72-year-old convicted in 2010 rape, murder of friend in San Francisco
A San Francisco jury convicted a 72-year-old man for raping and killing his friend in 2010, according to city prosecutors.
Henry Hall, a San Francisco resident, was found guilty of murder with special circumstances that the murder was committed in the course of a rape and was committed in the course of sodomy, the San Francisco District Attorney's Office said in a statement Thursday.
Hall was also convicted of rape by force and sodomy by use of force, according to prosecutors.
The charges stemmed from September 2010 when the victim, a 37-year-old woman, went to stay with Hall in his single-occupancy hotel room along Mission Street in San Francisco after an argument with her husband. She would often spend time with Hall, prosecutors said.
According to the District Attorney's Office, Hall gave the woman heroin and cocaine before raping, sodomizing and killing her.
Following these crimes, police received an anonymous call regarding an "accidental murder" in the 2000 block of Mission Street, where officers discovered the victim's body in Hall's unit.
Investigators said a neighbor heard the woman screaming the night she was killed. Forensics proved she experienced violent sexual assault before she died, the District Attorney's Office said.
Hall was arrested in September 2020 in connection with the killing. He faces life in state prison without the possibility of parole, prosecutors said. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 10.