Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY : COURTS : Girl’s Killer Receives Second Death Verdict

Rodney James Alcala last week was given a death verdict by an Orange County Superior Court jury for the second time in the slaying of a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl.

The verdict came seven years to the day when Robin Samsoe was last seen near the Huntington Beach Pier on June 20, 1979. Her body was found 12 days later in the Sierra Madre foothills of Los Angeles County.

The state Supreme Court last year had reversed both Alcala’s murder conviction and his death sentence for the Samsoe girl’s slaying and had ordered a new trial. The justices criticized the first trial judge for allowing prosecutors to bring in evidence during the guilt phase of that trial about three previous incidents in which Alcala had forced himself on young girls, beating two of them into unconsciousness. The appellate court called the information “highly prejudicial.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Goethals managed to get a first-degree murder verdict this time without bringing in Alcala’s past. But once the jury found Alcala guilty last month of first-degree murder and kidnaping, Goethals was free to bring up the previous incidents during the penalty phase of Alcala’s trial.

Jurors said the previous incidents made the difference between the death verdict they chose and life without parole, the other option open to them.

“The big thing with all of us was the brutal crimes inflicted on three young girls,” said jury foreman Joyce Carey. “We think Robin must have suffered tremendously.”

Alcala, 41, of Monterey Park continued to deny that he had killed the girl during the penalty phase, and, from the witness stand, asked the jurors to spare his life.