SANTA ANA, Calif. — An Orange County judge Tuesday sentenced serial killer Rodney Alcala to death for five killings in the 1970s.
Judge Francisco Briseno’s decision came several weeks after a jury recommended the death penalty for Alcala after convicting him on charges of killing four women and a teenage girl.
Briseno said photos of the women taken by Alcala show he had “sadistic sexual motives” and that “some of the victims were posed after death.”
It was the third time Alcala, 66, had been convicted for the murder of Robin Samsoe, 12, last seen riding her bike to ballet class in June 1979. He had been condemned to death both times, but the convictions were overturned. He has been in custody since his 1979 arrest.
Before the third trial began in January, he was linked through DNA, blood and fingerprint evidence to the deaths of Jill Barcomb, 18, whose body was found in the Hollywood Hills; Georgia Wixted, 27, of Malibu; Charlotte Lamb, 32, of Santa Monica; and Jill Parenteau, 21, of Burbank.
During his closing arguments this month, Alcala, who acted as his own attorney in this trial, asked jurors to spare him from the death penalty, saying they would become killers themselves if they sent him to death row and arguing that the sentence would lead to decades of appeals.
