The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office reported this week that it previously looked into a woman’s claims that her father was a serial killer responsible for an unsolved local murder, but found no evidence linking him to the alleged crime.
According to a Monday press release, the MCSO was notified in January of 2023 that the daughter of Jon Charles Trefil “reported to other local and regional law enforcement of her suspicions that her father is a serial killer” who may be responsible for an unsolved murder in Mendocino County in the 1970s.
“Based on the referrals from other law enforcement agencies,” the release explains, MCSO detectives “spoke with an advocate of Trefil’s daughter, who also assisted in interviewing Trefil about his alleged crimes. Recordings, scanned journals, and other investigative materials were shared with the Sheriff’s Office who conducted investigations into the claims.”
When “investigators met with Trefil’s daughter in February of 2023,” the MCSO reports, she reported that “her father spoke about murdering several people from the 1970s through the 1990s… and (she) began researching unsolved murders in Mendocino County.” After identifying “a murder in the 1970s in Mendocino County” that she suspected he might be responsible for, the daughter reported that she questioned her father and he “ultimately admitted to the unsolved murder in Mendocino County in the 1970s. Detectives also obtained pictures, copies of journal entries, and recordings from the meetings between Trefil, his daughter, and the advocate.”
While further investigating the unsolved murder from the 1970s in Mendocino County, MCSO detectives reported finding “some consistencies in the information provided by Trefil’s daughter and the unsolved homicide case from the 1970s, so they sought a warrant to obtain Trefil’s DNA for comparison to the evidentiary items sent for testing.”
After obtaining a search warrant in May of 2023 to “obtain a DNA sample from Trefil for comparison to the DNA profile from the evidence items in the unsolved homicide,” the MCSO reports that it submitted Trefil’s DNA sample to “the California Department of Justice Bureau of Forensic Services and ultimately uploaded to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).”
However, the MCSO reports that it was later notified that “Trefil’s DNA did not match the unknown male contributor DNA profile from the unsolved 1970s murder investigation. The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office was also informed by DOJ that Trefil’s DNA profile was uploaded into CODIS for routine and regular comparisons to DNA profiles uploaded from unsolved cases. As of the publication of this press release, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office has never been informed of Trefil’s DNA profile being a match or potential match to any evidentiary items submitted to CODIS.”
The MCSO also notes that “Trefil’s daughter also alleged her father buried numerous people he murdered at a cabin in Comptche, (but that MCSO personnel) searched the property and cabin and were unable to locate any evidence to substantiate these claims or of possible human remains or burial sites on the property in Comptche.”
The MCSO also noted that it was releasing details of this investigation now after learning on March 14 about “social media posts where the subject alleged her father is a serial killer (named) Jon Charles Trefil.”
“The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office has and will continue to investigate crimes associated with Trefil or allegations that he was a serial killer in Mendocino County,” the release states, explaining that “the Sheriff’s Office has not interviewed Trefil directly regarding these allegations due to his fragile medical state and information provided by his family that he will not cooperate with law enforcement. When legally justified and supported by probable cause, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office will continue to investigate this matter.”
The MCSO also added that it is “aware that Trefil’s daughter referenced other serial killers identified by her father, but these inferences were not substantiated by detectives, and that the MCSO “has been unable to substantiate the claims of the other individuals alleged to be serial killers or their involvement with homicides in Mendocino County,” nothing that investigators “examined the scanned copies of Trefil’s diaries and journals, but did not locate any expressed confessions to any murders.”
The MCSO requests that anyone with information regarding this investigation either contact its office by calling 707-463-4086, or provide information “anonymously by calling the non-emergency tip line at 707-234-2100.”
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