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

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