Man Convicted For 'Gypsy Hill' Millbrae Killing

SAN MATEO, CA -- A San Mateo County Superior Court jury took barely over an hour to deliberate Tuesday before convicting a 70-year-old man of two cold case murders from more than 40 years ago, prosecutors said today.

Rodney Halbower was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of 18-year-old Veronica Cascio and 17-year-old Paula Baxter in 1976.

Investigators in 2014 linked Halbower to the murders, referred to as the "Gypsy Hill" killings, via DNA evidence. Cascio's body was found in January 1976 at the Sharp Park Golf Course in Pacifica, and Baxter was found dead the next month in some brush behind a church in Millbrae.

Halbower was in prison in Oregon for attempted murder when he was extradited to San Mateo County to face charges in the two murders. His DNA is also linked to the 1976 kidnapping, stabbing and murder of Michelle Mitchell, a student from Reno, Nevada, prosecutors said.

Jurors started deliberating at about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday and returned a verdict after about an hour and 15 minutes, according to the district attorney's office.

Halbower will return to court on Oct. 10 for sentencing. He faces two life terms in prison with the possibility of parole after serving 14 years.

The punishment for multiple first-degree murders was changed in 1977 to life in prison without the possibility of parole, but that penalty did not exist at the time of the murders, prosecutors said.

Halbower's defense attorney John Halley was not immediately available to comment on the case.

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