“With the development of more advanced technology and the work of California DOJ criminalists, investigators and prosecutors are able to revisit cold case homicides investigations and see that justice is served, which helps to keep our communities safe and bring closure to the family members of victims.” – CSLEA President Alan Barcelona
MONTEREY COUNTY – On February 6, 2023, a jury in Monterey County convicted Michael Scott Glazebrook, 67, of Seaside, of first-degree murder for the 1981 cold-case murder of Sonia Carmen Herok-Stone. The jury also found true a special circumstance allegation that the murder occurred during the commission or attempted commission of rape.
Herok-Stone, 30, lived in Carmel with her four-year-old daughter. On October 15, 1981, she was found murdered in her home while her daughter was at school. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Herok-Stone had a broken left ring fingernail with blood beneath it, indicating she had scratched her killer before her death.
Glazebrook, then 25, lived across the street from Herok-Stone. He was initially identified as a suspect on October 16, 1981, when a detective conducting a neighborhood canvas observed that he had a three to four-inch vertical scratch down his right cheek. Glazebrook made inconsistent statements about when and how he got the scratch. He told the detective he got it cutting plexiglass in his garage, but he told his parents that he got it in a fight at Monterey Peninsula College.
Glazebrook was charged with Herok-Stone’s murder in 1982, and the case went to a jury trial in 1983, but 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. Also, there is no statute of limitations for murder. The case was reopened in 2020. The renewed investigation included forensic testing unavailable at the time of the original trial. 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.
In 2023, after an eight-day jury trial, the jury convicted Glazebrook of first-degree murder. The jury also found true an enhancement that he personally used a deadly weapon in the commission of the crime and the special circumstance allegation that the murder occurred in the commission or attempted commission of the crime of rape.
Glazebrook is expected to be sentenced on April 26, 2023. 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 Monterey County District Attorney’s Office 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. The case could not have been prosecuted without the assistance of California Department of Justice Bureau of Forensic Services criminalists Josh Sehhat, Christopher Tanforan, Meghan Mannion Gray and Linh Schulz. The victim’s family was supported by Victim Assistance Advocate Kristin Peterson.
