Man of Hungarian origin got life sentence in America 52 years after the murder

John J. Sipos raped and murdered a young woman in her San Diego home in 1969. A jury has now sentenced the perpetrator and murderer to life imprisonment.

The victim of the murder, 23-year-old Mary Scott, was attacked in her San Diego home on November 20, 1969. Her door was kicked down, and she was raped and strangled.

Murderer identified

As Blikk reported, a jury in San Diego identified a man of Hungarian descent in 2020, thanks to the latest advances in genealogy and DNA technology, and found him guilty as the perpetrator in a 1969 murder case that had remained unsolved.

According to Telex, a decision in the case of 76-year-old John J. Sipos was handed down in March, but the sentence was not made until Friday. Since he did not receive an actual life sentence, he could be eligible for parole after seven years at the earliest. Since that was the maximum sentence for manslaughter at the time of the murder, that is the sentence that John J. Sipos received.

He was not convicted of rape, the penalty for which is already time-barred.

The murder

The victim of the murder, 23-year-old Mary Scott, was attacked in her San Diego home on November 20, 1969. Her door was kicked down, and she was raped and strangled. As we can read in Blikk’s article, Sipos (born in 1945) was taken from his Pennsylvania home by the police in the autumn of 2020 and transferred to San Diego where the murder took place.

He denied being guilty after his arrest, and his lawyer told the press that Sipos had no criminal record.

He is said to be living in retirement with his wife of 20 years.

The trial

In 1969, at the time of the murder, Sipos was in the Navy and stationed in San Diego. During the trial, Sipos was reported to have complained often, with long grey hair and a beard, trying to emphasise that he was an old man.

As Telex reported, he did not confess in court.

Donna Wyble, the daughter of murdered Mary Scott, gave an interview to Kusi News in the last days of the trial. In the interview, she said that the DNA clearly proves that Sipos was the perpetrator and that the fact that justice is now being served in court gives her some comfort. However, she is also very upset that to this day she has not been given an answer as to why this man tortured and murdered her mother.

Source: Blikk, Telex