on his trial.
You would think that if he was arrested in 2009 and there was DNA that linked him to the murder that he would be in prison now. But I just looked at the California Inmate Locator and he is not listed as being a prisoner in California.
http://inmatelocator.cdcr.ca.gov/search.aspx
You would think that if he was arrested in 2009 and there was DNA that linked him to the murder that he would be in prison now. But I just looked at the California Inmate Locator and he is not listed as being a prisoner in California.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he is walking our streets. Since the rape was thrown out, the DNA is probably inadmissable. 
Hog-tied and stabbed….wonder what this guy looked like.
“…they may be dealing with one or more ersatz Zodiacs–other psychotics eager to get into the act, or perhaps even other murderers eager to lay their crimes at the real Zodiac’s doorstep.“ L.A. Times, 1969
You would think that if he was arrested in 2009 and there was DNA that linked him to the murder that he would be in prison now. But I just looked at the California Inmate Locator and he is not listed as being a prisoner in California.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he is walking our streets. Since the rape was thrown out, the DNA is probably inadmissable.
Hog-tied and stabbed….wonder what this guy looked like.
Is there some exception, like murder in the commission of rape makes the DNA admissible?
Looks like there was also some question on the validity of the DNA evidence as it came from a lab that was in the news: http://www.davidonek.com/news-conference-dna-memo . I kinda remember this in the news a few years back.
I can’t find a picture of him. No surprise.
James Lee Mayfield:
Interesting background, but then again, he was a rapist:
http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/D … 222075.php
http://www.examiner.com/article/bitterl … jenny-read
-Nin
California Sex Offender Archive Record For: James Mayfield
And – preaching..:
PDF page 79ff ( page 407 of document):
http://www.quarterlyreview.org/pdfs/VOL … ER2005.pdf
-Nin
An easy one, and I missed it!
Thanks Nin!
Can you find any info/articles on his trial and whether he was convicted?
Interesting background, but then again, he was a rapist:
http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/D … 222075.php
http://www.examiner.com/article/bitterl … jenny-read
-Nin
BTW, the title of the SFGATE article: "Deacon convicted of rape held in ’76 slaying" is curiously worded to make you (me) think he was convicted in Reed’s murder.
And – preaching..:
PDF page 79ff ( page 407 of document):
http://www.quarterlyreview.org/pdfs/VOL … ER2005.pdf-Nin
Correction, this is not the same individual after comparing photographs.
-Nin
can someone check the CA death indices after 2010 to see if he passed away (as one alternative to what happened)?
There were two James Mayfield’s in the social security death index that died in California in 2010 or after. One born in 1940, too old. One born in 1971, too young. This James Mayfield would be 67 years old today so born about 1946.
