Police search son's home, vehicles in connection to his father's 2009 murder 

SLO County Sheriff's Office investigators continue renewed activity in the 2009 unsolved murder of 71-year-old Templeton resident Jerry Greer, and may be focusing on his 51-year-old son as a potential suspect.

Just one day before announcing that Jerry's son, Brian Scott Greer, had been named as a person of interest in the case, SLO County Sheriff's Office investigators searched the retired correctional officer's Paso Robles home and multiple vehicles for guns, DNA, and other evidence related to the crime, according to an Aug. 16 search warrant. Brian has denied being involved in father's murder and accused the department of mishandling the case.

According to the warrant, investigators were authorized to search for several items, including a 9 mm handgun attributed to the murder and two specific brands of ammunition for the same caliber weapon. In addition, the warrant also allowed investigators to search the home and vehicles for Jerry's DNA, newspaper clippings and articles related to the murder and subsequent investigation, and books or literature on the topic of police interrogations. The warrant also indicated that sheriff's investigators searched for personal effects that belonged to Jerry that may have been taken at the time of the murder. Those included Indian bowls, a coin collection, a belt buckle, and two shotguns.

Sheriff's officials announced that they'd conducted a second search at another Paso Robles residence formerly owned by Brian on Aug. 27. According to a written statement from the department, detectives only searched the property's exterior and utilized metal detectors. The department declined to answer questions from New Times about whether they'd recovered any items or evidence from either of the searches, stating that the investigation was ongoing.

Jerry was found shot to death in his home in the 2000 block of Santa Rita Creek Road on March 28, 2009. To date the case has remained unsolved. The case was re-evaluated by the department's unsolved case detective, a position created in 2016 after the department sought funding from the county to pay for an investigator dedicated to working its unsolved and cold cases.

While the department continues its investigation, Brian has maintained his innocence. In a Facebook post written days after the Aug. 16 search of his home, he called on SLO County Sheriff Ian Parkinson to "call off the posse," and claimed that the department was "ill-prepared to adequately bring a murder case to fruition."

"I am not a suspect and will never be as there is not and never was a shred of evidence linking me to my dad's homicide," Brian wrote.

As of the publication of this article, Brian remains a person of interest in the case and has not been arrested or charged in connection with his father's death. The Sheriff's Office is asking those who worked with Brian or who may have information on the murder of Jerry to contact the department's detective division at (805) 781-4500. Δ