‘My name is Galina… I am the daughter of a serial killer.’
The first shocking post appeared on Maria ‘Galina’ Trefil’s Facebook page on March 13 and quickly went viral.
She shared the startling statement nearly 15 years after she claims her psychiatrist father told her a blood-curdling story that first made her suspect he was a murderer.
Galina said she was recovering from the traumatic birth of her first son in 2011 following a medication mix-up.
Her father told her she could have died, she said, because in the 1960s he deliberately gave one of his patients a fatal overdose.
‘He thought it was very funny,’ the 43-year-old told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview.
‘He talked about how, after he overdosed this person, whose name he did not even know, he went down to the cafeteria and had lunch, fully aware that by the time he got back upstairs, they were going to be dead – and they were,’ Galina added.
‘And I just knew, when he was describing it like that, there was no way this only happened once. There’s just absolutely no way.’
Maria ‘Galina’ Trefil (left) has posted extraordinary claims on social media that her father, Dr. Jon Charles Trefil (right) murdered hundreds of victims over a decades-long span. He denied the allegations
The shocking posts appeared on Maria ‘Galina’ Trefil’s Facebook page in March and quickly went viral
Reflecting on her life and relationship with her father, she says, ‘all of a sudden, everything just made sense’.
Her allegations spread like wildfire online and led police to publicly state that their investigation has not turned up any evidence against her father.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Dr. Jon Trefil denied any suggestion he is a murderer and said he is open to working with investigators to help clear his name.
But the family saga has snowballed into a bizarre mystery that has sent armchair detectives into overdrive.
Galina told the Daily Mail that years ago she ‘came up with a plan to catch’ her father, playing the ‘good daughter’ to lure him into a sense of security.
It worked, she said, claiming that Dr. Trefil confessed ‘to murdering one person, give or take, a month’ between 1965 and 1999.
That would mean the 86-year-old’s alleged victims number in the hundreds, far surpassing the body count of even the most infamous serial killers, despite police finding no evidence to support the claims.
‘I knew that this was up to me. Nobody had caught him. Nobody would catch him,’ Galina told the Daily Mail.
Her frequent posts on Facebook, which have been widely shared and amassed hundreds of comments, include specific details about purported victims, as well as photographic ‘evidence’ she claims prove his guilt.
Dr. Trefil, his daughter alleged, killed his grandparents by poisoning. As a teenager, he also poisoned his own father on his deathbed, she said.
And that’s only the beginning.
Galina insisted her father has claimed to be both the Zodiac and Santa Rosa Hitchhiker killers and that he was tangentially involved with the Children of God cult.
She said he murdered countless hitchhikers and campers in California and buried bodies at remote cabins. She alleged that he worked with other murderers and that he claimed victims across the US and Europe.
He found some targets by placing classified ads seeking women in the medical field and taking them on dates before killing them, she claimed.
He kept one woman underground for three weeks before murdering her, Galina said, and she even suspects him of killing her unborn siblings.
Galina told the Daily Mail that she first went to authorities in 2017 and has repeatedly tried to engage various agencies, including the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, which she approached in January 2023.
But the lack of action, she said, motivated her to take her claims public – starting with the March 13 Facebook post. It has been re-shared by thousands of other users on the platform. Her subsequent posts have garnered keen interest from commenters, some of whom began doing their own online sleuthing.
The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office says it hasn’t found any evidence – even after launching investigations into the doctor when his daughter came to them in January 2023 with the jaw-dropping accusations.
Investigators pored over ‘recordings, scanned journals, and other investigative materials,’ the sheriff’s office said, and compared DNA connected to a cold case cited by Galina in Mendocino County.
His DNA was uploaded to a nationwide database to see if it matched evidence from other unsolved cases. Investigators also searched a property and cabin where Galina claimed they would discover human remains.
Authorities found nothing and have zero proof, the sheriff’s office said in a lengthy statement issued four days after Galina’s initial Facebook post.
At the time of the investigation, Galina told authorities that her father would not speak to them, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office said this week.
Dr. Trefil, meanwhile, resides at a care facility in Fort Bragg, California, about 20 miles from the 18-acre property where he and his wife – who married and divorced before remarrying – spent much of their lives.
Speaking to Daily Mail by phone from the facility this week, Dr Trefil said there’s ‘no truth’ to his daughter’s allegations and that he never confessed to her.
‘It makes me feel terrible,’ he continued. ‘It’s not true what she’s saying… I can only come to the conclusion that she might be mentally ill.’
The doctor added that he would ‘look forward’ to speaking with investigators.
‘I’d be willing to talk to them,’ he said.
His wife and Galina’s mother, Kandeda Trefil, told the Daily Mail that her husband has been battling Parkinson’s Disease for the past 30 years.
‘He tells me, “I thought I had a daughter, but I don’t anymore,”’ the 84-year-old said by phone from the family home.
Maria ‘Galina’ Trefil shared journal entries and audio recordings of her father, now 86 and in a care facility, that claimed was evidence. California authorities said they’ve found nothing to back up the claims
Investigators pored over ‘recordings, scanned journals, and other investigative materials,’ the sheriff’s office said
Kandeda was unclear on the exact time she first found out about her daughter’s accusations – but believes it was around 2015, when Galina was caring for the doctor in Reno, Nevada, where she lived at the time.
