Neighbors With A KILLER By Ellie Chase
asking other law enforcement to look into area. So those are the kind of things that their own cold cases that involve murder now you look back on it you’re like, Oh… and sexual assault, as Personette may be a goodness.” The couple also caught Personette Living in a small mountain town, suspect in more of these cases. It is a shock to identify the killer looking in their window. neighbors enjoy each other’s company, of a case from 43 years ago, but just as help each other with snow removal, and trust one another. A neighbor is someone shocking for the neighbors that interacted It’s tough to live by a killer. that supports you. Except some neighbors with him. I was raised in the house up the hill from “Really, you don’t think anyone aren’t always what they seem. Personette’s, where I lived for 12 years until in your own neighborhood could be so Mark Personette was the strange recently moving. We shared a property line brutal,” Fisher said. neighbor down with him, and he intruded frequently on Fisher and her partner the street on land and activities. My parents, Sarah “Really, you don’t think lived close to Mark for our Fallen Rock and Brian Chase, can recall more about Road, Conifer. anyone in your own 10 years. Though she Personette than I can. never suspected him “He “From the first time I met Mark, neighborhood could be of murder, she noticed was just a weird he made me feel uneasy,” S. Chase said. so brutal brutal,”,” Fisher said. concerning behaviors he “He came too close to you. And he would individual. He had and tried to make would never just talk and talk and talk and not get the interactions with him look you in the message that you were trying to back away few and far between. eye or wave at you on the road. Like neighand go inside. Those social norms that “We weren’t quite sure what the bors do,” 10-year Fallen Rock resident people usually recognize were definitely reason was but we always had that uncom- absent.” Robin Fisher said. Known to be a Vietnam Veteran, fortable feeling around him because he was Though I have few memories of always a little strange,” Fisher said. “I didn’t conversations with Personette, I remember the neighborhood labeled him as a damaged, older man, but never as a murderer. even recognize him in the pictures because the rules that my parents told me to follow he was never seen without a hat or sunThat was until his arrest on Deregarding his presence. glasses, so now we probably know why.” cember 19th, 2021. According to 9News, “I did feel uneasy enough to tell Personette always had a lot of ‘No my daughter when she played in the backNew York Times, and CBS, Personette was trespassing’ signs on his property and put yard to not go past the woodpile, because arrested on murder charges for the death barbed wire and cones around his yard. He his property line was right behind it and of 15 year old Marissa Harvey, who was was extremely protective of his own land sexually assaulted and killed in March then if he approached her, she was to run but had little regard for others’ land. He 1978. Harvey was a New York resident back to the house,” S. Chase said. “And would often show visiting her sister when she went to go when our I mean if you were to ask me, of horseback riding in Golden State Park. She up when neighbors daughter and all the people I’ve come across were working on didn’t return home that night. Her body her friends in my life who would be capable was found the next day, and she had been projects outside, wanted to and have lengthy “badly beaten and strangled with a cordwalk home of something like that? I think like device after being raped,” according to conversations with from middle Mark would probably be the a report made by Coroner Boyd Stephen. them. One time, school, it first person that would come to Personette even Though an investigation was would mean showed Fisher’s mind. carried out, police were unsuccessful in they would finding Harvey’s killer, and her case grew partner, Carl walk right by Magarva, that he had a gun in his pocket. his house. And I’m sure that was a factor cold. But in October 2020, San FrancisFisher also found evidence that Personette into why I didn’t want 11 through 14-yearco’s cold case unit reopened the case and “linked DNA taken from the crime scene had visited their property unannounced. old girls walking up the road when he was “I would see footprints in the to Personette,” CBS wrote. around.” snow and wonder what he was doing With the history of arrests in Adeline Sportel lived in the Personette’s past, San Francisco Police are walking around my yard, you know, in our neighborhood as well, so she would often
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