Serial killer Joseph Naso calls I-Team from prison as he faces new investigations

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Betrayal on death row. Convicted serial killer Joseph Naso claims we shouldn't believe a former death row inmate who says Naso admitted killing 26 women. I-Team reporter Dan Noyes is the only journalist to have interviewed Naso; that was in 2013, and he has details from their latest conversations.

Naso received a death sentence for killing six women 12 years ago. We wanted to talk to him again after that fellow death row inmate uncovered new evidence of what appear to be Naso's many other murders.

OPERATOR: "You have a prepaid call from-"

JOSEPH NASO: "Joseph Naso."

OPERATOR: "An incarcerated individual at the California Health Care Facility."

The past year in prison has been rocky for convicted serial killer Joseph Naso.

"I'm not doing too good," Joseph Naso said in a phone call to the I-Team's Dan Noyes. "I'm in bad shape. I broke my hip. Did you know that?"

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After he got moved from San Quentin's Death Row to the Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo, Naso told us an inmate pushed over his wheelchair. "Trying to have surgery. It's really hard," Naso said. "I can't walk. Can't stand up. Spend most of my time in bed."

The 91-year-old has also been getting new attention from law enforcement agencies around the Bay Area. "I had the FBI contact me to see if I could help them with a cold case, and I said, 'Well, what? What's in it for me?'"

Naso tells the I-Team that the FBI wanted information about one of the victims on his "list of ten" that investigators found in his Reno home during a parole search. He tried to make a deal. "And I says, 'You know, I do something for you. I help you with the cold case. You do something for me, and I want a reversal of all my convictions.' And she says, 'No, that's not going to happen.'"

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Naso is facing new scrutiny after a former death row inmate chronicled ten years of conversations with the serial killer in a book just out, "Through the Lens of a Monster."

"I never thought I would get enough information to write a book," Noguera said. "It was always about, it always will be about, the victims' families."

Bill Noguera told us, one day on the San Quentin exercise yard, Naso asked for help getting moved to a prison near Sacramento so his sons could visit more often. "And that's when that idea was hatched, to get him to write me a confession about one of the victims on the list of 10 in order for me to give it to my friend, who then would walk it to the governor and discuss it so the governor would move him out of there." It was all a lie - Noguera didn't have a friend who knew the governor. But Naso believed it.

Naso told the I-Team, "Yeah, he told me, 'Listen. Tell me, tell me about your crimes. I got a friend who knows the governor, and then we'll give it to him. And if he believes you, then he'll cut you loose.'"

In the letter, Naso wrote he saw a model's ad in the Berkeley Barb, that they met at a café, and went to his home in Oakland. Quote, "During this session, I choked her to death. No violence. No sex. Just a quick death." Naso wrote that he threw the body off the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge late that night. After seeing the letter, a cold case detective identified the victim, Lynn Ruth Connes, as #6 on Naso's list, the "girl from Berkeley".

DAN NOYES: "Is what's in that letter true, Joe?"

JOSEPH NASO: "What I don't know, I have to see the letter. I don't know what's in it."

DAN NOYES: "It's in your handwriting, Joe."

JOSEPH NASO: "So what?"

DAN NOYES: "You wrote it.

JOSEPH NASO: "Yeah, yeah, are you going to prove that? Convict me or what? I don't understand. Am I being charged for writing a letter that doesn't have any meaning?"

DAN NOYES: "Joe, it's details of a killing that no one would know except for the killer."

JOSEPH NASO: "Yeah, what about it though? ... Nobody's going to do anything. Nobody's going to jail. Nobody's going to prison."

DAN NOYES: "They can't give you any more time in prison. It doesn't matter. You're staying there, right?"

JOSEPH NASO: "I don't know. Maybe I'll get out tomorrow. I don't know. Maybe I'll be released."

We tried a different approach with Naso in other conversations, asking if he would like to be known as one of the top serial killers of all time or whether he might want to help families of his unnamed victims finally know the truth.

DAN NOYES: "Can you see yourself at any time admitting to any of the killings?"

JOSEPH NASO: "No, you know why? There's no proof they were ever seen with me, that they were friends of mine. That I ever even touched them or knew them or anything. They're basing all of this on writings on a piece of paper it doesn't mention any names, nothing."

He's again referencing the list of ten, but ample evidence came out at trial, including his DNA found on the body of 18-year-old Roxene Roggasch near Fairfax in 1977.

"That could prove possibly that I had sex with her, but not that I killed her. That's what that means," Naso told Dan Noyes in November 2013.

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And his wife's DNA found on pantyhose wrapped around Roggasch's neck.

DAN NOYES: "How'd your wife's DNA wind up around her neck?"

JOSEPH NASO: "That I don't know. You'll have to ask my wife."

Like other serial killers, Naso kept mementos of his killings. A search of his bank safe deposit box found one victim's passport, a driver's license, a pin they wore, and in the case of Pamela Parsons, a newspaper clipping about her death with a photograph Naso took of her, apparently deceased.

Still, Naso claims, "This trial should be reversed. And my sentence should be reversed. I shouldn't be in prison, you know."

Naso is trying several things. He gave me a copy of the letter he sent Kim Kardashian in May - spelled her name wrong - asking her to help arrange a compassionate release. He's also appealing the verdict, based on what he sees as errors by the original trial judge.

JOSEPH NASO: "I wrote one motion. I said the judge should not have allowed me to represent myself because I was, I was a naïve defendant. I was naive, and I shouldn't have been allowed to defend myself.""

Naso also asked us to publish "good stories" about him and provided a letter from the Academy of Art in 1977. It says Naso worked there as a photography instructor and was "totally dependable and extremely cooperative."

Take a look at more stories by the ABC7 News I-Team.