SALINAS >> The man found guilty of murdering his Carmel neighbor more than 40 years ago has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Michael Scott Glazebrook murdered Sonia Carmen Herok-Stone on Oct. 15, 1981, in the Carmel home she shared with her four-year-old daughter who was at school at the time.

Herok-Stone was age 30 when she was killed and Glazebrook, who lived across the street, was 25. She was found murdered in her home, sexually assaulted and strangled to death with her own pantyhose. Herok-Stone had a broken left ring fingernail with blood beneath it, indicating she had scratched her killer before her death, according to a press release from Monterey County District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni.

Glazebrook was initially identified as a suspect the next day when a detective conducting a neighborhood canvas observed that he had a three-to-four-inch vertical scratch down his right cheek. Glazebrook made inconsistent statements about when and how he got the scratch. He told the detective he got the scratch while cutting plexiglass in his garage, but he told his parents that he got it in a fight at Monterey Peninsula College.

Glazebrook was previously charged with Herok-Stone’s murder in 1982, but the case was dismissed in 1983 after a jury was unable to reach an unanimous verdict.

In 2020, the case was reopened with the renewed investigation including forensic testing that was not available at the time of the original trial. Criminalists with the California Department of Justice testified that DNA consistent with Glazebrook was found underneath Herok-Stone’s broken fingernail and on a swab taken from her right breast.

Glazebrook, now 67, of Seaside, was arrested on Aug. 14, 2021, by Monterey County Sheriff’s officers, put into custody at the Monterey County Jail and his bail was set at $1 million.

In February, a jury convicted Glazebrook of first-degree murder and found true a special circumstance allegation that the murder occurred during the commission of attempted commission of rape. The special circumstance made Glazebrook eligible for a sentence of life without the possibility of parole which Judge Pamela Butler imposed Thursday. She also presided over the trial.

This case was prosecuted by the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office Cold Case Task Force, which was established in 2020 to investigate, solve and prosecute cold-case homicides in Monterey County. Multiple other agencies within the county are also partnering with the Task Force on unsolved homicide cases.