Harry Nickerson
American criminal and murderer (1962–1993)
Harry Nile Nickerson (January 9, 1962 – August 31, 1993) was an American criminal and murderer from San Jose, California.
On June 2, 2025, Nickerson was announced to have been the perpetrator of the 1978 murder of 26-year-old schoolteacher Diane Peterson, in which he was a prime suspect for decades. The murder took place at Branham High School in San Jose. He could not be convicted, as he committed suicide in 1993.
Early life
Nickerson was born on January 9, 1962, in Wheeling, West Virginia, to Doris Jean Lucas (d. 1993) and Glen William Nickerson (d. 2018). He had an older brother named Glen William "Buddy" Nickerson Jr., an older sister named Glenna, and another brother named Richard. According to retired San Jose police officer Richard Boone, the Nickersons were a notorious and violent family, adding: "We were always going out there on 415s, which was [code for] a family disturbance".
Harry Nickerson dropped out of school in the eighth grade, choosing to lead a life of crime instead.
“Harry Nickerson” enters the record as american criminal and murderer (1962–1993). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Harry, Nickerson and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Harry Nickerson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.