Trial Underway For Accused Serial Strangler
PONTIAC (WWJ/AP) - The murder trial began Monday for a 67-year-old serial strangling suspect from Ohio, accused in the 1968 killing of a Michigan woman.
Reporting from Oakland County Circuit Court, WWJ's Florence Walton said more than half the jury of ten men and four women weren't even born when prosecutors say Nolan George strangled 36-year-old Gwendolyn Perry, whose partially nude body was found in a Pontiac field.
Forty-two years ago George confessed to strangling Perry during a rape in her car. George was never tried until now, because his confession was made following his guilty plea to manslaughter in another killing.
Assistant Oakland County Prosecutor John Skrzynski said that George made his confession voluntarily to the Pontiac detective, and regularly bragged to inmates about his murder victims who he strangled with their undergarments.
Defense lawyer Michael McCarthy has tried to keep the decades-old confession from George out of the trial, saying he was promised immunity for the statement.
The judge allowed the confession.
George was freed in 1982 after 12 years in prison for killing 22-year-old Frances Brown of Lake Orion. He also served time in Ohio for strangling a woman and is suspected in other attacks.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
