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'Not a joke': Calif. woman's claims about dad killing 400 people create a frenzy

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A month ago, a woman from California’s North Coast shocked the internet, 
claiming, “I am the daughter of a serial killer.” Her post featured a 
black-and-white photograph of a square-jawed man sporting black-rimmed 
glasses, a sports coat and a tie. The image taps into a deeply ingrained 
American archetype, evoking old yearbooks, D.B. Cooper or, for many 
online, the infamous Zodiac Killer sketch.

What followed was an explosive frenzy — speculation, disbelief and 
obsession spreading like wildfire. The online hive mind quickly latched 
on, amplifying her story across the world.

Mendocino County resident Galina Trefil, a published horror writer 
practiced in crafting compelling narratives, took to Facebook on March 
13, 2025, and told the public that her 86-year-old father, Dr. Jon 
Trefil, had confessed to a decades-long killing spree across multiple 
states. The post has been shared over 16,000 times, prompted over 5,000 
comments and become fodder for true crime discussions across the internet.

Since her first post, Trefil has revealed what she considers to be a 
trove of evidence implicating her father, from taped confessions and 
supposed burial sites to sadistic personal journal entries. And she 
claims that despite this overwhelming evidence against her father, cops 
are ignoring the case. She says her father was responsible for one 
murder per month from 1965 to 1999 — a staggering kill count of over 400 
victims. So if any law enforcement agencies are in fact ignoring the 
case against her father, they’re ignoring the chance to catch the 
world’s most prolific serial killer.

https://www.facebook.com/galina.trefil/posts/10237636857442651?ref=embed_post

Here’s the thing: The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office conducted an 
extensive investigation of Galina Trefil’s claims. Hours of interviews 
with her father and cross-referencing his DNA with the nation’s cold 
case database led detectives to one conclusion: There is no evidence Jon 
Trefil has killed anyone, let alone hundreds.

'This is not a joke'
In one of the opening lines in her debut post, Galina Trefil drops the 
line that has become the refrain of her social media campaign: “I am the 
daughter of a serial killer.” She frames her admission as a great 
unburdening, a way of coming clean after years of guilt. “For so many 
years now, I have lived a double life; carried an impossible secret. 
This is not a joke,” she wrote.

It is difficult to distill Galina’s claims regarding her father’s crimes 
into a chronological narrative, given the copious and scattered nature 
of her supposed evidence. He began killing in the 1950s and continued 
until 1999, with no regard for age, race or gender, she says. He 
frequently preyed on hitchhikers, imprisoning victims for weeks before 
killing them, she claims, and says one of his go-to “murder weapons” was 
strychnine, a known poison. In one post, she shares a photo of a 
weathered antique bottle labeled “Poison” and “Strychnine” that she says 
her father kept in his medicine bag. However, similar bottles are 
commonly available on eBay.

Continued.

https://www.sfgate.com/northcoast/article/california-serial-killer-story-viral-no-proof-20267337.php

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'Not a joke': Calif. woman's claims about dad killing 400 people create a frenzy yore democrats <yore.democrats@nutbars.org> - 2025-05-07 12:06 -0700

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