The Pandemonium Witches: Murders, Mystery, and Mayhem · TPW3MPodcast

S1.E93 - John Arthur Getreu: Santa Clara’s Predator Hidden in Plain Sight

·1 hr 29 min·5 clips

John admitted, “I raped her, but it did not occur to me that I could have killed her.”

1. The Pandemonium Witches episode centers on John Arthur Getreu and the Stanford-area murders linked to Palo Alto, Santa Clara County, and West Germany. 2. Kat, Rachel, Em, and Meg frame the case, with Megan absent for part of the recording and the others handling the timeline and victim accounts. 3. The episode asks how Getreu moved from a 1963 dance-floor encounter in Bad Krasnok to decades of violence and a 2018 DNA arrest. 4. John Arthur Getreu was born on August 26, 1944, as one of four children of Army serviceman Charles J. Getreu. 5. The family lived in Japan, Hawaii, North Carolina, and then West Germany after Charles was transferred there in 1960. 6. John attended Bad Krasnok American High School and graduated in June 1963 before meeting Margaret Lillian Williams at a school dance. 7. Margaret Lillian Williams was born on February 26, 1948, in Japan and was the youngest daughter of U.S. Army Chaplain Lieutenant Colonel Robert Williams. 8. Her family described her as kind, caring, reflective, and interested in becoming a medical missionary. 9. After the dance, Margaret did not return home, and witnesses later placed her with John before her body was found at 1:11 a.m. 10. John was convicted in West Germany in 1964 and received 10 years, the maximum sentence available under West German law at the time. 11. Evan Williams later told the FBI he feared John would kill again and said he believed John had committed murder in California. 12. John was released in 1969, ordered to leave West Germany within 24 hours, and returned to the United States. 13. He later lived in Reno, Nevada, Palo Alto, and Alameda County while working jobs such as security guard, carpenter, and laboratory technician at Mills Hospital. 14. The episode says he joined the Boy Scouts of America in the mid-1970s and was publicly regarded as a husband, stepfather, and Boy Scout leader. 15. Lisa Marie Perloff, a 21-year-old Stanford honors graduate, disappeared after leaving the law library on February 13, 1973. 16. Her orange Chevy Nova was found at an old quarry off Old Page Mill Road, and her body was found three days later beneath an oak tree overlooking Stanford University. 17. Janet Ann Taylor was a 21-year-old Stanford student and the daughter of athletic director Chuck Taylor when she was last seen hitchhiking toward La Honda on March 24, 1974. 18. Her body was found in a roadside ditch off Sand Hill Road, and later testing on her green corduroy pants and nail evidence became critical to the investigation. 19. The hosts keep the tone conversational and chaotic, mixing family jokes, location details, and documentary-style case narration with a trigger warning for graphic violence. 20. Listeners who like cold cases, Stanford history, and DNA identification would fit this episode, while people avoiding detailed assault and murder accounts might skip it.

As heard by us

A messy, human true-crime episode that gives a 1974 campus murder case real personality.

The episode tracks a 1974 Stanford-area murder and lets The Pandemonium Witches sound like themselves as they work through it. The pre-show banter is loud, unruly, and a little ridiculous before the story turns darker, and that looseness is part of the draw.

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Why you'd press play

A chaotic, case-first listen on a Stanford-area murder, told by hosts who never stay on topic for long.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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