A Marin County jury last Friday found 77-year-old Michael Eugene Mullen guilty of first-degree murder in the 1973 killing of Nina Fischer, closing a cold case that has shadowed San Rafael for more than fifty years. The verdict delivered long-delayed accountability for Fischer’s family and highlighted how old evidence can be revived with modern forensic tools. Sentencing is scheduled for June 10 at Marin County Superior Court.
Jurors reached their decision after roughly three days of testimony and about two and a half days of deliberation. Mullen, who has been held in the Marin County Jail for nearly two years, showed little reaction as the verdict was read, according to the East Bay Times. Prosecutors argued that the offender raped Fischer, struck her with a wine bottle and then shot her at point-blank range. Defense lawyers countered that DNA evidence alone did not prove who committed the killing.
On Nov. 15, 1973, 31-year-old Nina Fischer was found bound and fatally shot inside her Point San Pedro Road home after her husband returned from work. Their 2-year-old daughter was inside and unharmed, according to local reporting. The case eventually went cold and stayed that way for decades, until investigators took another look at preserved evidence using modern DNA testing. That work produced the lead that reopened the probe, according to the Marin Independent Journal.
How investigators cracked the case
In 2021, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office sent the decades-old evidence to the California Department of Justice’s Familial Search Program. After months of analysis, the program generated an investigative lead, and a three-year follow-up investigation pointed to Mullen, the California Department of Justice said. Marin and Idaho authorities arrested Mullen near his Idaho home on Aug. 14, 2024, as also reported by CBS Bay Area…