Man Ordered to Stand
Trial for 38-Year-Old Murder

A man arrested last year for allegedly killing a mail carrier 38 years ago has been ordered to stand trial by a San Diego judge.

Gerald Dean Metcalf is charged with murder for allegedly stabbing Gerald Jackson 61 times at the victim's Pacific Beach apartment. Metcalf claims it was self-defense, saying Jackson tried to rape him.

Jackson was 27 at the time he was killed. A Vietnam War veteran, Jackson worked part-time as a mail carrier and part-time as a bouncer at a gay bar.

The case sat unsolved until early last year, when a student worker in the San Diego Police Department's cold case unit was able to lift Metcalf's fingerprints from the window of Jackson's car and from a stereo that had been stolen from his apartment.

Defense attorney Gary Gibson told authorities that his client said Jackson had tried to rape him. Metcalf was arrested last October and on Tuesday was ordered to stand trial.

In 1984, Metcalf was acquitted of a separate murder in Texas after claiming self-defense. (Advocate.com)