Man convicted in 1981 cold case murder, rape of Carmel mother after new DNA evidence obtained
SALINAS -- A man first charged more than 41 years ago in the brutal killing of a Carmel woman has been convicted of murder, according to an announcement Wednesday from the office of the Monterey County District Attorney.
A jury convicted Michael Scott Glazebrook, 67, of Seaside, in the 1981 murder of Sonia Carmen Herok-Stone, then 30, of Carmel.
The verdict comes four decades after another jury split on a verdict for Glazebrook. Cold-case investigators used DNA evidence that was a match to Glazebrook to reopen the case in 2020.
Herok-Stone was found murdered in her home on Oct. 15, 1981, while her 4-year-old daughter was at school, according to the announcement from prosecutors.
She had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death with her own pantyhose and had a broken left ring fingernail with blood beneath it, indicating she had scratched her killer before her death.
Glazebrook lived across the street from the victim at the time of the killing and was quickly identified as a suspect after a detective investigating the crime observed that Glazebrook had a three- to four-inch vertical scratch down his right cheek.
Glazebrook was charged with Herok-Stone's murder in 1982, but during a 1983 trial, the jury hung 9 to 3 for not guilty. Because the jury did not reach a unanimous decision, double jeopardy rules did not attach, and a retrial was legally possible, prosecutors said.
Forensic testing unavailable at the time of the original trial helped reopen the case in 2020.
At the new trial, prosecutors said, criminalists with the California Department of Justice testified that DNA consistent with Glazebrook was found underneath Herok-Stone's broken fingernail and on a swab taken from her right breast.
The eight-day jury trial found Glazebrook guilty of first-degree murder, with enhancements for using a deadly weapon and for committing rape.
Glazebrook is scheduled for sentencing on April 26, when he faces a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The case was investigated by Monterey County Sheriff's Office Detective Arras Wilson, with the assistance of investigators Sarah Jackson and Rachel Maldonado. Retired Monterey County Sheriff Detective Lins Dorman, the original lead investigator, provided valuable testimony about the investigation in the 1980s, according to the announcement.
This case was prosecuted by the Monterey County District Attorney's Office Cold Case Task Force, which was established in 2020 to investigate, solve and prosecute cold-case homicides in Monterey County.