‘I thought it was weird,’ Kandeda said. ‘I thought it was something she cooked up for no reason, so I didn’t make a big problem with it, but now I have.’
Galina said that in 2015, she convinced her bedridden father to let her act as his caretaker in Reno – the same time she began enacting her ‘plan’ to expose him.
She said Dr. Trefil gave her power of attorney and she cared for him for more than a year, during which time she peppered him with questions about his life and alleged crimes.
Galina says she eventually began recording such ‘confessions’ as her father detailed more and more killings.
According to the sheriff’s office, investigators listened to tapes provided by Galina.
‘It was very clear that leading questions were provided to him and then when he would make sounds, she would say, “Oh, he confesses to this,”‘ Sheriff Matthew Kendall told The Press Democrat. ‘But my detectives could not hear him say yes, no or anything else. A lot of it was just strange moans.’
Galina responded by posting online the audio of her father’s alleged confessions, along with a trove of photos, alleged evidence like journal entries, and specifics about the crimes she claimed her father admitted to committing.
Galina claims that her psychiatrist father targeted victims who ultimately escaped, including some who were patients. She is urging them to come forward
Galina says she’s in possession of alleged murder weapons, such as the pictured bottle of strychnine from her father’s medical bag, that investigators have yet to test. The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office says it hasn’t found any evidence.
She said she is in possession of possible murder weapons, including a bottle of strychnine from her father’s medical bag, that authorities have failed to procure and test.
Kandeda said she read some of her husband’s journal entries and that Dr. Trefil agreed to give his journals to Galina.
‘I thought it was a very bad idea,’ Kandeda told the Daily Mail. ‘He’s a psychiatrist. He should know better. But I didn’t really think that it was going to go any further.’
Kandeda said she was ‘tickled to death’ when sheriff’s deputies eventually turned up at her home. ‘I didn’t think that anybody would just swallow [Galina’s claims] wholesale,’ she explained.
Both mother and daughter acknowledged that authorities searched the family’s property. Galina, however, insisted that investigators failed to use cadaver dogs.
The sheriff’s office said last month that it ‘will continue to investigate crimes associated with Trefil or allegations that he was a serial killer in Mendocino County.’
‘The Sheriff’s Office has not interviewed Trefil directly regarding these allegations due to his fragile medical state and information provided by his family that he will not cooperate with law enforcement,’ a March 17 statement read. ‘When legally justified and supported by probable cause, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office will continue to investigate this matter.’
A spokesman for the sheriff’s office this week elaborated by saying that Dr. Trefil ‘was non-verbal and unable to communicate’ during its 2023 investigation. He added that investigators ‘were told by [his] daughter that he would not cooperate with or speak to’ them at the time.
After learning that Dr. Trefil spoke to the Daily Mail, the spokesman said that investigators ‘will see if they want to reassess their decision regarding interviewing’ him.
Kandeda added that she would ‘love to see him talk with [investigators].’
Galina claims her father murdered many victims and buried some on remote properties. Her father spent much of his life on an 18-acre property in California. Investigators searched a property and cabin where Galina claimed they would discover human remains, but found no evidence
Galina is pictured at the age of 14 at the grave of her great-grandparents and grandfather, who she claims were among her father’s first victims. She wrote in a Facebook post that the doctor fatally poisoned all three. He denied the allegations
Galina alleged that her father worked with other murderers and that he claimed victims across the US and Europe. He denied the claims
Galina has authored books of historical fiction and gothic novels, listing Edgar Allan Poe and Isabel Allende as her influences.
According to her LinkedIn profile, she’s also an actor, director, producer, film critic, rabbi and Romani educator. She describes herself online as a descendant of Romani slaves.
In 2002, when she was 20 years old, Galina married a prison inmate. Aaron Channel, whom Galina said she had previously dated, was charged alongside two others with murder, conspiracy and robbery in the 2001 death of Donald Perez, 39, in Mendocino County. Channel was sentenced to 19 years in prison.
In 2018, she posted a photo commemorating their anniversary – though Galina has referred to Channel more recently as her ex.
She discussed the marriage in a Facebook post, writing that she hadn’t believed at the time of their wedding that he’d committed the murder.
‘He told me that he didn’t for 17 years. I’d known him since we were in grammar school. I believed him,’ she wrote, while apparently defending herself against critics of her accusations.
‘Now I’m baffled by the concept that my father’s claims of being a serial killer should be ignored because’ of Channel’s criminal history.
Galina, who said she’s both autistic and epileptic, insisted that she wants the truth revealed to get justice for victims’ families.
She is urging people to come forward, insisting that a number of intended victims escaped her father’s murderous attempts.
‘My father has repeatedly said that there were many victims who actually got away, some of whom were his patients,’ she wrote on Facebook.
‘IF YOU HAVE INFORMATION, PLEASE GO TO THE MENDOCINO COUNTY AUTHORITIES,’ she continued.
‘I’m afraid that, given the lack of DNA analysis, this case absolutely will not be solved without the other surviving victims being willing to come forward.’
