Early on the morning of Sunday, Oct. 13, 1974, a security guard found the body of 19-year-old Arlis Perry underneath a pew in Stanford Memorial Church. The deeply religious wife of a Stanford sophomore, Arlis had gone to pray in the sanctuary late the night before. She was strangled, with an ice pick thrust into her brain, her body laid out in ritual fashion. Detectives pursued name-brand killers like Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz.  But the answer was closer to home.

 In “Murder Under God’s Eye,’’ author Scott Herhold explores the crime and the searing impact it had on the Stanford campus and surrounding community.  From the clues left at the scene and the insights of investigators, the book recreates one of the most haunting murders in Northern California history.